Ethnography for the Internet

Christine Hine is Reader in Sociology at the University of Surrey, UK.

"Hines distinguishes between ethnographic research perspectives that position the Internet as a phenomenon totally integrated into the social lives of many of its users and those that view the Internet as a sphere of activity set apart from everyday life … Context is everything in ethnography, and in detailed accounts of actual research projects, Hine shows how ethnographic and non-ethnographic methods can be combined to move from generalized to interaction-specific contexts of situation. Summing Up: Recommended. Most levels/libraries. - CHOICE - A. Arno, University of Hawai'i at ManoaThis book provides a useful way of framing an approach to the Internet which acknowledges the way that the technology, and the literature on the technology, has largely evolved ... [along with] helpful case studies of such research in action. - AnthroposIf Hine has not literally had the last word in her review of the scholarly literature on her subject, well, it would be hard to imagine anyone topping her anytime soon. This expansive, clear-eyed, yet nuanced vision of a subject is precisely what one should expect of a senior academic, and boy does she deliver in spades ... Ethnography for the Internet is both a challenging and magisterial book by a scholar working at the fullest extent of her powers. I certainly anticipate returning to it in the weeks, months, and years to come, and many colleagues will undoubtedly be doing the same. This book is highly recommended. - LSE Review of Books - Casey Brienza, City University London, UKThe issues she raises and the advice she gives are relevant to professional anthropologists and scholar of contemporary culture too, who can no longer take the 'place' or the 'society' as given or stable … the subjects of our ethnography constantly reshuffle themselves. Just as anthropology had to adapt—and successfully adapted—to the crisis of the 1970s and the 'multi-sited' challenge of the 1990s, so it will adapt to the new century, and Hine has given us some valuable tools to reflect on our practices and modify them to virtual and conventional settings alike. - Anthropology Review Database - David EllerChristine Hine, one of the pioneers of Internet ethnography, offers a new perspective ... on this field of research. - L'Homme (Bloomsbury Translation)."

• 1 Introduction2 The E3 Internet: The Embedded, Embodied, Everyday Internet3 Ethnographic Strategies for the Embedded, Embodied, Everyday Internet4 Observing and Experiencing Online/Offline Connections5 Connective Ethnography in Complex Institutional Landscapes6 The Internet in Ethnographies of the Everyday7 ConclusionReferencesIndex