Netnography and scientific research on the internet

Abstract

This article discusses the conduct of academic research in online environments, especially in places that apparently sound inadequate for the construction of scientific knowledge. Based on Netnography and on the description of a methodological trajectory that exclusively used Facebook as a locus of data production, we conclude that the possibility of methodological invention is undeniably one of the legacies of the internet for scientific research. It is a creative process that cannot exclude rigor, ethical conduct and reliability, characteristics that are so expensive and indispensable to the method of building scientific knowledge, but which still imposes many challenges that need to be overcome.

Keywords:
internet; scientific research; netnography; virtual ethnography