A review of cyber ethnographic research: A research technique to analyze virtual consumer communities

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the cyber ethnography-also called netnography-as a research tool in understanding and developing insights about virtual consumer communities. First of all, the "community," "virtual community," and the "virtual consumer communities" concepts are described. Following them, cyber ethnographic research is examined and the process of a cyber ethnographic research is discussed in details. In this section several research articles using cyber ethnographic method are presented in order to illustrate the research process and to develop a common point of view. In the conclusion, the pros and cons of cyber ethnographic research are discussed.