Rich, intimate and immersive: using netnography for educational research in an age of technoculture

This chapter aims to provide thought-provoking examples of contemporary technocultural phenomena that could challenge and inspire innovation in educational netnography. After briefly illustrating netnography’s research practices and how these reveal the rich, intimate and immersive nature of the method, the remainder of the chapter engages in a methodological reflection of the question, ‘How is netnography on the move today?’. Notably, we provide a critical discussion of two emerging intertwined phenomena of contemporary technoculture occurring in the interrelated domains of consumer culture, social media culture and influencers, and the creator economy that pose new questions and methodological challenges to netnography and that may inspire netnographers in education: (1) emerging practices of visual technoculture and (2) increasing human–technology entanglements. We discuss these phenomena as they involve and alter three fundamental components of the technocultural experience: content, relationships and agency. For both phenomena, we also highlight potential implications that bridge them with educational settings.