Going Digital: The Affordances and Ethical Challenges of Virtual Ethnographies

• In Event: Ethnography and Public Scholarship: Ethical Obligations, Tensions, and Opportunities

Abstract

Objectives

The purpose of this paper is to explore the affordances and limitations inherent to virtual ethnographies, with a particular focus on implications related to research focused on dis/abled youth. More specifically, I attend to both the unique possibilities and ethical tensions that arise when engaging in research that is carried out within the public domain (Vannini, 2012).

Theoretical Perspectives

Increasingly, ethnographers have begun to orient to the Internet and other digital spaces as both a tool for data collection (e.g., conducting online interviews) and as a research site in and of itself (e.g., studying the ways in which youth represent their identities on Facebook) (Markham, 2006; Paulus, Lester, & Dempster, 2014). Kozinets (2010) has discussed at length the ways in which virtual spaces can become a specialized form of ethnography, which he calls “netnographies.” Digital spaces have also been described as affording opportunities for researchers to take their research outside the domain of academic journals and books, engaging with research participants in public and visible ways (Vannini, 2012). For example, Call-Cummings’ (2015) participatory ethnography, which focused on Latino youth’s racialized school experiences, resulted in a jointly developed website whereby the youth’s everyday stories were represented visually, narratively, and perhaps most controversially, in publically visible ways. Yet, notably, there remains a need to continue examining the methodological implications of ethnographies ‘going digital,’ with the move to such visible, public spaces resulting in new ethical challenges, as well as possibilities for engaging targeted and marginalized populations in public and (potentially) meaningful ways.

Data Sources

While the focus of this paper is methodological in scope, empirical examples from a virtual ethnography of youth who identify as dis/abled will be drawn upon for illustrative purposes. This ongoing research is positioned within a postcritical perspective (Noblit, Flores, & Murillo, 2004) and takes up a critical orientation to dis/ability (Oliver, 1990). More particularly, this virtual ethnography includes a close analysis of daily postings from a public website and online forum boards wherein youth engage in representing their identity(ies) and the ways in which “outsiders” orient to their way of being in the world. The affordances and limitations inherent to engaging in research in such a public space will be examined, with a particular focus on the place of the research participants in shaping the research process.

Findings and Significance

Across the varied perspectives and practices related to virtual ethnographies, there is a growing acknowledgement that digital spaces (e.g., websites, Facebook, SecondLife) pose new, ethical challenges for ethnographers. Further, many scholars would argue that online data by its very nature is public and thus does not require researchers to acquire a participant’s consent, while others view the data as private and therefore requires participant consent (McKee & Porter, 2009). As more and more researchers begin examining the everyday representations of targeted populations in virtual spaces, it remains paramount to critically and reflexively examine the ethical tensions inherent to this type of methodological work.

Author

• Jessica Nina Lester, Indiana University