ABSTRACT
The term ‘digital ethnography’ is an umbrella term that encompasses all forms of digital technology-based ethnography including online, mobile and offline ethnography involving digitalisation. P. Varis provides a detailed list, with references, of the various terms that can be used to describe research that adopts digital ethnography as an approach. She also provides a brief and insightful discussion on the history of digital ethnography. Ethnography is the study of individuals, groups or communities in their own environment over an extended period of time. The focus is to describe and interpret cultural behaviour and phenomena. A related method is ethno-mining, which enables researchers to study human behaviour and culture through combining ethnography with data mining tools and techniques: the two approaches are combined, integrated and interweaved to form a more complete picture, understanding or interpretation of the behaviour or culture under study.
