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Zusatztext "I would . . . enthusiastically recommend this book to people interested in virtual world and other digital media ethnography--not just as a handbook of method--but as a compilation of the collective wisdom of these four very experienced and highly respected ethnographers--and as a thoroughly good read." ---Jeni Paay, Computer Supported Cooperative Work Informationen zum Autor Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce & T. L. TaylorWith a foreword by George E. Marcus Klappentext "What does 'being there to know there' mean in the virtual world? 'Not much, ' I used to think! Maybe 'virtual ethnography' was an oxymoron? This book changed my mind. Most surprising is how the authors' distillation of ethnography for virtual worlds reveals its essential and classical features. This book renews the craft of ethnography for all of the social sciences in virtual and physical worlds alike, making us think differently about both." --Paul Willis, author of Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs "This might be the best thing I have ever read about ethnography. I love this book." --Lori Kendall, author of Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub "Written by a very authoritative team, this is a distinctive guide, rich in practical advice grounded in the authors' experiences." --Christine Hine, author of Virtual Ethnography Zusammenfassung Suitable for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods, this title provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgments xi Foreword! by George Marcus xiii Chapter 1. Why This Handbook? 1 1.1 Beginnings 1 1.2 Why ethnographic methods and why virtual worlds? 6 1.3 Why a handbook? 8 1.4 An orientation to the virtual worlds we studied 9 Chapter 2. Three Brief Histories 13 2.1 A brief history of ethnographic methods 13 2.2 A brief history of virtual worlds 22 2.3 A brief history of research on virtual world cultures 25 2.4 The uses of history 27 Chapter 3. Ten Myths about Ethnography 29 3.1 Ethnography is unscientific 30 3.2 Ethnography is less valid than quantitative research 36 3.3 Ethnography is simply anecdotal 40 3.4 Ethnography is undermined by subjectivity 41 3.5 Ethnography is merely intuitive 42 3.6 Ethnography is writing about your personal experience 43 3.7 Ethnographers contaminate fieldsites by their very presence 44 3.8 Ethnography is the same as grounded theory 45 3.9 Ethnography is the same as ethnomethodology 46 3.10 Ethnography will become obsolete 48 Chapter 4. Research Design and Preparation 52 4.1 Research questions: emergence! relevance! and personal interest 52 4.2 Selecting a group or activity to study 57 4.3 Scope of the fieldsite 59 4.4 Attending to offline contexts 61 Chapter 5. Participant Observation in Virtual Worlds 65 5.1 Participant observation in context 65 5.2 Participant observation in practice 69 5.3 Preparing the researching self 72 5.4 Taking care in initiating relationships with informants 76 5.5 Making mistakes 79 5.6 Taking extensive fieldnotes 82 5.7 Keeping data organized 85 5.8 Participant observation and ethnographic knowledge 87 5.9 The timing and duration of participant observation 88 5.10 The experimenting attitude 90 Chapter 6. Interviews and Virtual Worlds Research 92 6.1 The value of interviews in ethnographic research 92 6.2 Effective interviewing 94 6.3 The value of group interviews in ethnographic research 104 6.4 Size! structure! and location for group interviews 106 6.5 Transcription 110 Chapter 7. Other Data Collection Methods for Virtual Worlds Research 113 7.1 Capturing chatlogs 113 7.2 Capturing screenshots 114 7.3 Capturing video 116 7.4 Capturing audio 117 7.5 Data col...
