Necessity of Hybrid Ethnography in Terms of the Practice of Online Public Opinion Studies

Abstract

　People’s activities on the Internet are becoming digitized, and substantive

analysis methodologies such as quantitative content analysis and network analysis

are developing rapidly. Meanwhile, they cultural anthropology is methodologically

characterized as essentially qualitative, with ethnography at their core.

How can cultural anthropology approach our online activities and our lives in

general with the Internet as a component through the method of ethnography?

It is necessary to fundamentally revisit the conventional methodology built on

the premise of the analog age with regard to ethnography in the context of the

cyberspace field.

　　Accordingly, cultural anthropologists who are interested in Internet studies

and communications researchers who engage in an ethnographic approach have

accumulated diverse developments in methodological discussions surrounding

online ethnography, virtual ethnography, digital anthropology, and so on.

　　Based on the author’s awareness of these issues and the developments in

scientific discussions, has been proposed hybrid ethnography. The aim of this

paper is to clarify the methodological subject of media studies pertaining to the

digital network age based on the research the author conducted in online public

opinion as part of the larger framework of the changes in ethnographical

approaches, while attempting to propose concrete arguments on the methodology

of hybrid ethnography by presenting research examples that include the

elements of: 1. quantitative content analysis, 2. data structure analysis（ various

methods of multivariate analysis）, and 3.（ social） network analysis.