The purpose of this article is to offer an argument for a wider acceptance and adoption of online auto-ethnography—or auto-netnography as an alternative social media research method to online ethnography—or netnography—when undertaking consumer research. As an online research method, netnographies have attracted increasing attention from researchers in various inter-disciplinary studies during recent years, but the method is still not considered mainstream. While the proliferation of online communities using various social media platforms is increasingly supporting consumers when making product/service choices, the adoption of netnographies appears to leave room for an extension toward the consideration by consumer researchers of how auto-netnography could highlight these researchers’ own personal experiences in online communities. Auto-netnography allows the researcher to capture their own online experiences as a consumer would through social observation, reflexive note-taking, and other forms of data. Contemporary technology can also provide a more innovative approach with artificial intelligence offering an alternative dimension. We contend there is a need for consumer researchers—both academic and practitioner—to further reflect on and discuss the deployment of auto-netnography to contribute to further exploration of online communities through the qualitative lens.

中文翻译：

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在消费者研究中走向自动网络学

本文的目的是为在进行消费者研究时更广泛地接受和采用在线自动民族志（或自动网络民族志作为在线民族志或网络民族志的替代社交媒体研究方法）提供论据。网络志作为一种在线研究方法，近年来在各种跨学科研究中越来越受到研究人员的关注，但该方法仍未被认为是主流。虽然使用各种社交媒体平台的在线社区的激增越来越多地支持消费者选择产品/服务，但网络志的采用似乎为消费者研究人员考虑自动网络志如何突出这些研究人员自己的问题留下了空间在线社区中的个人经历。Auto-netnography 允许研究人员通过社会观察、反射性笔记和其他形式的数据，像消费者一样捕捉他们自己的在线体验。当代技术还可以通过人工智能提供更具创新性的方法，从而提供另一种维度。我们认为，无论是学术界还是从业者，消费者研究人员都需要进一步反思和讨论自动网络学的部署，以通过定性的视角为进一步探索在线社区做出贡献。