ABSTRACT
What is variously termed ‘online ethnography,’1 ‘virtual ethnography,’2 ‘cyberethnography,’3 ‘webnography,’4 and ‘netnography’5 invites music educators and others to consider new research paradigms. As these multiple terms suggest, this research genre is so new that settling on consistent terminology and procedures can be challenging, let alone validating ways of thinking about and dealing with relationships in emergent practices online. This chapter considers research in spaces of public/private domain through examination of the nature of online communities, ethical behavior in online research, and the role of the researcher.
