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Networked Participants, Networked Meanings: Using Networks to Visualize Ethnographic Data


Abstract Researchers can use data visualization techniques to explore, analyze, and present data in new ways. Although quantitative data are visualized most often, recent innovations have brought attention to the potential benefits of visualizing qualitative data. In this article, the authors demonstrate one way researchers can use networks to analyze and present ethnographic interview data. The authors suggest that because many respondents know one another in ethnographic research, networks are a useful tool for analyzing the implications of respondents’ familiarity with one another. Moreover, respondents often share familiar cultural references that can be visualized. The authors show how visualizing respondents’ ties in conjunction with their shared cultural references sheds light on the different systems of meaning that respondents within a field site use to make sense of the social phenomena under investigation.
Authors Kenneth R. Hanson University of WyomingORCID , Nicholas Theis ORCID
Journal Info SAGE Publishing | Sociological Methodology , vol: 54 , iss: 1 , pages: 142 - 156
Publication Date 9/7/2023
ISSN 0081-1750
TypeKeyword Image article
Open Access hybrid Hybrid Access
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/00811750231195338
KeywordsKeyword Image Virtual Ethnography (Score: 0.55542) , Qualitative Interviewing (Score: 0.533959) , Internet Research (Score: 0.517176) , Social Science Research (Score: 0.513408) , Networked Individualism (Score: 0.503553)