Doing Ethnography on Social Media: A Methodological Reflection on the Study of Online Groups in China

• Published in: Qualitative inquiry Vol. 27; no. 8-9; pp. 977 - 987
• Main Authors: Wang, Di, Liu, Sida
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.10.2021; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Asian cultural groups; Big Data; Data analysis; Data collection; Digital media; Ethics; Ethnography; Mass media; Qualitative analysis; Qualitative research; Reflexivity; Research ethics; Research subjects; Sketches; Social media; Social networks; Social processes; Submerging; Textual analysis; reflexivity; online ethnography; social media; China; ethnographic immersion

This article draws on the two authors’ extensive fieldwork experiences in studying Chinese feminists and lawyers on social media to offer some thoughts on how to conduct qualitative research in the digitalized world. We argue that qualitative methods such as participation observation, in-depth inter...