Non-Reactive Strategy: Unobtrusive Methods of Gathering Sociological Information in Web 2.0 Age - Evidence from Digital Ethnography and Big Data

Abstract

The article in question describes the key elements and prospects of non-interference methodology, which goes in Western literature under the name of "unobtrusive” or "non-reactive” strategy. The first part of the article provides critical description of the history of non-reactive strategy, namely its transition from limited studies of physical traces of human activity to the research of virtual reality objects. Based on a brief overview of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 concepts, the article describes the most appropriate uses of unobtrusive and non-reactive research in analysis of digital traces left by users through the global web and other modern communication technologies. The article reveals the importance of Web 2.0 technologies for studying not only the interaction of individual users, but also their activities, interests and preferences as well as other phenomena of interosculation between real and virtual life. Furthermore, the authors focalize their attention on two different directions in non-reactive methodology, namely an "open” digital ethnography and the analysis of large amounts of unordered data, better known as Big Data. It might be collected by social scientists through cooperation with the biggest actors in the sphere of information technologies and with other scientific disciplines, providing their expertise and technological equipment for processing hundreds of terabytes of raw data. The analysis of dynamical development of methodological elements in non-reactive study (both in the pre-digital era and in the conditions of the total spread of the Internet) reveals its main advantages and disadvantages, such as the high level of accessibility, security, repeatability, validity and ethics of this strategy. Besides the text specifies characteristics of network research, including anonymity; shifts in the effect of social desirability to the area of aggressive behavior; the correlation between user’s actions and the operational standards of specific social networks and sites.