Ethnographic Research in ‘Offline’ and Online Worlds

Despite decades of research investigations conducted via ethnographic tools such as participant observations, interviews, focus groups and document analysis, debate has persisted over the usefulness of ethnography as a valid research method. Researchers who hold the position that knowledge can only be obtained through direct examination and testing of phenomena argue that ethnography is methodologically unsound and unreliable because of lack of clarity in the way data are collected and measured. However, other researchers, particularly those who subscribe to qualitative methods of social inquiry, disagree. They suggest that ethnography, as a systematic qualitative method, is as valid as other empirical methods of investigation.