Shall WeChat? Switching between online and offline ethnography

Abstract

Drawing on the ethnographic work conducted inside the digital platform WeChat, this article contributes to the ongoing discussion about the multi-sited ethnographic tools and the digital methods available for investigating virtual worlds and online practices. It analyses the communications, interactions, sociality, and economic activities produced on the application WeChat by Chinese migrant women, together with the same practices constructed offline in Taiwan. Taking a close look at the offline context from which these digital practices are generated, the article shows that when studying online practices, it is essential to understand what corresponds to them in the offline worlds. By updating the four Goffmanian interactionist fieldwork sequences, this research provides some reflections on the necessity to mix and merge online and offline ethnographic techniques in order to apprehend the new practices and scales of interaction at the crossroads where online and offline social spaces intersect. Virtual ethnography cannot be exclusive. Rather, it needs to be designed and performed in dialogue with ‘physical’ observations.

The Shifting Nature of Relationality in the Blurred Boundaries of Hybrid Organizational Ethnography

“…Those that do, focus mainly on methodological tools such as how to gain access and conduct research by combining physical and digital presence (e.g. Hendrickx and Picone, 2022; Zani, 2021). Liu (2022), for example, offers three tools: multi‐access , where the hybrid ethnographer continuously negotiates access to various physical and virtual sites; multi‐positionality , where the ethnographer (re)defines/(re)portrays their role in physical and virtual sites; and online/offline data assembly , in which multi‐faceted data is used to validate interpretations.…”

Living Lab, interrupted? Exploring new methods for postdigital exchange on WeChat with urban-rural Living Labs in China and Germany during COVID-19

“…Researchers who act as 'embodied subjects' participating in the everyday lives of online fields, as argued by digital ethnographers, should be acknowledged as "integrated dimensions of the research process" [Kozinets, 2010;Bengtsson, 2014]. In her research on migrants' social and economic practices using a mixed approach of online and offline methods, Zani [2021] notes that digital ethnography should be designed and performed in dialogue with offline observations. She suggests that only by looking at both spheres together can a comprehensive view of social phenomena be gained [Zani, 2021].…”

“…In her research on migrants' social and economic practices using a mixed approach of online and offline methods, Zani [2021] notes that digital ethnography should be designed and performed in dialogue with offline observations. She suggests that only by looking at both spheres together can a comprehensive view of social phenomena be gained [Zani, 2021]. Traditional ethnographic methods like in-depth interviews are considered an important supplementary method for interpreting the fragmented data gathered from WeChat groups [Sun & Yu, 2020;Zhou & Xiang, 2021].…”