Abstract The emergence and development of a global communication space leads to the transformation of the territorial and social structures of society, both on a global scale and in relation to a single territory, which in turn transforms the cultural system in general and ethnic culture in particular. Marshall McLuhan, one of the main theorists of the field of new media, stated about such transformations back in 1964, defining modern culture as a culture based on electricity, and also stating that due to the limitless development of information, people become involved in each other's affairs at the level of involvement in their own problems. The article is of an overview nature. It is devoted to the consistent consideration of some classical (despite its short history of the development of the direction at the moment) and modern theories of digital ethnography, conceptual and methodological approaches, the main provisions of the study of ethnic manifestation. The article also focuses on the potential of online communities as a space for the representation of ethnic identity and its manifestation, presented today in an interactive environment. It is noted that the ethnic manifestation formed in the Internet sphere is constructed based on the degree of mediation and remediation of the individual and the entire ethno-cultural group. It is important to note that the self-representation of indigenous peoples in the interactive space sometimes becomes the only possible option for them. Digital ethnographic research is carried out faster chronologically and richer in terms of immersion in the object of research. The key problems of ethnographic methods are considered to be distrust of the researcher due to the novelty of the scientific field, a wary attitude to empirical material in cyberethnography – data collection in online communities causes skepticism, as far as the received array of information can be considered empirical material.