Case Study 2: Community-based Netnography

Active approaches generally require more time than passive approaches. To allow you to get a sense of the dynamics of community-based Netnography with active approaches, but without having to spend a lengthier time immersing in a new community, we will let you select a digital community you already consider yourself a member of. This can be a Facebook Group, an online forum, or any other place where people gather around a shared interest. Before you proceed, think about your selected digital community and answer the following question:



You are now to reflect on the following questions:
1. What is the nature of the shared interest that has brought the participants together?
2. How is the community shaped by the nature of this shared interest (e.g., language, types of people, humour, and norms)?
3. What would seem strange or hard to understand for an outsider?
4. How is the community using the digital setting(s) (ways of communication, ways to foster communal ties)?
5. How is the digital platform shaping social interactions?

The reflections must be written down as field notes (see also 3.1.9). Netnographic field notes can be extensive and detailed, but for this assignment, it is enough to write around 200 - 400 words. Field notes are important tools for reflection and analytical guides while conducting netnographic research, which is inductive and explorative by nature (Kozinets, 2020). Field notes typically capture experiences of what it is like to be a researcher, interactions with participants, and notes taken while observing and archiving online traces (such as posts to a Facebook Group) explaining the context of the situation observed. Reflections about yourself and your background and how this affects your understanding of, and interactions with, participants and phenomena in the community studied should also be part of the field notes taken. Such reflections can form the basis of an autonetnographic study, focusing on autobiographical details and introspection, or otherwise supply your netnographic account with significant reflexive depth, increasing the validity of the study.

As the next step, you can prepare an interview guide centred on your own personal understanding of the digital community in question. The interview questions should be informed by the reflections written down as field notes and continue to investigate these central issues, but also leave room for the interviewed person to initially provide free accounts of their history in the community and their experiences (see also 3.1.10). For the purpose of this assignment, the interview can be conducted with a person you know well in the community. The main findings from the field notes and the optional interview, including procedures for informed consent, may then be presented to the interviewed person and then possibly to the community (in a form suitable for the community in question, and if the interviewed person agrees).

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References

• Kozinets, R.V. (2020). Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research (3 ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
• Perren, R. & Kozinets, R. V. (2018). Lateral exchange markets: How social platforms operate in a networked economy. Journal of Marketing, 82(1), 20-36. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.14.0250