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WeChat Ethnography, New Practices and Limits of an Emerging Research Method

As more and more social practices take place online, scholars have also changed their ways to conduct research, disrupting the traditional methods of social sciences. Indeed, online ethnography has evolved into an increasingly popular research method In the context of conducting research in China or with Chinese, reinforced by the Covid-19 situation and a limited access to the fieldwork, the use of WeChat has become critical. However, this platform may be both promising and constraining and requires methodological and ethical reflections on how to operationalize “WeChat ethnography”: May we use or reproduce a private chat conversation to support an academic argument? How to deal with pseudonyms and identity markers to protect the participants? Whose permission should we seek for the publication of an image publicly shared online? How to credit users for their creations while respecting their privacy? How to deal with the respondents’ intimacy? 

 

The first part of this colloquium will take place on the 7th of October at the Confucius Institute. It will also be available online. You will find more information on the flyer.

30 septembre 2022
  Actualités