Description
Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind--a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.
- Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame
- Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft
- Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues
- Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results
- Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography
Chapter
2.2 A brief history of virtual worlds
2.3 A brief history of research on virtual world cultures
CHAPTER 3. TEN MYTHS ABOUT ETHNOGRAPHY
3.1 Ethnography is unscientific
3.2 Ethnography is less valid than quantitative research
3.3 Ethnography is simply anecdotal
3.4 Ethnography is undermined by subjectivity
3.5 Ethnography is merely intuitive
3.6 Ethnography is writing about your personal experience
3.7 Ethnographers contaminate fieldsites by their very presence
3.8 Ethnography is the same as grounded theory
3.9 Ethnography is the same as ethnomethodology
3.10 Ethnography will become obsolete
CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH DESIGN AND PREPARATION
4.1 Research questions: emergence, relevance, and personal interest
4.2 Selecting a group or activity to study
4.3 Scope of the fieldsite
4.4 Attending to offline contexts
CHAPTER 5. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS
5.1 Participant observation in context
5.2 Participant observation in practice
5.3 Preparing the researching self
5.4 Taking care in initiating relationships with informants
5.6 Taking extensive fieldnotes
5.7 Keeping data organized
5.8 Participant observation and ethnographic knowledge
5.9 The timing and duration of participant observation
5.10 The experimenting attitude
CHAPTER 6. INTERVIEWS AND VIRTUAL WORLDS RESEARCH
6.1 The value of interviews in ethnographic research
6.2 Effective interviewing
6.3 The value of group interviews in ethnographic research
6.4 Size, structure, and location for group interviews
CHAPTER 7. OTHER DATA COLLECTION METHODS FOR VIRTUAL WORLDS RESEARCH
7.2 Capturing screenshots
7.5 Data collection in other online contexts
7.6 Historical and archival research
7.8 Offline interviews and participant observation
7.9 Using quantitative data
8.1 The principle of care
8.3 Mitigating institutional and legal risk
8.7 Doing good and compensation
CHAPTER 9. HUMAN SUBJECTS CLEARANCE AND INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARDS
9.1 Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)
9.2 Preparing a protocol for IRB review
9.4 Informed consent and anonymity
CHAPTER 10. DATA ANALYSIS
10.1 Ethnographic data analysis: flexibility and emergence
10.2 Preliminary reflections while in the field
10.3 The role of theory in data analysis
10.4 Beginning data analysis: systematize and thematize
10.5 Working with participant observation data
10.6 Working with individual and group interview data
10.7 Working with images, video, and textual data
10.8 The end of the data analysis phase: from themes to narratives and arguments
10.9 Generalization and comparison
CHAPTER 11. WRITING UP, PRESENTING, AND PUBLISHING ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
11.1 The early stages of writing up: conferences, drafts, blogs
11.5 A quick trip back to the field?
11.6 Tone, style, and audience
CHAPTER 12. CONCLUSION: ARRIVALS AND NEW DEPARTURES
Ethnography and Virtual Worlds
：A Handbook of Method
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