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European Journal of Social Sciences Studies ISSN: 2501-8590 ISSN-L: 2501-8590 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/soc Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1065469 ETHNOGRAPHY, INTERNET AND FOLKLORE STUDIES Gasouka Mariai Associate Professor in Folklore Studies and Gender, Department of Science Education and Educational Design, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece Abstract: In our days, Internet needs to be studied not only as a technological phenomenon but also as a social and cultural one with the aim to achieve the needed balance between humanity and technology. This exploration is possible in the context of Folklore despite the pessimistic predictions of its future, in a world which dominated by global economic integration - which is also a global market of ideas and values - science and high technology. Folklorists should integrate the internet into their field of research, particularly in the field of ethnographic research. The internet is offered to transfer the research from the traditionals and real communities to the virtuals. Keywords: Internet, virtual ethnography, folklore, cyberculture Abstract During the last years internet is approached both as a cultural field and tool (Gasouka & Foulidi, 2012). Internet, as a cultural space, allows the emergence of new types of social formations such as virtual communities and it is offered for new type of ethnographic research. So a significant number of female and male researchers study the social, cultural and other formations they encounter on the internet. However, there are a lot of reservations about the use of the ethnographic research method on the internet. The main argument is that the aim of Ethnography is the study and promotion of real worlds, as real people perceives and expresses them and it cannot be implemented in technological environments. Despite the major objections that have been formulated Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 42 Gasouka Maria ETHNOGRAPHY, INTERNET AND FOLKLORE STUDIES and they focus mainly on issues of commitment and accountability, but also if they are really communities when their members are able to choose both to disconnect and shut down their computer, the views which support the validity of online Ethnography seem to prevail. In their context, there is an equal participation of female and male users in these new folk forms beyond class, gender, ethnic, sexual divisions and barriers. There are also new languages and codes based on animations, abbreviations, jokes, etc. All the above, they form wide communities with common practices, ideological coherence and intra communal linguistic communication. Thus, we are redrafting the term society which exceeds the physical limits, as well as the term identity whose liquidity is expanded and often mediated by the female or male user's imagination, her/his intimate wishes and the lies she/he can easily use in communication ii. It is no coincidence that we often refer in the internet to fragmented identities , which differ from those of the user's in real life. One or another way for several writers such as Poster (1995) or Jones (1997) communities are just one of the many different online transfers which are valid on the internet and the ethnographic narrative that related to them is one of the many online narratives. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/soc/index.php/EJSSS/article/view/259 The case of MUD's is a typical example where the female and male user's description is done with physically criteria as is the case in other contexts that reproduce texts. However, we must pay attention to all of this: It is completely different the female and male internet users to play with their identities than to challenge technology that causes changes in our concepts of identity. ii European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 43