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Top1. Introduction
Qualitative research techniques flourished with the seminal work of Glaser and Strauss (1967), where the authors introduced grounded theory as a new way to understand and analyse qualitative data. The techniques involved in qualitative studies have evolved with the changing nature of the field and the rapid influence of technology in the data generation process (Coffman & Odlyzko, 2002). For instance, the emergence of web 2.0 facilitated user-generated content where participants can share opinions, experiences, and emotions (Alryalat et al., 2017; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Web 2.0 facilitated collaboration among the users, which led to the creation of web-based communities (Christodoulou & Styliaras, 2013). These communities comprise a group of people who follow similar practices, goals, and interests guided by the community’s norms and policies (Preece, 2000). However, developing and sustaining these communities is challenging (Madanmohan & Navelkar, 2004; Sharpe & Mackness, 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to employ qualitative methods to enhance the existing knowledge on sustaining these communities (Christodoulou & Styliaras, 2013). It led to the emergence of a unique methodology called ‘Netnography’ that is explicitly designed to understand web-based communities and provide valuable insights for platform developers, policymakers, and researchers (Bowler Jr, 2010). It emerged from the path-breaking work of Kozinets (2002), which defines Netnography as a “new qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to study online communities”.
Existing literature suggests that it is crucial to investigate citizen’s perception and attitude towards the online services provided by the government (Hammouri et al., 2021; Hammouri & Shanab, 2017). Netnography can serve as an effective tool in analysing citizen’s perceptions and attitudes by qualitatively analysing their opinions. It can also enrich policy-making by including different stakeholders to develop participatory governance (Lee-Geiller & Taejun (David) Lee, 2019). For instance, the acceptance of a recently launched national health portal can be increased by qualitatively identifying the reason for its low acceptance (Pai & Alathur, 2019) through Netnography. Netnography can also assist in improving governmental benefits and services for relatively scant communities such as Iranian Muslim Women and Recreational Fishermen by providing access to these communities’ opinions (Maya-Jariego et al., 2021; Tavakoli & Mura, 2015).
With the changing nature of technology and increasing data size, there is a need to focus on expanding the boundaries of Netnography as a methodology (Kozinets, Scaraboto, & Parmentier, 2018). Netnography has been used by a lesser number of researchers in their focused areas of inquiry due to insufficient awareness and scarce confidence among researchers (Tavakoli & Mura, 2018). Additionally, new platforms created under the purview of Web 3.0 demand new methods for understanding participants’ behaviour while interacting with the platform and other participants. To raise awareness and confidence among researchers, it is imperative to highlight the available opportunities through Netnography by conducting a comprehensive literature review.