Reflection 2 ---The Use of New Technologies for Social Research

From the class reading materials and in-class discussions, it is the first time for me to hear the term of "digital ethnography". I have already taken two research courses, it is interesting to know the new term(for me) in this class which made me continue to reflect on this issue. As the author mentioned, the article of "Digital Ethnography: An Examination of the Use of New Technologies for Social Research” critically examined the possibilities and problems of four new technologies –online questionnaires, digital video, social networking websites,blogs, and their potential impacts on the research relationship. 

Before I read this article, I had never thought more details about the links between the research methods and the digital ethnography. But, it is true, with the introduction of new technologies, the ways to collect data for ethnography have changed. Researchers currently don’t have to physically present in the research fields, and might reach participants around the world at the same time. From this perspective, I agree that the use of new technologies is convenient for researchers. However, we should also be very careful to apply these digital ways, especially I found the online questionnaires and emails might not have us get the expected results due to the low response rates. In the online environment, researchers cannot control others’ participations. On one hand, researchers have to make efforts to get the email addresses from the target interviewees. But how to get them in a short time? It might take researchers extra time to figure it out before conducting the real research. On the other hand, it is no guarantee to have high rate of feedback before the due date. It is usual that this kind of emails might be deleted as junk mails. Thus, it relies more on the participants’ behaviour and researchers might lose the control of the data collection process. 
Resource:  Murthy D. (2008). Digital ethnography: An examination of the use of new technologies for social research. Sociology 42 (5) (pp. 837-855). SAGE Publications http://soc.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/content/42/5.toc