Books

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method

Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce,

August 27, 2012

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method
Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce & T. L. Taylor
Princeton University Press, 2012

A concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds.

For sale at Princeton University Press.

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind–a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.

Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame

Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft

Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues

Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results

Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography

Tagged asethnography games gaming T. L. Taylor virtual worlds

Written by

Tom Boellstorff

Written by

Bonnie Nardi

Written by

Celia Pearce

Written by

T.L. Taylor

T.L. Taylor is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and co-founder of AnyKey, an organization dedicated to supporting and developing fair and inclusive esports. She is a qualitative sociologist who has focused on internet and game studies for over two decades. Dr. Taylor’s research explores the interrelations between culture and technology in online leisure environments.

Her book about game live streaming, Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first of its kind to chronicle the emerging media space of online game broadcasting and won the American Sociological Association’s CITAMS book award. She is also the author of Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming (MIT Press, 2012) which explores the rise of esports and Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (MIT Press, 2006), an ethnography of the massively multiplayer online game EverQuest. In 2012 Princeton University published her co-authored book on conducting ethnographic research in online multi-user worlds, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method.

Dr. Taylor is a highly sought after speaker. Both the White House and the International Olympics Committee have invited her to special summits focused on gaming. And journalists for the New York Times, PBS, the Los Angeles Times, BBC, CBC, and many others often reach out to Dr. Taylor for her expertise.

She also currently serves as a member of Twitch’s Safety Advisory Council as well as the editorial boards of Social Media & Society, Games and Culture, American Journal of Play, and ROMChip.

For more information about Dr. Taylor visit tltaylor.com.

Written by Tom Boellstorff

Written by Bonnie Nardi

Written by Celia Pearce

Written by T.L. Taylor

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