Researching Chinese Students in the UK - the Use of Ethnography in Social Media Studies

Zhang, Yuanya

Abstract

The growing prevalence of digital media has led to an increasing number of studies investigating its role in people’s lives. Traditionally, ethnographers go to the fieldsite physically to understand people and their culture. Now, with a large amount of social interaction taking place online, ethnographers have also began attempting to use digital methods to understand people’s online practices, interactions, and cultural production. This paper documents both online and offline ethnographic methods employed in a pilot study that set out to understand the ways that Chinese students portray their lives on social media when studying at UK universities. With a focus on in-depth reflections on methodologies and data collection processes, this paper aims to provide a point of reference for researchers who are interested in doing ethnography in the digital field.

Citation

Zhang, Y. (2023). Researching Chinese Students in the UK - the Use of Ethnography in Social Media Studies. In H. Bennion, H. Broadfoot, K. Fan, T. Meng, Y. Zhang, & Q. Zhou (Eds.),

• Conference Name: Imagining Better Education 2022
• Conference Location: Durham, United Kingdom
• Start Date: Oct 20, 2022
• End Date: Oct 21, 2022
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: May 31, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 2, 2023
• Publisher: School of Education, Durham University
• Series Title: Imagining Better Education
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1133740
• Publisher URL: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/education/