Netnography: A review of its application in social media and digital government research

Abstract

Netnography has emerged as the dominant social media research that allows researchers to understand and assimilate available knowledge for practical insights. However, limited awareness inhibits its development. This systematic literature review attempts to understand the evolution of netnography under the research domain to promote its usage and determine future research directions. The study revealed four broad clusters of the literature based on their prevalence: consumer experience and behaviour, phenomena and events, social media, and digital government. The study also highlights the limited development of new-age phenomena such as brand hate, cyber tourism, and special interest tourism. The study contributes to the domain of netnography in two ways: first by providing a thematic classification of the studies conducted in the decade of 2009-21 and second by suggesting potential future research directions, including scientific inquiry on the new-age phenomena blooming due to high internet penetration.