August 4-5
Netnography is a qualitative research methodology for developing cultural understanding through digitally mediated traces, experiences, interactions, practices, networks, and systems. The cultural phenomenon itself does not have to be digital. Netnography can be used to investigate health and illness, parenting, religion, education, work, consumption, grief, politics, family life, ecological relations, and virtually any other cultural phenomenon to which digital mediation provides consequential access. In some studies, technology provides a pathway into the phenomenon; in others, platforms, algorithms, and artificial intelligence are themselves part of what must be understood and explained.
This intensive two-day course presents the latest formulation of netnography developed in Robert V. Kozinets’s new and fully updated textbook, Netnography: Qualitative Digital Inquiry for the Age of AI. It offers a structured but flexible approach to designing, conducting, interpreting, and communicating qualitative digital research. Unlike content analysis, social listening, and large-scale scraping, netnography does not simply extract or classify digital material. It uses sustained cultural engagement, immersion, reflexivity, contextual interpretation, ethical responsibility, and appropriate evidence to produce warranted cultural understanding.
The course is organized around netnography’s three tenets—Engagement, Ethics, and Evolvement—and its seven recursive movements: Initiation, Immersion, Investigation, Interaction, Integration, Interpretation, and Incarnation. Together, they provide a methodological grammar for designing an inquiry, documenting and justifying methodological decisions, responding to unexpected developments, and communicating findings responsibly. Across the two days, participants will learn how to formulate culturally oriented research questions, identify and enter a contextual field, establish an ethical stance, develop an immersion practice, and work with investigative, immersive, and interactive forms of evidence. Artificial intelligence will be considered throughout as a cultural phenomenon, a component of the contextual field, and a research technology whose uses and limitations require continuing human judgment and ethical responsibility.
Over the course of the two days, we will cover topics that include:
1. Netnography Fundamentals
2. Initiating and Ethically Designing a Netnographic Project
3. Immersion, Investigation, and Interaction
4. Integrating and Interpreting Cultural Evidence
5. Artificial Intelligence Across the Netnographic Inquiry
6. Incarnation, Presentation, and Impact
The course will provide participants with an up-to-date understanding of netnography and a practical framework for applying it to their own research. Through focused instruction, examples, exercises, and discussion, participants will learn how to design a culturally engaged and ethically responsible netnographic inquiry, develop appropriate forms of evidence, and communicate their methods and findings with clarity. Particular attention will be given to the opportunities and risks introduced by artificial intelligence while maintaining the indispensable role of human immersion, reflexivity, interpretation, and ethical judgment.
The course draws principally on material from:
