Virtual Ethnography

As the border between online and offline culture and communication becomes increasingly blurred, there is a need to develop and expand methods of systematically investigating online spaces as both dynamic cultures and cultural artefacts (Hine, 2000). Virtual ethnography transfers the principles of ethnography as a way of describing and observing cultures to online communicative contexts. It is a mixed-methods approach underpinned by an ethnographic sensitivity and a grounded, data- and context-driven approach to understanding culture. When ethnography goes virtual its remit remains the same, what has changed with technological development is how cultural stories are told. With the normalization of the Web and its integration into and omnipresence in everyday life, there is a recognition among researchers that virtual spaces are no longer an extraordinary or separate domain but spaces in which culture can and should be examined.With this assumption in mind, the current chapter explores virtual ethnography as a research method for intercultural communication. First of all the origins and conceptual basis of virtual ethnography are examined before going on to describe the method and various approaches to it. Following this, the strengths and limitations of the method are considered as well as the challenges faced by researchers using this method. Next, the actual process of virtual ethnography/doing ethnography virtually is outlined and current studies and themes are explored. Finally, mixed and combined approaches as well as future methodological trends are outlined.