Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind--a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.
"I would . . . enthusiastically recommend this book to people interested in virtual world and other digital media ethnography--not just as a handbook of method--but as a compilation of the collective wisdom of these four very experienced and highly respected ethnographers--and as a thoroughly good read."--Jeni Paay, Computer Supported Cooperative Work
"[The authors] have produced a very interesting and timely contribution; clearly written, with easy-to-follow case studies. . . . Ethnography and Virtual Worlds will be useful to any graduate student in social sciences, but as well in humanities, media and Cultural Studies or in any interdisciplinary approach focused on virtual worlds. It is not an introduction to ethnography as such, rather a helpful guide to help scholars already familiar with ethnography and related methodologies to adapt their approaches to cases using the Internet and interactive virtual worlds."--Yves Laberge, LSE Review of Books
"Either at the chapter level or as a whole, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds provides invaluable advice, tips, guide-lines, principles and further resources to aid researchers through every stage of a participant observation virtual worlds research project, from choosing the online field site to writing and publishing the results."--John F. Barber, Leonardo
"Ethnography and Virtual Worlds provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, principles, and further resources to aid researchers through every stage of a participant observation virtual worlds research project, from choosing the online field site to writing and publishing the results."--John F. Barber, Leonardo Reviews
"[W]e can hope that young scholars and established ones, friends and critics of ethnography alike, will read this book, take it seriously, and carry it with them in whatever world they study and inhabit."--Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Chapter 1. Why This Handbook? 1 Chapter 2. Three Brief Histories 13 Chapter 3. Ten Myths about Ethnography 29 Chapter 4. Research Design and Preparation 52 Chapter 5. Participant Observation in Virtual Worlds 65 Chapter 6. Interviews and Virtual Worlds Research 92 Chapter 7. Other Data Collection Methods for Virtual Worlds Research 113 Chapter 8. Ethics 129 Chapter 9. Human Subjects Clearance and Institutional Review Boards 151 Chapter 10. Data Analysis 159 Chapter 11. Writing Up, Presenting, and Publishing Ethnographic Research 182 Chapter 12. Conclusion: Arrivals and New Departures 196 References 201
Foreword, by George Marcus xiii
1.1 Beginnings 1
1.2 Why ethnographic methods and why virtual worlds? 6
1.3 Why a handbook? 8
1.4 An orientation to the virtual worlds we studied 9
2.1 A brief history of ethnographic methods 13
2.2 A brief history of virtual worlds 22
2.3 A brief history of research on virtual world cultures 25
2.4 The uses of history 27
3.1 Ethnography is unscientific 30
3.2 Ethnography is less valid than quantitative research 36
3.3 Ethnography is simply anecdotal 40
3.4 Ethnography is undermined by subjectivity 41
3.5 Ethnography is merely intuitive 42
3.6 Ethnography is writing about your personal experience 43
3.7 Ethnographers contaminate fieldsites by their very presence 44
3.8 Ethnography is the same as grounded theory 45
3.9 Ethnography is the same as ethnomethodology 46
3.10 Ethnography will become obsolete 48
4.1 Research questions: emergence, relevance, and personal interest 52
4.2 Selecting a group or activity to study 57
4.3 Scope of the fieldsite 59
4.4 Attending to offline contexts 61
5.1 Participant observation in context 65
5.2 Participant observation in practice 69
5.3 Preparing the researching self 72
5.4 Taking care in initiating relationships with informants 76
5.5 Making mistakes 79
5.6 Taking extensive fieldnotes 82
5.7 Keeping data organized 85
5.8 Participant observation and ethnographic knowledge 87
5.9 The timing and duration of participant observation 88
5.10 The experimenting attitude 90
6.1 The value of interviews in ethnographic research 92
6.2 Effective interviewing 94
6.3 The value of group interviews in ethnographic research 104
6.4 Size, structure, and location for group interviews 106
6.5 Transcription 110
7.1 Capturing chatlogs 113
7.2 Capturing screenshots 114
7.3 Capturing video 116
7.4 Capturing audio 117
7.5 Data collection in other online contexts 118
7.6 Historical and archival research 120
7.7 Virtual artifacts 121
7.8 Offline interviews and participant observation 124
7.9 Using quantitative data 126
8.1 The principle of care 129
8.2 Informed consent 131
8.3 Mitigating institutional and legal risk 135
8.4 Anonymity 136
8.5 Deception 142
8.6 Sex and intimacy 144
8.7 Doing good and compensation 146
8.8 Taking leave 148
8.9 Accurate portrayal 149
9.1 Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) 151
9.2 Preparing a protocol for IRB review 153
9.3 Working with IRBs 155
9.4 Informed consent and anonymity 156
10.1 Ethnographic data analysis: flexibility and emergence 159
10.2 Preliminary reflections while in the field 160
10.3 The role of theory in data analysis 162
10.4 Beginning data analysis: systematize and thematize 164
10.5 Working with participant observation data 168
10.6 Working with individual and group interview data 170
10.7 Working with images, video, and textual data 172
10.8 The end of the data analysis phase: from themes to narratives
and arguments 174
10.9 Generalization and comparison 176
11.1 The early stages of writing up: conferences, drafts, blogs 182
11.2 Written genres 185
11.3 Dissemination 186
11.4 The writing process 190
11.5 A quick trip back to the field? 192
11.6 Tone, style, and audience 193
Index 223
Curiosity Shop 02
La Hora del Mar
Me Gusta Internet
La Batalla de Calth