Online ethnography (also known as virtual ethnography or digital ethnography) is an online research method that adapts ethnographic methods to the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated social interaction. As modifications of the term ethnography, cyber-ethnography, online ethnography and virtual ethnography (as well as many other methodological neologisms) designate particular variations regarding the conduct of online fieldwork that adapts ethnographic methodology. There is no canonical approach to cyber-ethnography that prescribes how ethnography is adapted to the online setting. Instead individual researchers are left to specify their own adaptations. Netnography is another form of online ethnography or cyber-ethnography with more specific sets of guidelines and rules, and a common multidisciplinary base of literature and scholars. This article is not about a particular neologism, but the general application of ethnographic methods to online fieldwork as practiced by anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars.

Traditional ethnography study observes the interactions between individuals who are co-located. Ethnographies of online cultures and communities extend ethnographic study to settings where interactions are technologically mediated, not face-to-face. Cyber-ethnography therefore addresses limitations in the traditional notion of a field site as a localized space. It also understands that online communities can create a shared culture through digitally mediated interactions. Although the assertion that ethnographic fieldwork can be meaningfully applied to computer-mediated interactions has been contested, it is increasingly becoming accepted.

Like other early internet researchers, early cyber-ethnographers such as Sandy Stone and Sherry Turkle observed that participants in online role-playing communities enact social performances that can diverge dramatically from their offline personas. This led to the idea that online identities can be segmented from offline ones. Cyber-ethnography was seen as a new kind of methodology that might uncover how the internet would radically change society. However, as the internet reached the mainstream and cyber-ethnographers sought legitimacy, cyber-ethnography was reframed as an adaptation of traditional methods into a new context. Understanding the degree to which divergent performances in online and offline settings reflect a segmentation of identity or a continuous identity performed differently in different contexts remains an important consideration for cyber ethnographers.

Many other aspects of online, computer-mediated, or virtual, interaction and community formation are distinct from their in-person, real life, or face-to-face counterparts. Of central importance is that many interactions in online communities are textual. While these textual artifacts resemble the traces of interaction, they constitute the interactions of interest to the cyberethnographer. They are a different kind of interaction in which body language and other kinds of social cues are absent or translated into signs and text.^{[citation needed]}

The character and level of access available to researchers of online communities are also particular to cyber-ethnography. Whereas face-to-face interactions are ephemeral as they occur, online social interactions are often automatically saved and archived, creating permanent accurate records. Also, distinctions between private and public spaces are often unclear in online communities. Cyber-ethnography attempts to adapt participant-observation procedures such as making cultural entrée, collecting and analyzing data, and conducting ethical research to these computer-mediated contingencies.^{[citation needed]}

Cyber-ethnography has significantly developed with the emergence of new technologies. Almost since their inception, some researchers have acted as lurkers and conducted purely observational studies of online cultures and communities rather than as participant observers in an online community. This approach has been criticized by scholars who argue that researchers should fully participate as members of the online community. These scholars value the traditional ethnographic standards of participant observation, prolonged engagement, and deep immersion. Cyber-ethnography, like traditional ethnography often aims to produce a thick description that can help an outsider understand the meaning of behavior in a culture or community. This focus on participation and immersion makes these approaches quite distinct from qualitative internet research methods like online interviews, and online content analysis. Ethnographic methods are also quite different from quantitative Internet research methods like web usage mining or social network analysis. However some researchers complementary research methods along with cyber-ethnography in order to triangulate their findings.

Ethnographers have approached the study of the Internet in a range of different ways. A variety of terms refer to various formulations of methodological approaches to cyber-ethnography. Many of these seek to maintain their own dialog with the established tradition of ethnography. Each formulates its relation to the established anthropological tradition in different (and sometimes inconsistent) ways. Some think that ethnographies conducted online involve a distinctive methodological approach. Others think that cyber-ethnography is not a distinctive form of ethnography although researching the Internet ethnographically forces us to reflect on fundamental assumptions and concepts of ethnography.

Methods choices need to be directly adapted to the kind of questions a researcher seeks to answer. The main advantages of cyber-ethnography reside in the scope and scale of the available data.^{[citation needed]} Other advantages include seeking input directly from participants. For example, posting raw fieldnotes on a blog and allowing participants to leave comments can provide transparency. Cyber-ethnography also allows for a variety of data collection types and including audiovisual formats, on various platforms such as websites, social networks and forums.