A typological scheme of differences and trajectories in ethnographic applications: the role of the researcher in handling technologies

The ethnographic method has been a feature of the social sciences since its inception, and for some disciplines, it is markedly characterized by a strong aptitude for physical field research over extended periods in circumscribed communities. However, with the advent of the digital age, this process has undergone further acceleration, upsetting and partly undermining the solid assumptions on which the ethnographic method had been formed, precisely because in the digital scenario, the assumptions of boundaries of contexts and the role of the researcher change radically. The time has come to retrace the evolutionary trajectory of the ethnographic practice to provide a systematization of recent ethnography development so as to know better which are the proper research paths and the method layouts to achieve research goals in the digital realm. Our work aims to investigate the current developments in ethnographic practice to understand its evolutionary
trajectory starting from the following research question:
- How do researchers move inside and outside the online field availing (or not) of research
innovations and related digital technologies?
Taking care of two digital case studies related to the field of digital dark tourism and digital action of social movements, a typological scheme is attempted in order to systematize the ethnographic practice in digital environments. In light of this, we will discuss the main assumptions on which to focus, to adequately answer the questions that drive this study and its ultimate aim of understanding what happens to the epistemological and ontological essence of the ethnographic method.