ERIC Number: EJ1257106
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Aug
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1525-822X
EISSN: N/A
Semantic Social Networks: A Mixed Methods Approach to Digital Ethnography
Cottica, Alberto; Hassoun, Amelia; Manca, Marco; Vallet, Jason; Melançon, Guy
Field Methods, v32 n3 p274-290 Aug 2020
We propose a mixed methods approach to digital ethnographic research. Treating online conversational environments as communities that ethnographers engage with as in traditional fieldwork, we represent those conversations and the codes made by researchers thereon in network form. We call these networks "semantic social networks" (SSNs), as they incorporate information on social interaction and their meaning as perceived by informants as a group and use methods from network science to visualize these ethnographic data. We present an application of this method to a large online conversation about community provision of health and social care and discuss its potential for mobilizing collective intelligence.
Descriptors: Semantics, Social Networks, Ethnography, Computer Mediated Communication, Interpersonal Relationship, Health Services, Social Services, Intelligence, Mixed Methods Research
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A