Compară metode

	Studiu de caz digital	Analiza de conținut	Analiza documentelor	Etnografie
Domeniu	Calitativ	Calitativ	Cercetare calitativă	Calitativ
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anul apariției	2000s–2010s (building on Yin's 1984 foundational case study framework)	Systematised through Krippendorff's methodology work; 4th edition 2018	1920	c. 1922 (Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific)
Autorul original	Robert K. Yin (case study foundations); extended to digital contexts by multiple scholars in the 2000s–2010s	Klaus Krippendorff (systematic formulation); roots in early 20th-century communications research	Max Weber and Karl Mannheim	Bronisław Malinowski (modern ethnography); rooted in 19th-century anthropology
Tip	Qualitative research design	Qualitative / mixed-method research technique	Method	Qualitative fieldwork tradition
Sursa seminală	Yin, R. K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods (6th ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-1506336169	Krippendorff, K. (2018). Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (4th ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-1506395661	Scott, J. (1990). A Matter of Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research. Polity Press. ISBN: 978-0745608419	Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN: 978-1138504462
Denumiri alternative	online case study, virtual case study, internet-based case study, digital ethnographic case study	İçerik Analizi, systematic content coding, quantitative content analysis	documentary analysis, textual analysis, content analysis of documents, archival research	Etnografi, participant observation, fieldwork, ethnographic research
Înrudite	6	5	4	5
Rezumat	Digital case study research applies the classic bounded case study framework to phenomena that are situated in, or mediated by, digital environments. Drawing on Robert Yin's foundational case study methodology, it investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth within its real-world digital context — using online documents, social media archives, virtual interviews, website content, and other digital artifacts as primary evidence. The approach is particularly suited to studying how individuals, groups, or organisations behave in online spaces.	Content analysis is a systematic research technique for reducing text, visual, or media material into coded categories so that patterns can be counted, compared, and interpreted. Formalised by Klaus Krippendorff in his widely cited methodology textbook (latest edition 2018), the method sits at the boundary of qualitative and quantitative inquiry: it imposes structured, replicable coding on inherently meaning-laden material.	Document analysis is a systematic qualitative research method for examining written, visual, or audiovisual sources—such as policy documents, historical records, organizational records, media reports, emails, social media posts, photographs, or videos—to extract meaning, identify patterns, and understand social phenomena. Developed by Weber and Mannheim in early 20th-century sociology, the method bridges historical research, content analysis, and textual interpretation. Document analysis is used across disciplines to understand organizational change, policy evolution, media representation, historical events, and cultural meaning. Documents provide evidence of what organizations, institutions, or societies value, decide, and communicate, often revealing contradictions between policy and practice.	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.