AUTHOR=Owens Lisa Lucile 

TITLE=Encountering deception in virtual spaces: guidelines for virtual ethnography

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sociology

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1163560

DOI=10.3389/fsoc.2023.1163560

ISSN=2297-7775

ABSTRACT=This Perspective Essay draws from an experience of deception in virtual eldwork and considers implications for those designing methodologies for virtual ethnographies. As qualitative eld work increasingly takes place within virtual spaces and through virtual means, researchers are faced with critical dilemmas in the processes of data gathering and veri cation. One of these dilemmas concerns ensuring data validity and facticity if encountered with research subjects who are deceptive about their identity, experiences, or relationship to the eld of research. This Perspective Essay o ers speci c guidelines concerning articulating the nature and possibilities of deception in virtual spaces, identifying deceptive data, and what to do with deceptive data in order to maintain data validity and transparency.