Ethnography and virtual worlds : a handbook of method /
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Princeton :
Princeton University Press,
[2012]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
Table of Contents:
- Why this handbook? : Beginnings ; Why ethnographic methods and why virtual worlds? ; Why a handbook?
- An orientation to the virtual worlds we studied
- Three brief histories : A brief history of ethnographic methods ; A brief history of virtual worlds ; A brief history of research on virtual world cultures ; The uses of history
- Ten myths about ethnography : Ethnography is unscientific ; Ethnography is less valid than quantitative research ; Ethnography is simply anecdotal ; Ethnography is undermined by subjectivity ; Ethnography is merely intuitive ; Ethnography is writing about your personal experience ; Ethnographers contaminate fieldsites by their very presence ; Ethnography is the same as grounded theory ; ethnography is the same as ethnomethodology ; Ethnography will become obsolete
- Research design and preparation : Research questions: emergence, relevance, and personal interest ; Selecting a group or activity to study ; Scope of the fieldsite ; Attending to offline contexts
- Participant observation in virtual worlds : Participant observation in context ; Participant observation in practice ; Preparing the researching self ; Taking care in initiating relationships with information ; Making mistakes ; Taking extensive fieldnotes ; Keeping data organized ; Participant observation and ethnographic knowledge ; The timing and duration of participant observation ; The experimenting attitude
- Interviews and virtual worlds research : The value of interviews in ethnographic research ; Effective interviewing ; THe value of group interviews in ethnographic research ; Size, structure, and location for group interviews ; Transcription
- Other data collection methods for virtual worlds research : Capturing chatlogs ; Capturing screenshots ; Capturing videos ; Capturing audio ; Data collection in other online contexts ; Historical and archival research ; Virtual artifacts ; Offline interviews and participant observation ; Using quantitative data
- Ethics : The principle of care ; Informed consent ; Mitigating institutional and legal risk ; Anonymity ; Deception ; Sex and intimacy ; Doing good and compensations ; Taking leave ; Accurate portrayal
- Human subjects clearance and institutional review boards : Institutional review boards (IRBs) ; Preparing a protocol for IRB review ; Working with IRBs ; Informed consent and anonymity
- Data analysis : Ethnographic data analysis: flexibility and emergence ; Preliminary reflections while in the field ; The role of theory in data analysis ; Beginning data analysis: systematize and thematize ; Working with participant observation data ; Working with individual and group interview data ; Working with images, video, and textual data ; The end of the data analysis phase: from themes to narratives and arguments ; Generalization and comparison
- Writing up, presenting, and publishing ethnographic research : The early stages of writing up: conferences, drafts, blogs ; Written genres ; Dissemination ; The writing process ; A quick trip back to the field ; Tone, style, and audience
- Conclusion : Arrivals and new departures.