We propose a mixed methods approach to digital ethnographic research. Treating online conversational environments as communities that ethnographers engage with as in traditional fieldwork, we represent those conversations and the codes made by researchers thereon in network form. We call these networks “semantic social networks” (SSNs), as they incorporate information on social interaction and their meaning as perceived by informants as a group and use methods from network science to visualize these ethnographic data. We present an application of this method to a large online conversation about community provision of health and social care and discuss its potential for mobilizing collective intelligence.

中文翻译：

---

语义社交网络：数字民族志的混合方法

我们提出了一种数字民族志研究的混合方法。将在线对话环境视为民族志学家在传统田野工作中参与的社区，我们以网络形式表示这些对话和研究人员在其上制作的代码。我们称这些网络为“语义社交网络”（SSN），因为它们整合了信息提供者作为一个群体所感知的社会互动信息及其意义，并使用网络科学的方法来可视化这些人种学数据。我们将这种方法应用于关于社区提供健康和社会护理的大型在线对话，并讨论其调动集体智慧的潜力。