Hines distinguishes between ethnographic research perspectives that position the Internet as a phenomenon totally integrated into the social lives of many of its users and those that view the Internet as a sphere of activity set apart from everyday life ... Context is everything in ethnography, and in detailed accounts of actual research projects, Hine shows how ethnographic and non-ethnographic ... Read moremethods can be combined to move from generalized to interaction-specific contexts of situation. Summing Up: Recommended. Most levels/libraries.
A. Arno, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
CHOICE
This book provides a useful way of framing an approach to the Internet which acknowledges the way that the technology, and the literature on the technology, has largely evolved ... [along with] helpful case studies of such research in action.
Anthropos
If Hine has not literally had the last word in her review of the scholarly literature on her subject, well, it would be hard to imagine anyone topping her anytime soon. This expansive, clear-eyed, yet nuanced vision of a subject is precisely what one should expect of a senior academic, and boy does she deliver in spades ... Ethnography for the Internet is both a challenging and magisterial book by a scholar working at the fullest extent of her powers. I certainly anticipate returning to it in the weeks, months, and years to come, and many colleagues will undoubtedly be doing the same. This book is highly recommended.
Casey Brienza, City University London, UK
LSE Review of Books
The issues she raises and the advice she gives are relevant to professional anthropologists and scholar of contemporary culture too, who can no longer take the 'place' or the 'society' as given or stable ... the subjects of our ethnography constantly reshuffle themselves. Just as anthropology had to adapt-and successfully adapted-to the crisis of the 1970s and the 'multi-sited' challenge of the 1990s, so it will adapt to the new century, and Hine has given us some valuable tools to reflect on our practices and modify them to virtual and conventional settings alike.
David Eller
Anthropology Review Database
Ethnography for the Internet reminds us why Christine Hine remains one of the most innovative scholars of online methods. Employing case studies and a powerful conceptual framework, Hine examines how ethnographers can respond to a world in which it is near-impossible to think of any fieldsite where the internet is not a part of everyday experience.
Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine, USA This is an engaging and accessible account of contemporary ethnographic research. Taking the reader on a detailed journey through observation, design and analysis, Hine outlines a fertile framework for understanding consequences of the `embedded', `embodied' and `everyday' Internet in our lives, and in our research practice.
Heather Horst, RMIT University, Australia Christine Hine, one of the pioneers of Internet ethnography, offers a new perspective ... on this field of research.
L'Homme (Bloomsbury Translation).
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