Netnography Evolved (Kozinets and Gretzel, 2024)

Welcome to Revise and Resubmit, the podcast where we take you on a journey through the world of academic research, making complex ideas accessible and exciting. Today, we’re exploring a paper that sheds light on an innovative, ever-evolving research method that is transforming how we study tourism in the digital age. It’s titled Netnography Evolved: New Contexts, Scope, Procedures, and Sensibilities, authored by Robert V. Kozinets and Ulrike Gretzel, and published in the Annals of Tourism Research by Elsevier in January 2024. Netnography, if you haven’t heard of it, is a qualitative research method used to study digital communities and cultures. It’s been especially impactful in tourism research, helping us understand how travelers engage with online platforms and how digital traces tell the story of human experiences. But in this paper, Kozinets and Gretzel push the boundaries even further. They show how netnography has adapted to new technologies, like AI, and expanded its reach into immersive digital environments, all while maintaining its rigorous, ethical foundations. The question is: as tourism becomes more digital and data becomes more complex, how can netnographers maintain the balance between adapting to change and staying true to the method’s core principles? Before we dive deeper, let’s thank Robert V. Kozinets, Ulrike Gretzel, and Elsevier for publishing this thought-provoking work. So here’s what we’re left wondering: as netnography evolves, could it become the key to understanding the ever-changing relationship between humans, technology, and travel? Let’s find out. Reference Kozinets, R. V., & Gretzel, U. (2024). Netnography evolved: New contexts, scope, procedures and sensibilities. Annals of Tourism Research, 104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2023.103693