MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY IN VIRTUAL SPACE - STRATEGIES, LIMITS, AND POSSIBILITIES

For more than twenty years, ethnography has been used to study audienc e interpretation and social action. With the advent of the Internet, t his approach is now being applied to the cultural practices of compute r-mediated communication. This article appraises some strategies for s tudying a new cultural arena in which aspects of embodiment and identi ty differ significantly from traditional media reception. Four areas o f ethnographic engagement with virtual contexts are examined: the natu re and boundaries of virtual community, the social presence of partici pation, social strategies of entry and membership, and technical utili ties of data generation. Ethical issues and future possibilities for r esearch are also discussed.