What is Netnography? why is this methodology being used for this PhD Project…and why is this important for this project?

Key Methods to research these questions will be the use of Netnography

6.1 — What is Netnography

Focus, Data, Engagement, Praxis — These four elements distinguish netnography from all methods of understanding and provide a methodological basis for any netnographic project (Kozinets 2020)

Why employ Netnography as the framework for this researcher

Cultural focus links the purpose and core conceptual notions of netnography to the guiding principles of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and other fields of ethnographic approaches (Kozinets 2020).

Social media data differentiates netnography from traditional ethnography and other methods such as surveys, focus groups, and personal in-depth interviews, as immersive engagement distinguishes netnography from more experienced-distanced methods of understanding social media data such as content analysis, text mining, quantitative modelling, and big data analytic’s, and adds deep human insight that comes from informed cultural reflection (Kozinets 2020).

Finally, netnographic praxis set netnography apart from generic forms of online or digital ethnography, or other well known approaches to online research such as Hine’s ‘Virtual ethnography (Hines 2000) or Hines later work ‘ethnographies of the internet’ (Hines 2015)

When all four elements are present together, the work can be nothing other than a netnography (Kozinets 2020).

6.2 — Ethical guidelines employed in the Netnography framework.

Morality is a choice of right behaviour over wrong. Moral reasoning is how we come to make those choices rationally. Ethics is both the brand of knowledge that studies moral principles and those moral principles themselves (Kozinets 2020).

(Morris 2016) outlines a deontological approach and lays out a principle based view of research ethics which will give this researcher guidelines for online netnographic research and therefore a framework of ethical guidelines to adhere to through out this project (Kozinets 2020).

(Morris 2016) follows this approach to provide five of the most commonly accepted guiding principles of ethical research, which follow:

Autonomy — The research participant should be as aware as possible of the purpose of the research, participants should be free to agree or decline to take part in the research, or to withdraw an any time without coercion, threat, or penalty.

Beneficence — the research should be beneficial, rigorously designed and conducted, and have positive effects.

Non-Maleficence — the researcher must make diligent efforts to avoid possible harm to participants and mitigate any unavoidable harm through precautionary measures.

Confidentiality — participants personal data must be kept private from everyone except those with a strict need to know.

Integrity — the researcher must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest and conduct every aspect of the research using applicable and legitimate standards of research integrity.