Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 73

The basic concerns of sociology—communications, relationships, and groups—are key elements of the internet, especially social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Online discussions, digital networking, and posting photos and videos are how many of us connect virtually with each other every day. Not surprisingly, netnography, or an account of what transpires online, has become an important method of sociological research (Kozinets 2015; Quinton 2018). Netnographers are digital ethnographers who are able to observe thousands of phenomena online. For example, they might follow the Twitter account of a celebrity or sports star to learn about their fans or play an online video game such as World of Warcraft to understand how individuals engage in virtual role-playing and collaboration. One recent study used netnography to examine the blogs of female Chinese tourists in Macao, discovering how crossing the border influenced perceptions of their self-identity and enhanced their personal relationships (Zhang and Hitchcock 2014). Outside of academia, netnography is used by web designers, marketers, and advertisers to observe, record, and analyze our digital behaviors. The virtual data we create when shopping on Zappos or streaming music on Spotify offer these professionals valuable information that they can use to entice us to buy more products or visit new websites.

Netnography, like other social research, raises ethical questions. Researchers who join an internet community to observe its ongoing communications might not inform other members that they have joined with the objective of studying the group. The issue of informed consent is especially ambiguous when conducting online research because so much of what transpires in virtual reality is public. While we can take steps to protect our privacy online, many of us do not. For some internet users, the whole point of posting a video on YouTube or writing a blog is to attract as many views and followers as possible. Revealing personal information about ourselves, family, and friends is common on popular social media sites. This makes it easy for anyone, including social researchers, to investigate our relationships and identities.