Ethnography and virtual worlds : a handbook of method / Tom Boellstorff [and others] ; [with a foreword by George Marcus].

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-222) and index.

Why this handbook? : Beginnings ; Why ethnographic methods and why virtual worlds? ; Why a handbook? -- An orientation to the virtual worlds we studied -- Three brief histories : A brief history of ethnographic methods ; A brief history of virtual worlds ; A brief history of research on virtual world cultures ; The uses of history -- Ten myths about ethnography : Ethnography is unscientific ; Ethnography is less valid than quantitative research ; Ethnography is simply anecdotal ; Ethnography is undermined by subjectivity ; Ethnography is merely intuitive ; Ethnography is writing about your personal experience ; Ethnographers contaminate fieldsites by their very presence ; Ethnography is the same as grounded theory ; ethnography is the same as ethnomethodology ; Ethnography will become obsolete -- Research design and preparation : Research questions: emergence, relevance, and personal interest ; Selecting a group or activity to study ; Scope of the fieldsite ; Attending to offline contexts -- Participant observation in virtual worlds : Participant observation in context ; Participant observation in practice ; Preparing the researching self ; Taking care in initiating relationships with information ; Making mistakes ; Taking extensive fieldnotes ; Keeping data organized ; Participant observation and ethnographic knowledge ; The timing and duration of participant observation ; The experimenting attitude -- Interviews and virtual worlds research : The value of interviews in ethnographic research ; Effective interviewing ; THe value of group interviews in ethnographic research ; Size, structure, and location for group interviews ; Transcription -- Other data collection methods for virtual worlds research : Capturing chatlogs ; Capturing screenshots ; Capturing videos ; Capturing audio ; Data collection in other online contexts ; Historical and archival research ; Virtual artifacts ; Offline interviews and participant observation ; Using quantitative data -- Ethics : The principle of care ; Informed consent ; Mitigating institutional and legal risk ; Anonymity ; Deception ; Sex and intimacy ; Doing good and compensations ; Taking leave ; Accurate portrayal -- Human subjects clearance and institutional review boards : Institutional review boards (IRBs) ; Preparing a protocol for IRB review ; Working with IRBs ; Informed consent and anonymity -- Data analysis : Ethnographic data analysis: flexibility and emergence ; Preliminary reflections while in the field ; The role of theory in data analysis ; Beginning data analysis: systematize and thematize ; Working with participant observation data ; Working with individual and group interview data ; Working with images, video, and textual data ; The end of the data analysis phase: from themes to narratives and arguments ; Generalization and comparison -- Writing up, presenting, and publishing ethnographic research : The early stages of writing up: conferences, drafts, blogs ; Written genres ; Dissemination ; The writing process ; A quick trip back to the field ; Tone, style, and audience -- Conclusion : Arrivals and new departures.