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The Annual Conference of
The Australian Sociological Association
Refereed Proceedings of TASA
2016 Conference
Abstract
This paper explores the use of netnography, an online adaptation of the method ethnography, in
a study of online fitness culture on social networking sites (SNSs). For many millions of people
around the world, the Internet has become an essential communication and information medium,
mediated by SNSs, specialised networks, and eMail. The combination of text and images in
these communications presents new opportunities for research that can potentially offer a deep
investigation of participant behaviour in online cultures and communities. It is through these
computer mediated communications where community and culture are (re)produced/adapted.
In the provision of a common set of methodological procedures and protocols, netnography
contributes to the debate of researching online populations, transitioning traditional techniques
of cultural anthropology to an online setting, and innovation in appropriate settings. This
paper outlines the guidelines of netnography. Furthermore, it will discusses opportunities, and
challenges in exploring online cultures and communities with reflections from a netnographic
researcher of online fitness culture.
Keywords: Netnography, online culture, online communities, qualitative research
Introduction
Given the wide-ranging interest in academic publication output, researchers are increasingly
using the Internet as a research medium for data collection. A number of methodological tools
have been adapted from traditional methods to research an online setting. Netnography is one
adaptation that has emerged from the research method ethnography. Netnography draws upon
computer-mediated communications or network-based data (i.e. textual and visual) to arrive at
an ethnographic understanding of a social or cultural phenomenon (Kozinets 2010).
Online fitness communities are a social and cultural phenomenon that have transitioned to the
online platform of SNSs. These communities include general health and fitness, bodybuilding,
and wellbeing and healthy living. Although their goals may be diverse, specific, attention is
given to diet and food, inspiration, exercising, the body and body weight, and representations
of fit bodies (Andreasson & Johansson 2013a, 2013c; Smith & Stewart 2012). Previous research
Netnography
Kozinets describes netnography as primarily concerned with online communication as a source
of data to form an understanding of a cultural phenomenon (1997, 2002, 2010, 2015). It
adapts common participant-observation ethnographic procedures to an online context where
social interaction takes place. Like ethnography, netnography is natural, immersive, descriptive,
multi-method, and adaptable (Kozinets 2010). Through immersive cultural participation and
observation, netnography offers researchers the opportunity to focus on new areas of social life
(Nind et al. 2012), and to explore how communities and cultures are produced through computer-
mediated communications (Kozinets 1998). It is a means of researching online communities in
the same manner that anthropologists seek to understand the cultures, norms and practices of
face-to-face communities, by observing, and/or participating in communications on publically
available online forums (Nelson & Otnes 2005; Sandlin 2007).
There has been a growing use of netnography by researchers from diverse fields (1,300 results
in a systematic search of Google Scholar conducted by Bengry-Howell et al. 2011). Three recent
netnographies have been conducted in the field of sport and fitness, relevant to the study of
online fitness (see Andreasson & Johansson 2016; Kavanagh, Jones, & Sheppard-Marks 2016;
Smith & Stewart 2012). Several other studies have been conducted on online communities
using similar methods termed under a plethora of labels: virtual ethnography (Hine 2008),
online ethnography (Crowe & Bradford 2006; Crowe & Watts 2014), digital ethnography,
webnography, network ethnography and cyber ethnography (Grbich 2007). Aspects of these
online research methods underpinned the research process for the study (for example, the work
of Beneito-Montagut 2011; Chapman & Lahav 2008; Fortun et al. 2014; Gallagher, Wessels,
& Ntelioglou 2013; Paccagnella, 2012; Postill & Pink 2012; Underberg & Zorn 2013). For
example, Postill and Pinks (2012) social media ethnography played an influential role in helping
the researcher understand online interactions (e.g. weak ties), and the idea of media mixing in
order to maintain social relationships with potential participants across SNSs.
Key strengths of these online methods are the ability to conduct fieldwork from researcher
offices (Hine 2000), the ease and cost of data collection, the ability to connect with geographically
dispersed online community groups, and the ease of collecting various types of data (Kozinets
2010). They provide understanding of the online world, interaction styles, and lived experiences
of online users (Kozinets 2015).
While online ethnographic methods are burgeoning in the field, some discrepancies still remain
across the specific methodological practices employed by researchers1. In providing a common set
of procedures and protocols, netnography offers stability, consistency, legitimacy and the ability
to aggregate other netnographic research (Kozinets, 2010).
1 The PhD research commenced in 2013, however, digital ethnography is currently flourishing in the field, and
one important, recent publication is (Pink et al. 2016).
2 After the completion of the study, Kozinets (2015) expanded on the original steps of netnography from five
to 12: introspection, investigation, information, interview, inspection, interaction, immersion, indexing, interpretation,
iteration, instantiation and integration. The steps include additions and explicit descriptions; however, the new steps
primarily subdivide the previous five phases. Notably, there is a greater emphasis on narrowing the community group
of interest, and the use of an interactive researcher website to add insight to netnography (an additional source), and to
surmount some ethical dilemmas with researchers as active participants (Kozinets 2015).
(1) Opportunity in researching communities that may not exist without the Internet
Nind et al. (2012) claim that netnography offers researchers the opportunity to focus on
new areas of social life. According to Kozinets (2002), the Internet provides opportunities for
participation in social groups that are united around the achievement of particular lifestyle goals
and characteristics.
Importantly, netnography is appropriate to those communities that would not exist without
the Internet. Online communities are considered no less real than their physical counterparts,
leading to consequential behavioural effects (Kozinets 2015). The use of netnography in
researching these online communities broadly allows researchers to examine human society and
social relationships online, as well as providing an insight in to peoples online behaviour, and an
understanding of how people negotiate their Internet activity. Beneito-Montagut (2011) affirms
that netnography is particularly relevant for understanding new forms of human interaction and
how people create and maintain personal relationships online.
Conclusion
The aim of this paper was to provide an overview of the guidelines of netnography, and to reflect
on the study of online fitness culture and communities in order to raise a number of opportunities,
and considerations for future netnographers. In the provision of a common set of methodological
procedures and protocols Kozinets (2015) offers researchers new to researching in the online
environment a clear and prescribed method, allowing aggregation of netnographic knowledge in
different online cultures and communities.
Netnography creates opportunities in researching communities that may not exist without the
Internet, allows for the development of an understanding of online culture and meaning making
processes, as well as providing an unobtrusive method to explore sensitive issues. Reflecting
on the current study, the researcher was able to utilise these opportunities to participate in a
community that has adapted to an online platform. It is through the use of this method that
experiences of participants within the communities themselves had the opportunity for their
voices to be heard. Netnography also allowed the researcher to have an in-depth understanding
of the rituals, norms, meanings, neologisms, language, and behaviours that are produced through
the community. Collectively, the application and blend of netnography with other methods will
improve the quality of insight in this online area of social life.
Within the study netnography also brought methodological challenges. Retrospectively,
refinement of the research process, including narrowing the field site to one online fitness
community would have limited the data set, and provided a more narrow data collection space.