Confronta i metodi

	Autoetnografia	Etnografia Digitale	Netnografia
Campo	Qualitativo	Qualitativo	Qualitativo
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	Late 20th century (term coined 1979; method consolidated 1990s–2000s)	Late 1990s – 2000s	1997 (coined); 2010 (first comprehensive methodology book)
Ideatore	Carolyn Ellis, Arthur Bochner, Norman Denzin (prominent theorists); David Hayano coined the term in 1979	Christine Hine (virtual ethnography); Robert V. Kozinets (netnography)	Robert V. Kozinets
Tipo	Qualitative research method	Qualitative research method	Qualitative research method
Fonte seminale	Ellis, C. (2004). The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. AltaMira Press. ISBN: 978-0759100947	Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. ISBN: 978-1847875228	Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. ISBN: 978-1847875907
Alias	auto-ethnography, AE, personal narrative research, self-ethnography	online ethnography, virtual ethnography, internet ethnography, netnography	online ethnography, virtual ethnography, cyber-ethnography, digital ethnography
Correlati	6	6	6
Sintesi	Autoethnography is a qualitative research method in which the researcher uses systematic self-reflection and personal narrative to examine their own experiences within a cultural, social, or organizational context. By treating the self as both subject and instrument, autoethnography connects individual lived experience to broader cultural patterns, making personal stories analytically and socially significant. It bridges autobiography and ethnography, producing accounts that are simultaneously evocative and scholarly.	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.	Netnography is a qualitative research method that adapts the principles of cultural ethnography to the study of online communities and social media environments. Coined by Robert Kozinets in 1997 and systematised in his 2010 handbook, netnography treats digital spaces — forums, social networks, blogs, review sites — as naturally occurring field sites where communities gather, share meanings, and construct identities. The method combines unobtrusive observation of digital traces with active participation and, where appropriate, direct member interaction.