Methoden vergleichen

	Digitale Ethnographie	Partizipative Aktionsforschung (PAR)
Fachgebiet	Qualitativ	Qualitativ
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Entstehungsjahr	Late 1990s – 2000s	1940s (Lewin); PAR as distinct tradition formalised ~1970s–1980s
Urheber	Christine Hine (virtual ethnography); Robert V. Kozinets (netnography)	Kurt Lewin (action research foundations, 1940s); systematised for participatory contexts by Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, and William Foote Whyte
Typ	Qualitative research method	Qualitative research method
Wegweisende Quelle	Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. ISBN: 978-1847875228	Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014). The Action Research Planner: Doing Critical Participatory Action Research. Springer.
Aliasnamen	online ethnography, virtual ethnography, internet ethnography, netnography	PAR, community-based participatory research, collaborative action research, participatory inquiry
Verwandt	6	6
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.	Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a qualitative, community-centred methodology in which researchers and community members collaborate as co-investigators to identify a shared problem, take deliberate action, observe outcomes, and reflect critically on results — cycling iteratively until meaningful change is achieved. Unlike conventional research that studies people from the outside, PAR treats participants as active agents who co-own the research process, the knowledge produced, and the practical interventions that follow.