Abstract
The article presents reflections on the opportunities and challenges of anthropological research on Facebook from the perspective of the author’s interests and training, preferences for specific methods, understanding of research ethics, and personal field experience. The anthropological interpretation of Facebook as a social network is introduced. The specificities in understanding the platform from the conceptual frameworks of media and digital anthropology are outlined. The opportunities and challenges in the various approaches of Facebook ethnography, research strategies, and some research directions are traced. The advantages of qualitative methods in studying ambivalent social media phenomena such as trolls and trolling, fake news, and information wars are argued. Attention is drawn to the increased demands on research ethics when working in an environment with conflicting notions of ‘private’ and ‘public’ behavior.
Keywords: Facebook, fieldwork, media / digital anthropology
Loading…
Reload document 
Open in new tab 
