Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice

This sharp, innovative book champions the rising significance of ethnographic research on the use of digital resources around the world. It contextualises digital and pre-digital ethnographic research and demonstrates how the methodological, practical and theoretical dimensions are increasingly intertwined.

Digital ethnography is central to our understanding of the social world; it can shape methodology and methods, and provides the technological tools needed to research society. The authoritative team of authors clearly set out how to research localities, objects and events as well as providing insights into exploring individuals’ or communities’ lived experiences, practices and relationships.

The book:

• Defines a series of central concepts in this new branch of social and cultural research
• Challenges existing conceptual and analytical categories
• Showcases new and innovative methods
• Theorises the digital world in new ways
• Encourages us to rethink pre-digital practices, media and environments

This is the ideal introduction for anyone intending to conduct ethnographic research in today’s digital society.

 

Sarah Pink is Professor of Design and Emerging Technologies, Founding Director of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University Australia and Associate Director of Monash Energy Institute. She is International Guest Professor at Halmstad University in Sweden, Adjunct Distinguished Professor at RMIT University Australia, where she was previously Director of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre. She is also Visiting Professor in the Design School and Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Loughborough University, where she was formerly Professor of Social Sciences. Sarah is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Sarah is a world leader in innovative digital, visual and sensory research and dissemination methodologies, which she engages in interdisciplinary projects with design, engineering and creative practice disciplines to engage with contemporary issues and challenges. She is known globally for her design anthropological research and collaboration across disciplines and with partners inside and outside academia. She has developed and collaborated in visual ethnography research across the world, including in the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Brazil, Chile and Indonesia.

Larissa Hjorth is Professor in the Games Program at the School of Media & Communication, at RMIT University, Australia.