Methoden vergleichen

	Digitale Ethnographie	Ethnographie
Fachgebiet	Qualitativ	Qualitativ
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Entstehungsjahr	Late 1990s – 2000s	c. 1922 (Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific)
Urheber	Christine Hine (virtual ethnography); Robert V. Kozinets (netnography)	Bronisław Malinowski (modern ethnography); rooted in 19th-century anthropology
Typ	Qualitative research method	Qualitative fieldwork tradition
Wegweisende Quelle	Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. ISBN: 978-1847875228	Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN: 978-1138504462
Aliasnamen	online ethnography, virtual ethnography, internet ethnography, netnography	Etnografi, participant observation, fieldwork, ethnographic research
Verwandt	6	5
Zusammenfassung	Digital ethnography is a qualitative research method that adapts traditional ethnographic fieldwork to online and digitally mediated settings. Drawing on sustained participant observation, document collection, and sometimes interviews, the researcher immerses themselves in one or more digital communities — social media platforms, forums, gaming spaces, or messaging groups — to understand how culture, identity, and social practice are constructed through digital interaction. The approach recognises that online spaces are not merely reflections of offline life but distinctive sites of cultural production in their own right.	Ethnography is a qualitative research tradition in which a researcher immerses themselves in a social group or community over an extended period — typically three to six months or longer — to study its culture, values, and behaviours in their natural setting. Originating in social and cultural anthropology, and consolidated as a rigorous method by Bronisław Malinowski in the early twentieth century, ethnography produces rich, contextualised accounts of how people live, work, and make meaning together.