Digital Ethnography: Researching International Students in the Digital Age

The Centre for Research in Educational and Social Inclusion (CRESI) and Deakin’s Centre for Research for Educational Impact (REDI) invite you to an event in the Emerging Methodological Issues in Educational Research Series.

In this seminar, REDI member Dr Andy (Xinyu) Zhao will use his doctoral study (2015-2019) on Chinese international students’ everyday use of social media in Australia to discuss the opportunities, challenges and ethics of doing digital ethnographic studies. He will first identify the benefits of digital ethnography in the context of an emerging ‘digital migration studies’ research agenda. He will also unpack the challenges he has encountered during the ethnographic fieldwork, on both conceptual and practical levels. The seminar will conclude with some reflections on the ethics of doing digital ethnographic studies.

Dr Andy (Xinyu) Zhao is a Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Deakin University. His work focuses on everyday digital cultures and practices in migration contexts. He is author of Social Media in the Lives of Young Connected Migrants (Routledge, 2023) and co-editor of Children, Media and Pandemic Parenting (Routledge, 2024). Andy is currently researching the political economy of digital childhoods and cultural diversity in contemporary digital parenting.

For further information, please contact Professor Keita Takayama (CRESI) or Dr Tebeje Molla (REDI).