Netnography

Netnography is the branch of ethnography, which analyzes the free behaviour of individuals using online marketing techniques for researching customs of individual peoples and cultures. Netnography collects and analyzes e-data on an individual's free social behaviour. The key data are collected in cases where consumers conduct themselves freely, rather than in research studies in which consumers sometimes react to embarrassment or the surveyors are asked to give feedback according to the situation.
"Netnography is considered to be one of the most crucial research tools from a theoretical perspective. It allows researchers to access the knowledge of online community members, which in turn helps to give researchers a thorough insight. Researchers found that the man next to Netnography coined the term to offer a wealth of insight into the interaction of consumers online. In the field of market research, various researchers highlight an internet environment that offers rigour and ethics during the research procedure. Netnography contradicts the current trend in social media quantification to produce graphs and diagrams based on methods of monitoring and analyzing social media networking. Dr Robert V. Kozinets coined the word Netnography, which accurately describes the interrelation between traditional ethnographic researches as well as the free behaviour of people on the Internet (Heinonen and Medberg, 2018).
Researchers described the nature of traditional Netnography as ‘a particular set of related collection and analysis of online data with ethical and representational research practices’. A very humanistic participant observational research position collects a significant amount of data according to this process (Kozinets, 2019). This modified ethnographic research method is performed on the basis of the current temporospatial cultural coordinates, which are filtered by contemporary networks such as the internet and the different technologies and modes used by humans for connection to the internet. Many methods of study rely on the internet, computers, and technology. Humanism, attention to the human background, and the meaning of people who use technology are the characteristics of real Netnography and attention to human information which distinguish all ethnographies from all non-ethnographies. 

Figure: Netnography Research Method

Source: Tavakoli and Mura, 2018

In the event that vital tangents are present, let take an infringement time to look at a few bad instances before celebrating the excellent work performed in the field of social sciences by hundreds of ethnographers. Including schooling, geography, nursing, psychology, bibliography, sociology, and study into dependency, sexuality, ethnicity, language, communications, sociology and anthropology. Researchers today need to identify what sort of online ethnography they perform. Since certain hypotheses of online ethnography that are badly formulated come from humans. These researchers assume that solely empirical experiments should be carried out using machine evidence that they should never talk to an individual, or interactively engage with a human voice in the study, and so they can term this ethnography.

Author: Thomas Devasia

Keywords

#Netnography

#Ethnography

#Service research

#Internet research

#Qualitative research

#Method

References: 

Heinonen, K. and Medberg, G., 2018. Netnography as a tool for understanding customers: Implications for service research and practice. Journal of Services Marketing.

Kozinets, R.V., 2019. Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research. Sage.

Moshed, A., Mohammad, A., Islam Sarkar, M.K. and Khaleque, M., 2017. The Application of nanotechnology in medical sciences: new horizon of treatment. American Journal of Biomedical Sciences, 9(1), pp.1-14.

Tavakoli, R. and Mura, P., 2018. Netnography in tourism–Beyond web 2.0. Annals of Tourism Research, 73(C), pp.190-192.