To End Up With Virtual Ethnography !
This paper proposes a reflection on what is specific to the online fieldwork or in qualitative research about electronic communications. Discussing the argument that the Internet is a new and actually different context for fieldwork, the author argues that it is not so much the context itself that is different, and would requires methodological innovation, but rather the looks worn on the context and commodification of cyberspace as a parallel universe, disconnected from « Real Life ». This led several authors to assume that the electronic environment was radically different, justifying the needs for methodological innovation. The author stresses that the reflections on the context of investigation are routinely ignoring the diversity and plurality of objects of study related to this context, as well as the multiplicity of approaches and positions of discipline found in this research field. She also stresses the need to distinguish the context of the investigation and the object of research to better understand the characteristics different types of approaches.