Confronta i metodi

	Etnografia Istituzionale Digitale	Netnografia
Campo	Qualitativo	Qualitativo
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	IE: 1980s–1990s; digital adaptation: 2000s–2010s	1997 (coined); 2010 (first comprehensive methodology book)
Ideatore	Dorothy E. Smith (IE foundations); extended by IE scholars to digital contexts	Robert V. Kozinets
Tipo	Qualitative research design	Qualitative research method
Fonte seminale	Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People. AltaMira Press. ISBN: 978-0759105010	Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. ISBN: 978-1847875907
Alias	Digital IE, online institutional ethnography, virtual institutional ethnography, digital Smith IE	online ethnography, virtual ethnography, cyber-ethnography, digital ethnography
Correlati	6	6
Sintesi	Digital Institutional Ethnography (Digital IE) applies Dorothy E. Smith's institutional ethnography framework to digital and online settings. It investigates how institutional ruling relations — the texts, policies, and coordination mechanisms that organize people's everyday lives — operate through digital infrastructures such as platforms, software systems, online documents, and algorithmic processes. The goal is to make visible how digital tools and texts coordinate and subordinate experience to institutional interests.	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.