Paper Short Abstract:

This paper reflects on my experience as an anthropologist studying social media in an interdisciplinary team. It examines how ethnography is understood in various disciplinary contexts and what we as anthropologists can learn from it.

Paper Abstract:

In 2023, one of my academic colleagues reflected on their experiences at recent events and conferences focusing on internet studies: “More and more people at these events talk about doing digital ethnography. If you ask people at a random panel if they use ethnography as a method, half the room would say yes.”

In these situations, I often wonder —do we all mean the same thing when we talk about ethnography?

A variety of methods incorporating ethnographic sensitivity emerged, particularly in the subfield of social media studies. These include approaches such as digital lurking, the walkthrough method, and ethnographic content analysis of online materials, among others. While I sometimes feel the urge to become a gatekeeper—positioning myself as the authority on what is or is not ethnography because, as an anthropologist, I should know —I see this experience as an opportunity to critically examine the boundaries and flexibility of a methodological approach foundational to my discipline.

This paper reflects on my experiences as an anthropologist conducting social media research while working in a sociology department as part of an interdisciplinary team alongside sociologists and media studies scholars. I explore why disciplinary differences sometimes seem inconsequential and, at other times, insurmountable.