In this article we review ethnographic research on the Internet and computer-mediated communication. The technologically mediated environment prevents researchers from directly observing research participants and often makes the interaction anonymous. In addition, in the online environment direct interaction with participants is replaced by computer-screen data that are largely textual, but may include combinations of textual, visual, aural, and kinetic components. We show how the online environment requires adjustments in how ethnographers define the setting of their research, conduct participant observation and interviews, obtain access to settings and research subjects, and deal with the ethical dilemmas posed by the medium.

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and the anonymous ASR reviewers for providing comments on earlier versions of this paper. In addition, I'd like to thank the mediators and mediation clients for allowing me to observe and videotape their hearings. Part of the work for this paper was done under a Time Reassignment Incentive Program Grant from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. ' Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) distinguish two types of talk: institutional talk and informal talk (or "ordinary conversation"). I This observation is consistent with data cited in M. Goodwin (1983), Goodwin and Goodwin (1987), and Coulter (1990).

Researchers find that some participants in mediation hearings report that the mediator was unfair or biased, but disputants rarely communicate these perceptions to the mediator, and very rarely do they do so during the mediation hearing itself. During data collection for a study of mediation hearings, a videotape of a small‐claims mediation hearing was made in which a disputant did make such an accusation during the hearing. This serendipitous capture of an accusation of bias on videotape enables us to examine how a mediator's actions during the hearing may have contributed to a disputants perception of unfairness. Narrative analysis is used to show how mediation techniques such as empowerment, representation of disputant positions, story summarizing, and emotion work can cause a perception of bias if they are applied unequally.

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