a Clifford Geertz’s perspective

Comunicación y música: mensajes, manifestaciones y negocios Universidad de La Laguna, diciembre de 2018 (2ª edición)

ISBN-13: 978-84-17314-13-2/ D.L.: TF 44-2019/ DOI del libro: 10.4185/cac155 Página | 1032

Libro colectivo enlínea: http://www.revistalatinacs.org/18SLCS/libro-colectivo-2018-2.html

The use of netnography in design research:

a Clifford Geertz’s perspective

La utilisation de la netnographie dans la recherche en design: la perspective de Clifford Geertz

El uso de la netnografía en la investigación del diseño: una perspectiva de Clifford Geertz

Virginia Borges Kistmann – Universidade Federal do Paraná – [email protected]

Abstract: Recently, designers researchers and professionals have introduced

new methods to gather consumer behavior, following the expansion of the

mediascape (Appadurai 1996). Among these, digital/virtual empirical research

based on visual anthropology has been used frequently because it is faster,

costs less, facilitates access to distant users/consumers and decreases

interpersonal contact, not always desired (Lucca 2016). In spite of these

advantages, this approach may also reduce the complexity of ethnographic

studies, since this new method is mediated by the Internet, rather than filming or

using photography, recording or deepening the description and discussion of

context in the field. This turned field research, full of rich elements, into a desk

research. Thus, it profoundly modifies the way researchers search for and

understand demands of consumers to define product concepts. It brings a new

configuration in which experience and interpretation of another reality involve

two or more individuals who may not always be even real subjects in mediation.

Considering this, this paper discusses the implications of this new method in

relation to the concepts of Geertz (1983, 1988, 1989). It seeks to consider how

netnography (Kozinets 2017) interweaves images, texts, social media sites, as

well as questionnaires and interviews, as sources of information to define

demands and product concepts (Santos et al 2018). Considering this pragmatic

tool to make evaluations on the sensitive field, this paper sheds light on the

implications associated with the integration of web-based technologies in design

ethnographic research. It explores these issues through an interpretative

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approach in the form of an essay, highlighting the results to be considered in

the adoption of netnography as a methodological resource in the field of design.

Keys words: design methods; netnography; digital ethnography; design

management; design research; interpretative cultural study.

Resumo: Recentemente, designers e pesquisadores introduziram novos

métodos para reunir o comportamento do consumidor, seguindo a expansão do

mediascape (Appadurai1996). Dentre esses, o uso da pesquisa empírica

digital/virtual baseada na antropologia visual vem sendo usado com frequência,

pois ela é mais rápida, custa menos, facilita o acesso a usuários/consumidores

distantes e diminui o contato interpessoal, nem sempre desejado (Lucca 2016).

Apesar dessas vantagens, essa abordagem pode também reduzir a

complexidade dos estudos etnográficos, pois o novo método é mediado pela

Internet, ao invés de filmar ou usar fotografia e registrar e aprofundar a

descrição e discussão sobre o contexto no campo. Isso transformou a pesquisa

de campo, repleta de ricos elementos, em uma pesquisa documental. Assim,

de fato, modifica profundamente a maneira como os pesquisadores buscam e

compreendem as demandas dos consumidores para definir conceitos de

produtos. Traz uma nova configuração em que a experiência e a interpretação

de outra realidade envolvem dois ou mais indivíduos, os quais nem sempre

podem ser sujeitos reais na mediação. Considerando isso, este trabalho

discute as implicações desse novo método em relação aos conceitos de Geertz

(1983; 1988; 1989). Busca-se considerar como a netnografia (Kozinets 2017)

entrelaça imagens, textos, sites de midias sociais, além de questionários e

entrevistas, como fontes de informação para definição de demandas e

conceitos de produtos (Santos et al 2018). Considerando esta ferramenta

pragmática para fazer avaliações sobre o campo sensível, este trabalho lança

luz sobre as implicações ligadas à integração de tecnologias baseadas na web

na pesquisa etnográfica em design. Explora essas questões por uma

abordagem interpretativa em forma de ensaio, trazendo como destaques dos

resultados a serem considerados na adoção da netnografia como recurso

metodológico no campo do design.





Palavras-chave: métodos de design; netnografia; gestão de design; pesquisa

em design; estudos interpretativos.

1 Introduction

Design management is aims at the insertion of design in the institutions from

the managerial point of view. In this respect, the design of new products and/or

services considers the conscious or unconscious demands of consumers/users

as a starting point. The first studies towards this were developed under the

Produkt-Semantik (Steffen 2014), developed by Krippendorff (1984). From then

on, design has established design methodologies in which the central point is

the consumer/end user to help the formulation of companies’ strategies and

actions.

For Krippendorff (1984), designers need to be responsible specially for the

communicative aspects of product forms. The communication model from his

perspective would act on two levels: one, prescriptive, in which the designer

should configure a meaning reflecting potentialities of products; and another

where it should consider how the user/consumer appropriate the product, from

the cognitive point of view and this reflects in their social use.

Under the design management strategies, communication process is

considered by institutions, from human physiological, psychological aspects and

cultural characteristics. In this sense, if practical aspects related to the use of

the products were mainly related to the physiological and anthropomorphic

approaches, on the other hand, the semantics of the product led to the ones

favoring the aesthetic-formal, symbolic and symbolic aspects, related to culture.

Thus, sign issues are related to the performance of a product or systems

towards specific functions. They convert into meanings and imaginations results

from design process. With different implications from cultural aspects and

circumstances in which they are inserted, products and services are treated in

its symbolic content (Steffen 2014).

Considering these communicative aspects highlighted by Krippendorff, Steffen

(2000) states that products act as vehicles of social interaction, offering

possibilities of connection of several orders, in which details can't be determined





in advance. In this way, communicative processes that are established between

products and users are important for companies’ market performance.

The ideal condition from the design management point of view is the

equivalence between the emission and reception, that has as consequence the

conversion of consumer into user. Therefore, the communicative process

between products/services offered by companies and consumers/users is of

great importance for the design activity.

Produkt-Semantik, in its origin, had three main objectives: a) to know the model

of ideas and cognitive objects and the universe that circulates them from the

point of view of values; b) to verify how the forms of the products are valued,

how their need communicates with the users and what social behaviors they

provoke; c) and in which sense these products provide a material basis for new

symbolic systems (Steffen 2014). But also, in the opposite direction, the result

of the investigation of product semantics brings new influences, from a

cognitive, interpersonal and social aesthetic point of view, as new cultures are

founded, from which designers can't be disconnected. Melissa sandals in

Illustration 1, for non-gender consume, represent a kind of strategy using these

aspects.

Illustration 1. Melissa nogender sandals. Source: Estadão, 2018





With this, interest in ethnographic-based research to understand the

interactions between services and products with users/consumers has grown

along with this discipline. This generated new fields of research such as User

Experience Design and Human Centered Design, defined as an approach

focusing on the needs and requirements of users, enhancing effectiveness and

efficiency, improving well-being and satisfaction (Norman 2005).

But the emergence of virtual communities, their specific culture in the digital

media in the late 1980’s and the growing interest in marketing and

communication phenomena in cyberspace brought the adoption of

methodologies. Intrinsically related to this new scenario, a space in which

diverse cultures are manifested, netnography emerges as a new research

methodology, to give understanding of the cyberculture communicative process

(Kozinets et al 2018).

Broadly speaking, netnography is a type of ethnography that uses computer

mediated communications as a source of data to arrive at the understanding

and ethnographic representation of a cultural phenomenon, to understand the

behavior of consumers/users in relation to a product or service as well as to

some type of communication content (Santos et al 2018). This new approach

has been considered positive from the point of view of the companies that have

been adopting it. They highlight the fact that this new method considerably

reduces the cost of research, shortens the research time and avoids personal

contact between researcher/designer and users/consumers (ibid).

However, questions emerge considering the true contribution of this method,

since it departs from the traditional ethnography and inserts new elements in its

delineation, realization and analysis of the investigations that it produces. Thus,

this article seeks to discuss netnography from the point of view of Geertz 's

interpretive theory, who states that anthropology focusing communities or

groups of people engaged with one another turns a mere collection of

heterogeneous material into a mutually reinforcing network of social

understandings” (Geertz 1983).

Following his principles, the text leads a vision in an equally interpretative

approach, using the essayistic way.





2. Between a pilgrim and a cartographer

Geertz (1988) expresses the etnographer as a double character: a pilgrim and a

cartographer, highlighting the challenge to interpret the complexities of

self/other negotiations. And this seems to represent also the contradictions one

should consider the netnography associated to design. Operating to understand

social behavior, actually it has the aim at a new set up, attending companies in

order to obtain profit.

Recently, the use of netnography became a frequently method in design field

(Santos et al 2018) following the first netnography propositions from market and

communication fields. As an anthropology for design, netnography has its

foundations in researches that intensify in the 1990s with the work of design

company IDEO, which turns ethnography as a design tool (Brown 2009).

As a positive result in business associated with strategic design, the example of

the Lego company is classic. Almost bankrupt in 2003, the company was able

to recover using virtual surveys to identify new markets looking for existing

digital communities. Today, from ten contracted designers, two came and

belong to virtual fan communities (Época 2018), using a collaborative

netnography. The Illustration 2 presents one of the products developed with

these communities.

Illustration 2. Lego brand product designed collaboratively with users identified in existent forums. Source: Schlosser, Kurt, 2018. Available from:





https://www.geekwire.com/2018/artist-builds-lego-scene-modern-day-seattle-iconic-buildings-tents-streets/

Branding and netnography are also interconnected elements in the equation of

design communication with their consumers (Alasse 2012). As an example, the

company Fleischman in Brazil used the combined netnography to other tools to

ascertain how the brand was being perceived by the young public regarding

their desserts. For this, it set up an Orkut community to make observation and

invited people to participate and consume the products. Based on the study,

they modified brand's positioning with new packaging and visual communication

by design.

In the same way, as in Illustration 3 below shows, Johnson and Johnson used

netnography to develop a new product. In this case, it used different

communication channels to obtain more information about their consumer (ibid).

Illustration 3. Collaborative application of Johnson and Johnson with the use of digital media of communication. Source: Mall no divã, 2018 http://mallnodiva.blogspot.com/2012/02/

In the launch of new products, through netnographic research, companies

follow the profile of defined audiences, noting their favorite hobbies and

consumption habits, identifying opportunities. With this, Coca-Cola Life, a new

design could be developed as Illustration 4 shows.




http://mallnodiva.blogspot.com/2012/02/




Illustration 4. Website of Coca-Cola Life, Argentina, developed from a netnography study. Source: Felizola, Matheus Pereira Mattos, 2014.

The language of the site, the predominant colors, the logo of the brand were

redesigned from the results of the online search with consumers.

Assuming that design is a communication agent in the cyber culture, its core

aspect plays an important role in relation to disciplines as the product

semantics, the netnography and the interpretative theory, since they all in

general terms rely on a semiotic approach. As such, design is inserted in a

communicational process, in which products bring in their form a history,

consumption circles, function logic and system of economic values as much as

interfere in the cultural context, creating history and affecting technology and

economy.

From these examples, the designers as pilgrims search and offer sensitive

content as much as register and limit space. As interpreters and proponents of

new realities in the face of history, traditions, human nature and worldviews,

they must be concerned with the study of their interference in the contemporary

world, relying on methods of design and stimulating reflective role.





3. The communication space of netnography

Following Geertz (1988) when he says that anthropology is some form of

participation in the world of the other, Kozinets (2017) points out that

netnography practice:

“(...) includes participation. It includes being fully present in the data

stream, as well as being fully considered a member of a particular

cultural configuration. (…) The other is being present socially, in that

public data stream, as a voice, as social scientist who interacts with

the world, as an academic micro-celebrity, a relevant and publicly

engaged psychological researcher.” (Kozinets 2017 p. 380)

Netnography seeks to identify the behaviors in the contemporary world, through

established performances and people's ways of being, in Web-mediated

relationships. It consists of an approach that happens partially or integrally in

the virtual environment. The Web is the space from where comes most of

relations stablished between designers/companies and consumer/users, but not

the only one. It expands towards other spaces, physical or virtual.

In virtual ethnography or digital ethnography, other ways of naming this

ethnography, the conventional notion of space can be altered, due to the

distance between key informants and the researcher (Santos et al 2018). Most

of the studies are done largely without the presence of the physical locus.

To explore the extension of the field, they mention that impacts of the digital

environment gives to the physical one can be evaluate using online

questionnaires, obtaining face-to-face data from the target audience, making it

possible to contrast the real and the declared (ibid).

One can notice that, from the point of view of design, marketing or

communication, frequently a unilateral character of the use of netnography is

taken, as by producers, companies or processes. However, for Sá (2014)

cyberculture means more than the use of digital technology as just a one side

tool. It acts as a matrix of the meanings of our times, in which spaces are fluid,

deterritorialized, in which oppositions online/virtual and off-line/"real" are

questioned. She also states that, unlike the anthropological approach, where

the past consisted the research space, netnography research focuses on the

relational aspect, on what we are becoming in the future.





In this sense, the concept of supermodernity as a producer of non-places, helps

to understand the fact that, contrary to modernity, place and non-place are

rather fleeting polarities: "the former is never completely erased, and the latter is

never fully realized palimpsests in which the shuffled play of identity and relation

is re-established without ceasing" (Augé 1994 p.74).

In this way, more than cultural description, the interpretive proposal needs to be

revised, from the point of view that in this context interpretation becomes

impermanent. Thus, for the designer, the central point in the use of netnography

could be seen as the identification of the possibilities that open up, both from

the point of view of the company, the user and the consumer, putting in check

the central point of traditional ethnographic studies, the alterity: non-place is the

space of others without the presence of others, the space constituted in

spectacle (Augé 1994). Then, an interpretive theory based upon netnography

becomes a quasi-theory. Its subject isn’t a subject but a relation.

In this respect, it seems that what is at stake in the construction of spaces and

in their own experience, which allows the acceleration of time and the

virtualization of space, is the transformation of ourselves into others, something

that we intend, but of which we do not realize it (Sá 2014). Time is no longer the

same and it is included in the design use of netnography perspective.

Space suggests action at the same time as it limits it. It is the people who

ultimately interact in the middle of this game of possibilities (Sá 2014). Non-

places are places to consume, and to create "new needs" (advertising,

information). They are the ones that characterize the supermodernity (ibid.)

If physical spaces and time are measurable, like a room or the field, one week

or one month, in virtual space, such statements are no more the focus. What is

privileged is the relationship. All layers receive, whatever they are, information.

In non-places, information is made available and often individualized (Augé

1994), creating the shared identity of individuals, consumers/users. Thus,

semiotic interpreting cybernetic culture also demands a non-research place. In

it, object and subject are blended. Company, designer, consumer, user, product

become multiple faces of a single coin. It stresses the ambivalence of traditional

ethnography (Geertz 1983).





On the other hand, this is linked to the concept of network that Castells

proposes, in which space organizes time and its 'spaces of flows' as a set of

advanced services, including finance, insurance, real estate, projects,

marketing, research and development, scientific innovation, etc (Castells 1999).

This reasoning is based on an interpretation of the use of netnography as a

mechanism to sustain these spaces of capital, information, technology,

organizational interaction, images, sounds and symbols. This is the opposite of

an organization rooted in time. Castells's "space of flows" (1999) would be a

place whose form, function and meaning can be considered independent within

the frontiers of physical contiguity. Therefore, to a semiotic interpretation a

cyberculture means to give meaningful structure to a space that does not rely

on a single space, or in a single time.

Sá (2014) explains that by this mechanism the existence of a "lifestyle" that is

similar throughout the whole world, what can be manifested in a design

proposes by the use of certain objects, clothes, worries, symbols of an

international culture. Unconnected to a specific society, its members, with their

different economic, social and cultural situations have great difficulty in

identifying themselves with the space they inhabit. There is a kind of

disconnection from the physical and social space where one lives. Even

cosmopolitan, the individuals remain local.

Marc Augé's "non-places" are exactly the means that allow the circulation of

everything and everyone, "are non-places, insofar as their first vocation is not

territorial, it is not to create singular identities, symbolic relations and patrimony

but rather to facilitate circulation (and thus consumption) in a world with the

dimensions of the planet "(Augé 1994 p.85), like in Illustration 5.





Illustration 5. Non-places, design subject. Source: Mercado e consumo, 2018.

Thus, one can say that the non-spaces of Augé or the spaces flows appear as a

result of the design activity, in terms of physical spaces. However, the design of

spaces of consumption, circulation and communication (Castells 1999), can

also be extend to the networked community.

But one can see also some kind of reinforcement of cultural and individual

meanings. Some studies and companies have been using the web as a co-

design space, bringing the consumer/user needs to their core competences, as

Natura company (Illustration 6).

Illustration 6. Virtual store of the company Natura in the Pintarest, a non-space where

space flows occur. Source: Cosmetic Innovation, 2018.





In this space researcher and consumer/user communicate in a continuous

interactive process, in which the semiotic interpretation of one becomes the

semiotic interpretation of the other.

The reflexive question that derives from it is the meaningful appropriation that

each one elaborates. The pilgrim and the cartographer meet each other here

again.

4. The construction of meaning in netnography

An important question as to the ethnographer's place in virtual space is related

to the limits occupied by his members. So how to interpretate communication in

virtual media where impermanence is constant?

The geographic and spatial notions, fundamental in everyday interactional

experiences that contextualize relations differ in the netnographic approach,

since interactions are mediated by virtual environments, as a symbolic

presence, devoid of physical barriers (Herrera and Passerino 2008). In them,

the researcher leaves traces, entering and leaving community, but his words

maintain present and can be read and commented on, just as other members.

To understand this new set, one can take Geertz says:

“We need not accept hermetic views of écriture as so many signs

signing signs, (…), to see that there has come into our view of what

we read and want we write a distinctly democratical temper. (…)”

(Geertz 1983 p 20)

Thus, researcher integration between designers/researchers and

consumer/users should be considered as an open view of netnography, that

can led even to a poetic construction, as in Geertz’s Works and Lives (1988).

This network communication is constituted by a series of signs, from all parties.

Taking Augé (1994), it constitutes a "rhetorical territory, with all those who are

able to enter into their reasons, all those whose aphorisms, vocabulary and

types of argumentation compose a cosmology" (Augé 1994 p. 73). The

netnography as a participatory research, demanding deep immersion, results

“pretty much entirely on the side of ‘literary’ discourses rather than ‘scientific’

ones” (Geertz 1983 p. 8).





Illustration 7, below, shows a prothesis cover customized by its user. Coming

from a netnographic approach, the final product offers to the users a possibility

to transform it.

Illustration 7. Three different customizations of Confeti prothesis. Source: Archtrends,

2018.

Netnography more and more includes the collaborative perspective. As seen,

netnography consists of an empirical research technique conducted on the

Internet, in which the researcher is allowed and encouraged to gradually join the

group in order to acquire knowledge and transform and improve personally and

socially (Kozinets et al 2018).

But, the distance between company and user/consumer as the distance

between researcher/research operates in a being and not being condition.

Relying on interpretative ethnography (Geertz, 1989), netnography seeks to

interpret observed facts by looking for motives and meanings. In this sense,

netnography, like ethnography, it gives importance to the commitment and

involvement of the researcher with his object of study.

While in traditional ethnographic research the technological artifact stands in

symmetry with human actors and occupies a limited and secondary role in

netnography, technology as a primary factor, as an intrinsic part of the research

process and becomes fundamental, reducing, in some cases, the importance of

visual aspects of the face-to-face approach. Moreover, the non-visualization of

all members of the group makes perceptions of everyday life less valuable,

such as clothes, gestures, personal peculiarities, which in some cases can be





perceived through audio and video (Abelha et al 2012). From this, derives the

instrumental character of the netnographic research used in the field of design.

In this way, both the semantics of the product and the netnography approach

are based on Geertz's (1989) interpretive theory, a semiotic approach, that

considers a multicultural world, of multiple epistemology, demands a specialist

who is able to articulate contextual relations, considering them parts against

each other, associated to culture or history, the relation of those who in some

sense builds it and its relation to the realities conceived around it (Geertz 1989).

On the other hand, it is possible to affirm that the netnography does not differ

much of the traditional ethnography, except for the way in which the immersion

and engagement of the researcher takes place. In some cases, it is said that

the researcher's look at netnography would be less invasive, causing less

interference in the process, since the ethnographer takes into account the

beliefs, ethical identity, sexual orientation etc (Abelha et al 2012). Although an

ethical dimension is considered by most designers/companies, its use is linked

to the research objective itself and does not necessarily advance an ideological

or ecological question.

With respect to the future development of this ethnographic approach, Kozinets

(2017) says that when moving from:

small data to big data, of mass to niche data, of commercial to

scholarly focused, and of the visual to textual, leads us to

conceptualize a range of different relationships to collected and

created data which depend upon assuming different participative and

empiricist perspectives. (Kozinets 2017 p.380)

Other advantages observed in the use of netnography are the ease of

searching and collecting data, the breadth of collection and storage (in time and

space) that can be done through blog posts, for example, and the possibility of

unfolding the research, quickly. We can also consider the fact that interviews

are transcribed (Abelha et al, 2012) According to Primo (2015), social platforms

that operate from custom algorithms and other data mining techniques are built

to obtain information that has monetary value because they represent concepts

and values of users that leave digital traces "and talk about our interests, our

tastes, our relationships, our life stories" (Primo 2015 p. 69). In netnography, the





data are easily extracted, in great proportions, at reduced cost and diminishing

time, through a communication mediated by computers, with richness for the

analysis.

In the case of messages written in forums, emails, mailing lists and blogs, for

example, because they are written texts, there is the possibility of constructing a

narrative or elaborating an opinion without being interrupted by breaking the line

of reasoning. In addition, the text can be better elaborated (Herrera and

Passerino 2008).

It is also worth noting that even with closed environments, messages from

forums and blogs can be accessed, creating a new notion of time and presence

(Mozo, 2005), since the netnographer does not have to be present online the

participants of your research. In addition, the use of emoticons, from upper case

to "loud talk", and onomatopoeia indicating humor, playfulness, such as

hahahaha, kakakakaka, kkkk, and punctuation marks such as exclamation,

questioning and ellipsis, contribute to the manifestation of values, and should be

part of the netnographic interpretative process. As “(…) ‘life is a text’ proponents

incline toward the examination of imaginative forms: jokes, proverbs, popular

arts. (…) (Geertz 1983 p. 33).

In netnography, it is said that the same action is practiced, although there

remains doubt as to the identity of the informant (KONIZETS, 2002). But it does

not differ much from traditional ethnography, where “(…) People use

experience-near concepts spontaneously, un-self-consciously, as it were

colloquially; they do not, except fleetingly and on occasion, recognize that there

are any ‘concepts’ involved at all” (Geertz 1983 p. 58).

As for the question of the identity of the respondents, it is suggested that

traditional triangulation of data with data collection with photos, video and audio

would be necessary, since accurate observation, prolonged engagement, good

interview techniques and the introspection of the researcher themselves

contribute for data validation.





6. From entrée to conclusion: a subtle movement

Linked to the world of the nineteenth century, confronted with distant cultures,

ethnography still retains today its sight to the other, the stranger, seeking, by

means of immersion in the group, to understand cultural meanings. Classically,

it comes from a process of estrangement of the researcher when confronted

with new cultural aspects and behaviors of distant societies. But, in the case of

netnography applied to design, designer and/or company seek to understand

how a certain group considers certain values, either to reinforce them or to

introduce new ones. In some cases, the strangeness is very subtle.

According to Abelha et al (2012), netnography can be used in three main ways:

1) as a methodology for studying cybernetic cultures and virtual communities; 2)

as a methodological tool to study cybernetic cultures and derived virtual

communities; and 3) as an exploratory tool to study topics in general. It is also

associated with 4.0 business netnography, leading to the strengthening of

startups, providing innovation. So, intrinsically the use of social networking

became a daily attitude in companies to stimulate internal and external

collaboration at low cost, making these tools accessible even to the smallest

companies in the market. In addition, they can increase the effectiveness of

organizational strategies, improve the area of R & D, knowledge management

and viral marketing.

Acting as a platform for the dissemination of values, approaching its consumers,

it causes the initial diminishing of difference, including the users/consumers as

members of company’s culture. Thus, unlike ethnographic studies, that can help

preservation of differences, in netnography the quest for the reduction of

difference is its ultimate goal. It thus becomes an approach not only interpretive,

but collaborative and, beyond, persuasive.

As an example of this double function can be observed in user forums, as well

as online research with consumers. In them, the distance is ubiquitous. It is

present and at the same time distant. In some case culture is pasteurized,

insofar as in offering new products the distance is reduced, the intention is

equated with the proposition.





In its origin, ethnography starts from a private, detailed and deeply explored

observation, established in a direct, participant and critical way, in which it

constructs, from the phenomenological data, the conception of the world of its

members. In netnography, by shortening time due to market needs. Some time,

results are treated in an intuitive way, coming closer to the driven innovation

(Verganti, 2012), in which the perception of vague behavioral signals can help

in proposing innovations that will be adopted by future users/consumers.

So, as Geertz points out, “(…) the various disciplines and quasi-disciplines that

make up the arts and sciences are, for those caught up in them, far more than a

set of technical tasks and vocational obligations; they are cultural frames in

terms of which attitudes are formed an lives conducted. (…)” (Geertz 1983 p.

14). In this sense, by simplifying the structure of tasks, it allows intuition in

action, makes things visible, keeps pace with activities, and embraces and

exploits the limitations of the system. The “(…) move toward conceiving of

social life as organized in terms of symbols (…) whose meaning (…) we must

grasp if we are to understand that organization and formulate its principles, has

grown by now to formidable proportions” (Geertz 1983 p. 21), following the

mediascape expansion (Appadurai, 1996).

The use of anthropology as a mode of investigation of these non-places (Augé

1994), which configure the constantly changing virtual spaces, has been

questioned in its capacity to apprehend complex societies. Thus, unlike the

traditional ethnographic approach, in which the object of study could almost be

lived by the researcher, in netnography this does not seem to happen. The

romantic view, often present in the field of design, having the designer a role to

fulfill the gaps of consumer/user desires becomes critical in this approach.

For the future, with the possibilities that the big date and that artificial

intelligence, more emphatically, the prospects of using netnography as a tool for

design becomes even more critical, as Kozinets points out. But, by the data and

the way to appropriate it, by the commercial use, by the consumer/user gratuity

data supply (Primo 2015), as well as by the possibility of establishing speeches

not feasible, not always clear interests, as Illustration 8, shows.





Illustration 8: Fake news e real news in 2018 Brazilian election campaign Source:

Metro 1, 2018.

It is thus part of the future perspective netnography, for design as perhaps for

many other fields, to observe more the relations than to focus on technical

knowledge. Now to solve its subtle ethical dimension may be the most important

issue.

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a Clifford Geertz’s perspective