Paper Outline

Below is the outline for my paper on virtual ethnography. When reading thru the outline, can you check to make sure:
1) I stay on topic throughout (there is a lot of information and I didn’t want to get off topic too much)
2) Also, can you help me with areas where I can really let my voice come through? There were so many interesting articles about this topic and its applications that I feel like I am having trouble really analyzing it myself and not just citing the entire time. This might be a strange request, but I wanted to avoid simply writing a paper simply on research I collected. I would rather it have areas where I can add something interesting, but its proving a little difficult to do this.

I. Introduction
Ethnography, the “art and science of describing a group or culture” (Fetterman) and consumer research have always been complimentary forms of research. With the dawn of the technology age, ethnographers move to the virtual world has changed the pervasiveness of this fieldwork to reach even further into our daily lives, allowing them to extract insights that are even more accurate.

Virtual ethnography, then, suggests a method in which one actively engages with people in online spaces in order to write the story of their situated context, informed by social interaction (Crichton). The type of interaction we suggest involves a researcher and participant engaging in conversation and meaning making through repeated, revisited and jointly interpreted conversations that support reflection and revision.

Now, consumers are continually “turning to computer-mediated communication for information” on products purchasing decisions. The number of online formats which consumers can discuss their latest purchase, offer recommendations, or provide product feedback is escalating. In marketing, we are taught to go where the people are, listen to them, and use that information to create something new. Never before, have we been able to follow, listen to, and more adequately create new products. The internet has made this possible and now, it is a hotbed for detailed cross-consumer communication; cross-communication that can lead to incredible insights into your consumer’s real life.

a. Thesis - To view this research practice more accurately, I will outline the constraints and advantages of virtual ethnography for consumer research as well as uncovered points of interest and my personal insights into this field.

i. Weaknesses
ii. Strengths
iii. Uncovered points of interest
iv. My insights/ Evidence of Virtual Ethnography’s Advantages

II. Body

A. Weaknesses
- providing correct guidelines to address the nature of online environments
- technological malfunctions & limitations - non-receipt of messages, disjointed contributions, and the temporary nature of individual participation and online groups.
- missing cues due to nature of communication (written) - lists sensory cues that are present in face-to-face and not online, such as speed, loudness and pitch, appearance and facial expressions
- regionally skewed – bias of people with internet access; gender bias in other countries where majority using Internet are men
- when the field you are researching is NOT virtual

B. Strengths
- faster, simpler, and less expensive than traditional methods
- more naturalistic (explain more), unobtrusive than other forms like focus groups and interviews {Robert Kozinets}
- identifying “emerging social forms” online (Crichton)
- easy to communicate across other time-zones and geographic barriers – gain better perspective of who all actually is a part of this “certain” group not just who is available to you where you are or where your budget can get you
- documentation of all communication
- honesty of communication, active participation and engagement, critical review of what ethnography submits before it is done
- interviews are automatically transcribed, reducing cost of this for the researcher
- This allowed the researcher to function as a participant observer, participating " overtly or covertly, in people's daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions; in fact collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues with which he or she is concerned" (Crichton)
- dialogue is open-textured. This means that the conversation evolves; it is not pre-determined, controlled or structured.

C. Uncovered Points of Interest – What can Virtual Ethnography offer that traditional ethnography cannot?
- What drives online consumer advocacy of a product? Or, how do people acquire online followers creating increased “buzz” for or against a product or company?
* Can actually follow the word of mouth process and see points where product evangelists emerge and begin creating a movement for or against your product
- What are the tastes, desires, relevant symbol systems, and decision-making influences of particular consumers and consumer groups online?
* Marketers can obtain more in-depth knowledge and awareness of their customers actual tastes, desires, and views as well as their language and lifestyle played out online
- Does using virtual ethnography as a tool for doing customer research on a non-virtual field create unseen biases or problems with the accuracy of the research?
- What are the human factors that come into play when one functions online? (Crichton, 1993)
* Negotiating one's sense of self online aka finding and developing a textual voice
* Dealing with technical problems
* Developing a sense of online community
* Determining specific social conditions within the online community
* Dealing with the use/absence of senses

D. i) My Insights
- Virtual ethnography’s role as a new wave of qualitative research
- What are the ethical boundaries within virtual ethnography? (Kellehear, 1993)
* i.e. is “lurking” on a online community ethical when participates are not aware of the researcher’s identity or role and their access to online conversations
- obtaining accurate descriptions of emotion or eliciting emotion at all with online research participants? could this be solved with video conferencing like Skype?
ii) Evidence of Virtual Ethnography’s Advantages
- “The participants used physical objects (their computers and software) to create and share social and abstract objects, sharing what they were eating or drinking, what time it was or how they were feeling. Initial fears of not getting to know the participants were proven to be unfounded as interactions increased and the level of personal comments deepened. It appears that the participants who contributed to this branch worked together to define the environment in which they found themselves.” (Crichton, 1993)

III. Conclusion

- Virtual ethnography can offer new insights into consumer’s lives that marketers have never before been able to obtain
- Virtual ethnographers will need to uphold certain levels of ethical boundaries for their online research.
- With the addition of video, virtual ethnography could possibly bridge the lack of emotional and non-verbal cues from their research participants; However, as with current face-to-face interview, people might be unwilling to participate in research of this kind.
- Do the strengths of virtual ethnography out-weight the weaknesses in regards to companies wanting more accurate consumer research? Yet to be seen; however, there are unique offerings of virtual ethnography that were not offered with traditional ethnography. Also, the online research format is very attractive for obtaining information about the purchasing process, direct consumer feedback on likes/dislikes, and general consumer interests and thought processes.