Relfection of 'Virtual Ethnography' by Hine

I like how she notes that ethnography, because of it's methodology, doesn't rely heavily on hypotheses. It's focus is trying to extract reason and understanding of human interaction in the world. She does note however that the original methodology of going to site is a large part of ethnography because it separates it from analytical approaches. I think she does neglect the fact however, that people who do an ethnographic study of the internet most likely have an emic perspective; their upbringing and knowledge of the internet is from an insider's knowledge and understanding of the internet.

I feel like her overall indication is how do we set up means of studying a digital space when ethnography is practiced by using the five senses to describe a culture in it's environment. It also seems that the internet is mostly a place of products, how do you document behaviors and characteristics of the internet when the reason or development of something is "back-staged" or hidden. There in lies the question of authenticity if the information we are receiving is "authentic" because it is a product of another person or work, when the source, the means, etc are not apparent. Not just the information provider but as well as the ethnographer because they are researching something that everyone has an access to and can take their own account on the subject matter as well and disregard that of the ethnographer. It's almost as though it's more important to create a means of setting up an experience, rather than telling accounts of what those experiences are or were.