I’ve been really impressed with the detail Dan has gone into on his netnography; it puts mine to shame in terms of many things but particularly the level of immersion achieved. But I thought I’d tweet specifically about the love letter/break-up letter methodology, because I’ve used it several times to get students’ feelings about things, though I’ve never written a proper one myself.
It’s got me thinking about the netnography methodologies that we’re all using; what I’ve chosen to do certainly doesn’t feel rigorous enough. I know this is a low-stakes exercise, but that doesn’t really let us off the hook as far as methodology development goes…
Well, a couple of things here.
I find the wording of the title interesting. I don’t think I would ever use twitter to chat. It’s far to restrictive in word count terms. I would probably say “exchange”.
The amount of detail I go into in my Netography reflects what is going on in my offline life. I have a fairly undemanding job, no kids and a wife that I suspect is a workaholic (as most budding academics are). Consequently I think I have more time to write than other EDC students. Your own posts are succinct and thoughtful (I read the recent ones on openess and anonymity in nethnography). They seem to conclude nicely whereas mine kind of tail off a bit. I don’t really draft much and with no word count just tend to ramble until I feel I’ve had enough. Another reason why I have written a lot.
I also suspect that other people have been skyping or using student hangouts more. I tend to write more on my own.