Trivial and Normative? Online Fieldwork within YouTube's Beauty Community

Bibliographic Data

ID2365585
AuthorsFlorencia García-Rapp (0000-0001-5692-6505, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume48
Issue5
Pages619-644
Publication date2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary Ethnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0891-2416 • E-ISSN: 1552-5414
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0891241618806974
OpenAlexW2898454947
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited22

In this article, I discuss methodological understandings around qualitative research and online ethnographic practice to bring forward a reflexive account on the particularities of doing fieldwork on YouTube. I draw from a multiyear ethnographic examination of YouTube's beauty community that sought to understand online popularity framed by local norms and practices and shed light into the local significance of knowledge, expertise, and self-development. I argue for an epistemological perspective that acknowledges the diversity of viable, conceivable fieldwork experiences while distancing from prescriptive modes of argumentation. I propose seeing fieldwork in and through its richness and predicaments, persistently naturalistic while interpretive. I approach online popularity, fandom, and even YouTube itself from a perspective that tolerates ambivalence, contradictions, and embraces the complexity of social worlds and human interaction

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Argumentation theory · Beauty · Distancing · Diversity (politics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Fandom · Media studies · Normative · Online community · Perspective (graphical · Popularity · Reflexivity · Social science · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Computer Science · Focus Groups and Qualitative Methods · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics · Social Psychology

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