Digital etnography and text mining: An intersectorial quali-quantitative method to leverage marketing and management studies
Digital etnography and text mining: An intersectorial quali-quantitative method to leverage marketing and management studies
Monica Faraoni, Silvia RanfagniDigital ethnography and text mining
In recent years qualitative research in the social sciences has tapped into new opportunities triggered by the explosion of technology-mediated social interaction. This is clearly reflected in emergence of new methodologies that allow qualitative researchers to access information without physical and temporal constraints (Masten and Plowman, 2003). Indeed, digital technologies have the potential to transform traditional processes for collecting and analysing data, particularly in the context of ethnographically-inspired research (Dicks et. al, 2005). A variety of terms have been used to characterize this trend, including digital ethnography (Murthy, 2008), virtual ethnography (Domínguez et al., 2007), online ethnography (Catterall and Maclaren, 2002), cyberethnography (Rybas and Gajjala, 2007) and netnography (Kozinets, 2002). However, the common thread that links all of them the ‘rethinking’ of conventional ethnographic principles and methods for IT-mediated research contexts.