Going Digital in Ethnography: Navigating the Ethical Tensions and Productive Possibilities

Introduction

Qualitative researchers have long used a variety of tools to shape and at times even generate new research practices. From the ethnographer’s use of pen and paper to recording what is happening in a particular context to the use of mobile devices for recording the everyday activities of participants, researchers of all types interact in some way with tools. And, in the everyday work of qualitative researchers, the very notion of a tool encompasses both theoretical constructs and analytical practices that are often supported by technologies (Gilbert et al., 2014). More particularly, in the digital age, new and emergent technologies have resulted in new sources of qualitative data and approaches to analysis, as well as a myriad of ethical dilemmas (Paulus et al., 2014). The use of digital tools in qualitative research has not been without controversy (Davidson & di Gregorio, 2011), and, even today, serves to stir both excitement and great debate (see, for example, Paulus et al., 2013).

Over the last two decades in particular, ethnographers have begun to view the internet and other digital spaces as both a tool for data collection (e.g., conducting online interviews) and as a research site in and of itself (e.g., studying the ways in which youth represent their identities on Facebook; Markham, 2006; Paulus et al., 2014). Such digital spaces have also been described as affording opportunities for researchers to take their research outside the domain of academic journals and books, engaging with research participants in public and visible ways (Vannini, 2012). For example, Call-Cummings’s (2015) participatory ethnography, which focused on Latino youth’s racialized school experiences, resulted in a jointly developed website whereby the youth’s everyday stories were represented visually, narratively, and perhaps most controversially, in publicly visible ways. Yet, notably, there remains a need to continue examining the methodological implications of ethnographies going digital, with the move to such visible, public spaces resulting in emergent ethical challenges, as well as possibilities for engaging people in public and potentially meaningful ways.

The purpose of this article is to offer some methodological perspectives on the ethical considerations and affordances inherent to virtual ethnographies. Here, I attend to both the unique possibilities and ethical tensions that arise when engaging in research that is carried out within the public domain (Vannini, 2012), specifically within the context of the internet and social media sites. With the theory of affordances (Norman, 1999) positioned as a backdrop to my discussion, I emphasize both the possibilities and constraints of going digital and call for ongoing dialogue around ethnographies going digital, particularly as we seek to re-envision who can and should participate in the research process. While the focus of this article is methodological in scope, for illustrative purposes, I draw upon empirical examples from a virtual ethnography focused on the everyday representations made by Dee ¹ —a nonverbal autistic ² individual. This virtual ethnography includes a close analysis of postings from a public website, twitter feeds, and YouTube channel wherein Dee engages in representing her identity(ies), as well as responds (implicitly and explicitly) to the ways in which outsiders orient to her way of being in the world. This ongoing research study is situated within a postcritical perspective (Noblit et al., 2004), which aligns closely with my positionality.

Thus, prior to discussing the broader methodological literature and highlighting the ethical constraints/dilemmas and productive possibilities of ethnography and qualitative research going digital, I feel it is important to situate my perspective in relation to the research experiences that brought me to study and make sense of going digital. For as Driscoll and Gregg (2010) argued, “online ethnography” should begin with the researcher “being specific about the histories and investments” they bring to the research, which includes their “online, personal and professional lives” (pp. 17–18). I thus first briefly share my own work in engaging in virtual ethnography and related positionality.

My Journey of Going Digital: “Cell Phones Rusting Next to Computers”

My journey into online or virtual ethnography began with the invitation of Dee, a woman who identifies (and has been identified by others) as “autistic,” the “severe kind,” as she often clarifies. Our relationship began in 2010 when I became engaged in an offline ethnography focused on exploring the meanings and performances of disability, an area of scholarship that I remain committed to. My broader work attends to the discursive and bodily performances of ability and notions of competence (Lester, 2014), with a particular focus on reframing what comes to be counted as normative (Lester, 2012). Specifically, I was (and still am) interested in silence, the nonverbal, the ways in which the body and the nonverbal individual is read by the abled bodied (which includes me). In this work, I primarily engage with youth and adults who are described by others as “disordered,” with this “disorder-ed-ness” often (presumably) verified by nonverbalness. Throughout this work, I have learned much about communication, humanness, and what comes to be counted as competent, abled bodiedness. Lewiecki-Wilson’s (2003) words have deeply shaped my understanding and my own commitments as a researcher and community member, as I too recognize that “we [the majoritarian culture] often demand some verbal response from another as proof of their humanness” (p. 157). I have not been exempt from this ablelistic privileging in my work and recognize that dis/abled people “experience discrimination in various forms, often because of our different use of language and communication . . .” (Nelson, 2004, p. 1).

And so, with a disability studies perspective (Oliver, 1990, 1992, 1996) informing my work, as well as a growing awareness that my traditional understanding of how to do ethnography and be an ethnographer was being challenged by research participants like Dee, I began to examine the possibility of engaging in going digital. Scholars have noted the potential usefulness of internet-based interactions (as well as the limitations; Thackeray & Hunter, 2010), with such digital spaces creating new opportunities for disabled people to communicate and participate more with others (Rice & Katz, 2001). Dobbs (2009) stated that:

Every [online] connection represents an opportunity to break stereotypes, exchange support and reduce isolation. Facebook also offers a free method of publicizing helpful disability organizations, books, products – and the people behind them. Advocates view it as a powerful tool for social change. Throw in the fact that it’s just plain fun, and suddenly you have a lively, integrated community that’s been hard to achieve in the physical world. (n.p.)

Indeed, Dee affirmed such sentiments, reminding me often that the future includes “cell phones rusting next to computers.” For her, “the internet has opened a world of work and satisfying personal relationships.” Thus, it was through her leading that I moved to begin to examine online lifeworlds.

Theoretical Perspectives

In this article, I write about the fruitful possibilities and ethical dilemmas of “going digital” against the backdrop of the theory of affordances (Norman, 1999), which has been previously drawn upon to conceptualize the possibilities and limitations of digital tools within the qualitative research process (Paulus et al., 2014). In the late 1970s, Gibson (1977, 1979), a perceptual psychologist, wrote about the idea of affordances, which was later popularized by Norman in the 1980s. Originally, Gibson described affordances as being relationships that are not necessarily known or visible. Norman, who focused much of his pioneering work on human-centered design, conceptualized the idea of affordances as reflective of potential relationships between social actors and the objects they use. He suggested that with every new invention comes (a) an underlying conceptual model, (b) possible and actual uses of a device/invention as perceived by the user (i.e., perceived and “real” affordances), and (c) physical, cultural, and logistical constraints.

For example, an ethnographer conducting a virtual ethnography may spend a significant amount of time working within the space of a computer screen. Through this screen, they may be afforded access to particular communities’ actions—synchronously and/or asynchronously. In my own work, the screen affords me an opportunity to attend to all of the nuanced ways in which Dee represents her identities (e.g., posting pictures of herself typing to communicate) and also resists the prescribed roles that others afford her (e.g., posting a quote that challenges communicative competence as being found within verbal expression). There are a range of actions that an ethnographer might employ when working within the bounds of this screen, including typing, pointing a mouse, clicking the mouse, scrolling, taking a still image, and so on. Yet, physically there are limitations or constraints. For instance, it is not possible to drag the mouse off the screen and thereby access what is happening offline. Beyond such physical constraints, there are also cultural constraints bound within the very conventions used to build the screen that shape how the ethnographer interacts with the object. In other words, the object (i.e., the tool; which in this case is the internet)–subject (i.e., the researcher) relationship includes both possibilities and limitations—both of which are important considerations for the recursively reflexive researcher. In my own work, one benefit of this particular tool–subject relationship is that I have been able to “track” the changing ways in which Dee has represented her communicative abilities. For example, she recently began posting videos of herself independently typing her ideas, with these videos standing in contrast to previously posted videos where she engaged in supportive typing. However, recognizing that my understanding of these video posts was somewhat limited, I reached out to Dee via email to inquire further about her decision to begin posting videos of herself typing independently. We engaged in an email-based conversation about her decision and her perspective on how society conceptualizes authorship and communicative competence. In this way, I determined to shift the object–subject relationship, recognizing that the tool/internet had constraints. It is thus with a critical orientation to technology that I consider the process of going digital, as I assume that alongside new possibilities there are also constraints, many of which point to important ethical considerations.

Methodological Perspectives on Going Digital

As noted, the social world is now going digital, which in many ways places a demand on social scientists to seek to understand this changing, increasingly digitized society (Kozinets, 2010). While debates of old questioned whether virtual life is real, the majority of the literature now argues that people’s online and offline lives are no longer easy to distinguish, particularly as our everyday lives are becoming increasingly digitized (Garcia et al., 2009). As Markham (2017) noted:

We carry the internet with us in our pockets. It can be woven into our clothing. Information from our voices, movements, and faces can be lifted into what we call the “cloud,” and combined with other data . . . The internet is so ubiquitous we don’t think much about it at all, we just think through it. (p. 650)

Indeed, new technologies are now “embedded, embodied, and everyday” (Hine, 2015), with a broad array of (contested and problematic) terminology, data sources, and methods emerging alongside this reality. Since the 1990s, qualitative researchers have drawn upon ethnographic methods to study online communities. Terms used to write about engaging in ethnographic work online have included virtual ethnography, cyber-ethnography, online ethnography, and digital ethnography, among others. Hine (2000, 2007, 2008) described ethnographies of online spaces as entailing “experiential rather than physical displacement” (Hine, 2000, p. 45). Kozinets (2006) discussed at length the ways in which virtual spaces can become a specialized form of ethnography, which he called “netnographies,” defined as:

. . . ethnography conducted on the Internet; a qualitative, interpretive research methodology that adapts the traditional, in-person ethnographic research techniques of anthropology to the study of online cultures and communities formed through computer-mediated communications. (Kozinets, 2006, p. 135)

Dana boyd’s work is a particularly useful example of a virtual ethnography, as for over 2½ years she studied American teen’s participation on social network sites, such as MySpace and Facebook. She considered how teens’ participation facilitated their self-presentation and peer sociality. Much of her work highlighted how such spaces often function in class-based and racialized ways, describing the transition from MySpace to Facebook has been similar to the “white flight” (boyd, 2012) seen in schools and neighborhoods.

Across the literature, there have been ongoing debates and questions raised about the implications of ethnographers engaging with the digital. Markham (2017) summarized many of the key concerns, which include (in part) the following:

Her questions point to concerns related to methods and methodology, as well as ethics, and highlight how going digital is always already flanked with difficult to navigate ethical dilemmas.

Productive Possibilities of Going Digital

While indeed going digital brings with it ethical dilemmas, it also provides new affordances and possibilities for expanding how research is represented (Paulus et al., 2014), where and when research takes place, and, perhaps most importantly, who might participate in the research process. I briefly discuss (only) two of these intersecting affordances or productive possibilities of going digital.

Re-envisioning representations of the research process

Going digital has the possibility of expanding how research is represented and shared with the broader society. Moving away from paper representations opens up new possibilities for shaping how research is presented to others, who participates in shaping its representation, and the degree to which people outside traditional research communities engage with findings. From creating oral history documentation for the public to access (Howley, 2012) to producing websites wherein researcher and co-researchers/participants document the research process (Call-Cummings, 2015), online spaces afford new ways of representing findings and inviting the participation of the broader public. For instance, on Call-Cummings’ public website, her participatory action research study is represented with a variety of arts-based representations and text-based descriptions. In addition, each page includes an open comment feature where the public can post their thoughts. As another example, Efimova (2009) produced a blog that chronicled her research process wherein she posted video diaries and written texts sharing her emergent findings. She invited public comment with hopes of such comments shaping her research process. Conceivably, such commenting could include the thoughts and perspectives of research participants. More recently, scholars have been creating a space for a public dialogue on Twitter and Academia.edu in which the public, academics and nonacademics, are invited to offer comment and feedback on research ideas and scholarly writing. Examples such as these point to the possibilities of expanding who participates in shaping representations of the research process. In some ways, then, digital spaces create new possibilities for democratizing the representation process, while also producing the need to be thoughtful about who does and does not have access to the digital world and the risks inherent in making private lives public.

Citizen researchers and social movements

Notably, Fielding (2012) described how the internet and social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, are being increasingly leveraged by “citizen researchers” to better understand and solve everyday problems (para. 4). He defined “citizen researchers” as “people who have no social science qualifications or experience and who want to do research for purposes other than adding to academic knowledge” (para. 4), such as documenting neighborhood crime patterns or participating in political activism. Technologies, such as geo-referencing tools, online surveys, YouTube, and various websites, are making it possible for citizen researchers to carry out research in ways that were previously “controlled” by social scientists. And, indeed, a growing body of literature has pointed to the uses of social media in particular as a tool for activism (Chadwick & Howard, 2008), particularly as access to such sites has shifted from the elites to now include much of broader society (Poster, 2009). Recognizing such shifts, Fielding and others (Paulus et al., 2014) have called upon qualitative researchers to play a more active role in working alongside citizen researchers in creatively harnessing digital tools for the purpose of solving social problems. Alongside this call for expanding who participates in the research process, however, there is a growing body of scholarship that highlights the messy process of democratizing research, with such participatory efforts rarely being experienced as straightforward (Koo & Lester, 2014).

In my work around disability and identity, over the last several years, I have been following and learning from the #neurodiversity Twitter community. Figure 1 provides an example of tweet Dee made related to this movement.

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Figure 1.

An example of the #neurodiversity dialogue on Twitter.

While Dee was the one to first introduce me to the dialogue related to #neurodiveristy and redefining norms, I have since found it to be a space wherein everyday people are questioning and critiquing the ways in which “the pool of ‘normality’” has shrunk “to a mere puddle” (Wykes & Callard, 2010, p. 302)—a puddle that frequently excludes people different from the norm (read: neurotypical, verbal communicators). Furthermore, Dee’s tweets and Facebook posts around her preferred mode of communication (i.e., typing), illustrate well how who participates in defining good or appropriate modes of communication can be expanded to include people who use modalities other than aural-oral communication. Figure 2 is a tweet that Dee made which directly responded to questions about communication and autism more specifically. While autism has historically been defined from a deficit-based perspective, Dee’s tweets, with Figure 2 being only one among many, challenge this presumption and locate nonverbalness as an asset.

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Figure 2.

A tweet highlighting the value of nonverbalness.

With her very humanness often challenged due to her nonverbalness (Lewiecki-Wilson, 2003), Dee also uses sites like YouTube and her personal website to, as she said, “show others that communication is diverse.” Through her physical and visual showing, I would argue that her communicative performance serves to transgress the norms of communicative competence. To illustrate further, Figure 3 displays three screenshots from a YouTube video, in which Dee typed, “Sculpt yourself with intention.” This video was developed to display for others that (a) Dee does communication, and (b) the way she communicates may be “different from the norm,” yet “it is legit.”

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Figure 3.

Screenshots taken from a YouTube video where Dee engaged in supported typing.

Indeed, these types of technologies offer space for public debate, political mobilization, and opportunities to collect and make sense of data relevant to social problems. I suggest it is possible that such spaces can be leveraged as a means by which citizen researchers engage in the “battle ‘for truth,’ or at least ‘around truth’” (Foucault, 1980, p. 132), and wherein ethnographers might examine social life in novel, engaged ways.

Conclusion

Across the varied perspectives and practices related to virtual ethnographies, there is a growing acknowledgment that digital spaces (e.g., websites, Facebook, SecondLife) pose new, ethical challenges for ethnographers. As more and more researchers begin examining the everyday representations of targeted and marginalized populations in virtual spaces, it remains paramount to critically and reflexively examine the ethical tensions inherent to this type of methodological work. In going digital, there are no neutral digital spaces, and “sticky” and “persistent ethical dilemmas” are the norm (Markham & Buchanan, 2015, p. 4). Perhaps, then, an important place to begin is in turning back to research participants, following their lead and asking them about our next steps, as well as how the digital spaces they visit and produce should be viewed. In my own research, this turning back has remained a beginning place, as the early words of Dee directed me to the possibilities of going digital, while also cautioned against romanticizing these messy spaces. I conclude by returning to the words of Dee, crafted as a poetic representation, as these were the words which first pushed me to explore going digital and to make sense of the space that she claimed supported her “in finding words” and “living in community.”

Stop talking and be.

My defining label is autism—the severe kind.

Autism is not a bad thing.

(By the way, I’m not a person with autism.

I’m autistic.

So please call me that.)

So you want to know what autistic is?

Before I tell you, let me settle two things.

First, I’ve decided that you have autistics’ best interest at heart.

You are safe. Welcome in.

Second, are you sure you can stomach autism?

You can?

Well, flattery will get you everywhere.

Welcome in.

I would like you to visit my human shell.

This is what you will find.

I have a unique design.

I can understand you.

You probably can’t understand me.

I’m not sure you care.

Do you still want to stay?

You are welcome, just be prepared.

I’m irreverent.

I no longer give effort to trying to convince others of my abilities, you included.

Worthless cause, so I’ve learned.

Let me continue, young gun.

Yes, it is true.

I’m nonsensical when I do speak.

Senselessly repetitive, repetitive, repetitive.

I can’t control it. . .I just start hearing my mouth say,

“Oh my God” (my personal, ridiculous favorite).

“Pig”

“It’s raining”

“Fire truck”

“I don’t know”

So yea, I understand why people walk away.

So they call me nonverbal.

Oh, and I don’t look normal.

They used to call me profoundly mentally retarded.

I even lived in a place for those people.

I always went to a classroom for retards.

I had many self-injurious proclivities.

Plug your nose. . .

I even smeared feces on walls when I got nervous.

But then 1992 came along.

That was the best year of my life.

1992.

Everything changed.

I even have that number on my email account.

I love that year.

They discovered I had intelligence in 1992.

I was 19 years old.

They taught me how to use the ever controversial Facilitated Communication.

I know what the critics say.

My response?

Well, I can only speak for myself and will continue to do so.

I am neither clueless, disabled, nor a victim.

Hush and let me type.

You think I’m a mess, but really I’m not.

I used to be a mess.

Now . . . the time has come for me to be.

I inform the curious and hurtful nonbelievers that:

I am at peace.

I am happy.

I am productive.

Verdict is in—I am in here.

You are welcome to visit.

I just have one question.

But, you, well I find you pure.

I find you well intentioned.

Maybe a bit troubled by your survivor’s guilt of neurotypicalness.

But I let you in because you want to wrong the unfairness.

I will leave the fight for social justice for us autistics to you.

I trust you.

I will continue to teach you the ways of autism.

That will be my contribution to the world.

But I request one thing in return for teaching you autistic ways.

What can I do to be your friend?

I wish to maintain our connection.

Are you shocked?

You thought autistics weren’t social.

We are the next wave of evolution.

Social just looks different.

Cell phones rusting next to computers.

Get it?

Stop talking and be.