Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKIJCInternational Journal of Consumer Studies1470-6423 2006 The Author; Journal compilation 2006 Blackwell Publishing

g Ltd20063100288294Original Article Netnography as a consumer education

research toolJ.A. Sandlin

International Journal of Consumer Studies ISSN 1470-6431

Netnography as a consumer education research tool

Jennifer A. Sandlin
Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development, College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

Keywords Consumer education, informal consumer education, netnography, qualitative methodology. Correspondence Jennifer A. Sandlin, Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development, College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, 4226 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4226, USA. E-mail: jsandlin@coe.tamu.edu doi: 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2006.00550.x

Abstract
Netnography is a research methodology in use since the late 1990s in the elds of consumer behaviour and marketing, but not fully utilized by researchers in the eld of consumer education. This article argues that netnography is a helpful research tool for consumer education researchers who are interested in capturing and critically examining the education and learning occurring in informal sites of consumer education, especially in online communities. This article also presents an example of recent research conducted using netnography to understand how readers of the informal consumer education lifestyle magazine Budget Living created their own interpretations of meaning from the magazine.

Introduction
Netnography (Kozinets, 2002a), a research methodology in use since the late 1990s in the elds of consumer behaviour and marketing, has not yet been fully utilized by researchers in the eld of consumer education. This article argues that netnography is a helpful research tool for consumer education researchers studying the education and learning occurring in informal consumer education sites, especially in online communities. Elsewhere (Sandlin, 2005) I have argued that learning around issues of consumption occurs in many informal sites of consumer education, including popular culture budget-oriented lifestyle magazines (such as Budget Living, Real Simple and ReadyMade in the US), informal study circles where individuals gather to discuss issues of consumerism and consumption (examples include study circles exploring issues of voluntary simplicity and other simpleliving lifestyle choices), and social movements centred on consumer advocacy and resisting consumption (such as the Canadian-based anticorporate activist group Adbusters, the global labour rights activist organization Students Against Sweatshops and other culture-jamming (Lasn, 1999) organizations seeking to confront corporate power and over-consumption). Many of these popular culture sites and informal community groups also have presences on the World Wide Web, where individuals congregate in cyberspace to learn from each other, share information and engage in collective and individual self-directed learning (Candy, 1991). I view all of these arenas as sites of informal consumer education, following adult educators (Brookeld, 1986; Armstrong, 2000) and curriculum theorists (Giroux and Simon, 1989;
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Giroux, 2004; Ellsworth, 2005; McLaren and Leonardo, 2005) who argue that popular culture and mass media (e.g. soap operas, television and popular magazines) are forms of public pedagogy or education. Popular culture has been described as an arena that produces meanings, social practices, desires and identities within and among the public (Giroux, 1999). I posit therefore that along with crafting gendered, raced and classed identities, popular culture is a form of informal consumer education that denes what it means to be a citizen and a consumer. That is, through interactions with consumption-related popular culture, readers and viewers become learners who are taught normative ideas about what it means to be a consumer. Researchers in consumer education, however, have not focused a great deal of attention on these informal sites of consumer education, although they are many and are growing in numbers (Sandlin, 2005). This article presents an overview of one methodological tool netnography that consumer education researchers could use to investigate and better understand these popular culture and Internet-based informal sites of education and learning. To provide an illustration of this methodology, I also briey discuss how I used netnography to examine one arena of popular culture-based informal consumer education: the budget-oriented lifestyle magazine Budget Living and its online readers forums.

An overview of netnography
Kozinets (1997, 1998, 2001, 2002a,b), one of the leading researchers utilizing netnography in the elds of marketing and consumer behaviour, has dened netnography, or Internet-based

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Netnography as a consumer education research tool

ethnography, in terms of both product and process. As a product, a netnography is a written account of on-line cyberculture, informed by the methods of cultural anthropology (Kozinets, 1997, p. 470). As a process or research methodology, netnography is a new qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to study the cultures and communities that are emerging through computer-mediated communications (Kozinets, 2002a, p. 62). Netnography has been used as a marketing research technique, in which publicly available information typically information found in online discussion groups is used to identify and understand the needs and decision inuences of relevant online consumer groups (Kozinets, 2002a, p. 62). Netnography arose as a research methodology in response to the cultural phenomenon of the growth of the Internet and the increase in consumers using the Internet both to gather information to make informed consumer decisions and to form relationships and communities with others who are interested in similar lifestyles, products and brands (Kozinets, 2002a). Kozinets (2002a) states that consumers are using newsgroups, chat rooms, email servers, personal World Wide Web pages, and other online formats to share ideas, build communities, and contact fellow consumers who are seen as more objective information sources than corporatesponsored information and advertising (p. 61). Marketing researchers, whose goals include identifying and understanding the tastes, decision-making processes and desires of consumers, have increasingly focused on online communities as they have grown more popular (Kozinets, 2002a). Netnography has been used as a way of bringing anthropological methods into marketing and marketing research (Kozinets, 2002b). As such, it views online gatherings of consumers interested in similar lifestyles, products and brands, as virtual communities. Netnography is used to understand virtual communities in the same ways that anthropologists seek to understand the cultures, norms and practices of face-to-face communities. Netnography allows the researcher to gain access to consumer discussions by observing and/or participating in communications on publicly available online forums (Nelson and Otnes, 2005, p. 90). Netnography has been used in the elds of marketing and consumer behaviour to examine a number of topics and consumer groups, including brides-to-be planning cross-cultural weddings (Nelson and Otnes, 2005); new social movements of consumer activism such as those focused on anti-advertising, anti-Nike corporation and antigenetically engineered foods (Kozinets and Handelman, 2004) and Hong-Kong based human rights organization Queer Sisters (Nip, 2004); online coffee communities (Kozinets, 2002a); Star Trek fans (Kozinets, 2001); consumer boycott communities (Kozinets and Handelman, 1998); X-Files fans (Kozinets, 1997); and the consumption of nostalgia through the retrobrands Volkswagons New Beetle and Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (Brown et al., 2003). Within the eld of marketing research, researchers have long used qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews (Thompson, 1997), focus groups (Calder, 1977) and market-oriented ethnography (Arnould and Wallendorf, 1994). In the late 1990s, marketing researchers began adapting and expanding marketoriented ethnographic methods to online formats, specically through what Kozinets (2002a) termed netnography. As a marketing research technique, netnography uses the information that is publicly available in online forums to identify and understand

the needs and decision inuences of relevant online consumer groups (Kozinets, 2002a, p. 62). While traditional (face-to-face) ethnographic research is incredibly time consuming, typically consisting of months of eld work and in-depth observations and interviews (Wolcott, 1994), netnography is far less time consuming and elaborate (Kozinets, 2002a, p. 62). In addition, traditional ethnographic research requires a considerable amount of time to become immersed in the eld, and always carries with it a potential researcher effect whereby the presence of the researcher affects or interrupts the natural, normal practices of everyday life (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). Netnography, on the other hand, can be conducted entirely unobtrusively, if desired (Kozinets, 2002a). Like traditional ethnography, netnography is naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), meaning that it captures individuals and groups in their natural settings, conducting their everyday life practices. Unlike unnatural, market-produced situations such as interviews and focus groups, netnography captures consumers in their own, natural environments, providing researchers with a window into naturally occurring behavior (Kozinets, 2002a, p. 62), as consumers chat with one another, discuss information and search for information on line. Traditional ethnographic methods include (1) gaining entre into the culture or group one wants to investigate; (2) gathering and analysing data; (3) ensuring trustworthiness of data interpretation; (4) conducting ethical research; and (5) member checking, or getting feedback from participants (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Lecompte et al., 1993; Wolcott, 1994; Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995; Carspecken, 1996; Kozinets, 2002a; Bogdan and Biklen, 2003). Kozinets (2002a) provides guidelines for reinterpreting or adapting these guidelines to the online context, discussed below. In netnography, entre involves identifying the online communities most relevant to a researchers particular research interest as well as learning as much as possible about the communities that are identied. Kozinets (2002a) distinguishes at least ve different types of online communities: (1) electronic bulletin boards; (2) independent Web pages or Web rings; (3) listservs; (4) multiuser dungeons; and (5) chat rooms, each of which provide different kinds of information to researchers. A researcher can judge the suitability of any particular group for his or her research according to the following criteria. Kozinets (2002a) argues that groups are preferred that have (1) a more focused and research questionrelevant segment, topic, or group; (2) higher trafc of postings; (3) larger numbers of discrete message posters; (4) more detailed or descriptively rich data; and (5) more betweenmember interactions of the type required by the research questions (p. 63). When researchers have identied the community or communities they want to investigate, they should spend some time among the group to get a reasonable understanding of the characteristics and norms of that group (Kozinets, 2002a). There are two types of data collected when conducting a netnography: (1) the written communications occurring between and among participants in the online setting (which, for analysis, are typically copied and pasted into word processor documents on the researchers computer); and (2) the researchers own eldnotes, in which he or she describes, reects upon, and analyses what he or she is observing during the research process (Kozinets, 2002a). To handle the sometimes overwhelming amounts of data that netnography can generate (Dholakia and Zhang, 2004), Kozinets (2002a) suggests rst classifying messages as to
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whether they are primarily social or informational, and primarily on or off topic. Once messages that are directly related to the investigators research questions are identied, a data analysis approach similar to grounded theory or the constant comparative method (Glaser and Straus, 1967; Straus and Corbin, 1990; Merriam, 1998) can be conducted, with the help of a computer assisted qualitative data analysis software such as Atlas.ti, NUD*IST or NVivo (Kozinets, 2002a). Kozinets (2002a) warns that trustworthiness can be a particularly sticky issue with netnography because of the fully textual nature of the data collected from online participants. He states that the uniquely mutable, dynamic, and multiple online landscape mediates social representation and renders problematic the issue of informant identity (p. 64). Dholakia and Zhang (2004) and Zwick and Dholakia (2004) also state that issues of informant identity are potentially problematic in online research. That is, in online contexts, participants might be more likely to present a selfimage that is signicantly different than their real selves, which could possibly undermine the trustworthiness of the data collected. In addition, in online communities, demographic characteristics of participants cannot be collected or veried. Dholakia and Zhang (2004) explain that with online research, a researcher cannot be sure that people are who they actually claim to be. To address some of these issues, Kozinets (2002a) urges researchers to make the unit of analysis the speech act or communication, and not the individual. He also argues that blatant misrepresentation is frowned upon by most online communities, where codes of etiquette discourage this sort of behaviour through aming, ostracism, and banishment (Kozinets, 2002a, p. 65). To ensure the most trustworthy data possible, Kozinets (2002a) urges researchers to immerse themselves in the culture of the community through long-term engagement. As in any form of research, netnographers must address the issue of ethics. Kozinets (2002a) describes two major ethical issues surrounding online research, including netnography: (1) Are online forums to be considered a private or a public site?; and (2) What constitutes informed consent in cyberspace? (p. 65). Haggerty (2004) states that these ethical issues remain unresolved among qualitative researchers conducting research online, explaining that some researchers view online data as public pronouncements, comparable to letters to the editor, and as such amenable to academic analysis without the necessity of ethical review (p. 405). On the other hand, some researchers argue that users of the Internet operate with an assumption of privacy and condentiality (Haggerty, 2004, p. 405); these researchers are more likely to advocate for the use of informed consent and disclosure on the part of the researcher. Kozinets (2002a) favours this latter position, urging researchers to (1) fully disclose their presence in the community and explain their research; (2) ensure participants of their condentiality and anonymity; (3) seek feedback from participants; and (4) obtain informed consent before using specic quotations in ones writing. Other researchers, however, including Langer and Beckman (2005), justify their use of completely covert netnography in which participants were not informed of the researchers presence or research when researching the sensitive topic of cosmetic surgery, by arguing that revealing themselves as researchers would have potentially endangered the research project if participants had opposed the research. They also argue that the message boards
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are open to researchers because they are public communication media (Langer and Beckman, 2005, p. 197). Finally, in traditional qualitative research, member checking is the process of presenting research ndings back to research participants, in order to get their comments on the researchers interpretations of data (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Kozinets (2002a) argues that member checks are particularly useful in netnographic research because they allow researchers to gain new knowledge that can deepen understandings otherwise based solely on observational online data. Because member checks are typically conducted after data collection and analysis has ended, member checks also help researchers address some of the ethical issues encountered in netnographic methods, while still preserving the value of unobtrusive observation (Kozinets, 2002a, p. 66). Finally, member checks allow researchers to develop ongoing relationships with online communities, something missing in some, although certainly not all, traditional qualitative research, where the completion of a study often means the end of the relationship with participants. However, some researchers, such as Langer and Beckman (2005) argue against the necessity of presenting research ndings back to participants, especially when the netnography was conducted completely unobtrusively.

Netnography in consumer education research

While netnography is beginning to be used more frequently within consumer behaviour and marketing research, the eld of consumer education has not used netnography in any extensive way. I believe netnography is a promising methodological tool that consumer researchers and educators can use to investigate consumer education especially Web-based informal sites of education and learning that are focused on issues of consumption and consumerism. As an adult educator who is interested in the politics of curriculum in consumer education for adults, I also see netnography as a helpful tool for researchers in understanding how curricular ideology is transmitted and negotiated through popular culture texts and interactions with those texts. It has long been understood by critical curriculum researchers that texts and other curricular materials contain particular points of view that operate in particular groups interests. Apple and Christian-Smith (1991) state that texts signify particular constructions of reality, particular ways of selecting and organizing that vast universe of possible knowledge (p. 6). Critical curriculum researchers also argue that learners are not passive recipients of curricular knowledge, however. Therefore, educators cannot understand how curriculum works unless we take very seriously the way students actually read them (Apple and Christian-Smith, 1991, p. 16). In traditional classroom settings, one way to understand learners reactions to texts is to interview them, and observe them as they read and talk about texts. This is harder to do when a researcher is interested in popular culture texts that teach readers how to be consumers, because readers of those popular culture texts (including magazines) are rarely in the same physical room together. However, readers of popular culture texts are increasingly utilizing the Internet to form online communities with other individuals who are pursuing the same lifestyle, leisure and educational activities. I propose that netnography is one useful tool to understand how learners are negotiating meaning from informal consumer education texts.

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Example research project: Budget Living and its readers forums

To illustrate how netnography can be used to help inform understandings of how learners negotiate meanings from popular culture informal consumer education texts a research project was undertaken which combined a critical textual analysis of one consumer education lifestyle magazine, Budget Living, with a netnography of the readers of this magazine. The purpose of this study was to explore the consumer education lifestyle magazine Budget Living, and the readers who discuss the magazine through the magazines online discussion board. The texts were assessed to determine what ideological constructions of good consumer are being advocated in the magazine in essence, how does Budget Living teach its readers to be consumers? While it is certainly important to interrogate consumer education texts whether used in formal or informal consumer education settings for the worldviews they hold (Giroux, 1999), it is equally important to determine how readers are negotiating meaning from those texts. Because I was able to gain only partial understanding by looking solely at the Budget Living texts, I also analysed readers reactions to the texts. Towards this end, I conducted a netnography to explore the online discussion boards where readers of the magazine react to the magazine and discuss issues of consumption with each other.

cheapskate and a serious shopaholic? and answers, The answer is simple: if stuff is inexpensive, you can buy a heckuva lot more of it (Budget Living, October/November 2004, p. 22). Second, the magazine frames getting a bargain as getting something different, cool, or quirky. While the magazine does pay attention to and promote dirt cheap, inexpensive and sometimes free commodities and experiences, these commodities and experiences are not a bargain just because they are inexpensive, however. The overriding factor that determines if something is a bargain or not is whether it is different, cool, or quirky. This value is clear when the magazine urges consumers to splurge. Splurges are typically described in terms of their coolness or uniqueness and their ability to set the buyer apart from the masses and show a unique style; the message is that it is worth extra money to buy interesting and unique things. Finally, a good consumer is framed as a cool consumer one who embraces consumption, seeks out interesting/unique commodities, and then uses consumption/commodities to craft a cool, alternative identity. The editor consistently stresses the value of individuality, and implies that creative consumption can lead to individuality.

Readers of Budget Living: the discussion boards

In order to understand the ways in which readers of Budget Living negotiate meaning from the magazine, the methodology of netnography was used. Below is a description of how I used netnography, as well as a brief presentation of relevant ndings. Entre Entre into the community was fairly easy because the group best suited to answer my research questions was easily identied and located on the Internet. Because I have subscribed to the magazine since its inception, and consider myself a critical fan of the magazine, I was already familiar with the online Budget Boards and had participated in them prior to conducting this research. Because of this familiarity with the magazine and the Budget Boards, I also already had some knowledge of the group and its interests. Data collection I therefore chose to investigate the magazines online discuss forums, called the Budget Boards, where readers of the magazine come together to discuss what they have read and to form communities with others who have similar interests in issues of living on a budget. To collect data, discussions were monitored in the Budget Boards between April 2004 and September 2004. During this time posts from the boards were cut and pasted into a word processor, and then transferred into the qualitative data analysis program Atlas.ti. Archived posts posted between February 2003 and April 2004 were also collected. In the Budget Boards, there are 12 main forums with topics like collecting, decorating and fashion/beauty. During the time period of this research, there were over 600 topics, and over 2500 posts, posted between 10 February 2003 and 24 September 2004. In September 2004, the forums had 960 registered users as well as many other unregistered guests. Finally, I kept reective eldnotes, in which ongoing
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Budget Living: the texts

In order to provide some context for the netnographic portion of the research, a brief overview of the magazine is provided. Budget Living is a relatively new lifestyle magazine. I have subscribed to the magazine since its inception, and my analysis covered the rst 2.5 years of the magazine 15 issues printed between November 2002 and March 2005. Budget Living is published bimonthly, with a cover price of $3.99, and has a circulation of 500 000 and a readership of 2.9 million (Budget Living Inc, 2005). Budget Living features informal reviews of a variety of consumer goods and activities, including decorating, entertaining, furniture, fashion, beauty, gadgets, travel and collecting; a section on do-it-yourself projects; two regular columns devoted to nancial education, featuring Clark Howard, a popular US-based consumer educator who hosts a US-wide consumer advocacy radio programme; and features on decorating, partying and travelling on a budget. The rst step in this research was to understand the magazine and to determine how the magazine teaches learners to be consumers. The magazine uses three major frames to teach readers a particular vision of relating to the consumer world. First, the idea of budget living is framed as the voracious consumption of bargains. By far the largest amount of space in the magazine is devoted to selling products. Combining paid advertisements with the Budget Living-generated text devoted to selling, 66% of each issue is devoted to selling products. This is compared with 4% devoted to nancial education, and 17% devoted to decorating, partying and travelling on a budget. Encouraging readers to buy is one of the major points of the magazine. The editor, through her letters, constantly denes for the reader what budget means and makes it clear that living on a budget does not mean eschewing consumption. The editor candidly admits that while she loves a bargain, she also loves to shop. She also asks the question: So how can one be both a conrmed

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analysis occurred through observers comments (Bogdan and Biklen, 2003, p. 115) and researchers memos (Glaser and Straus, 1967). Analysis and interpretation Using Kozinets (2002a) approach, I separated posts into those that were relevant to my research questions, and those that were off topic; uploaded all data into the qualitative software package Atlas.ti; and analysed the data using the constant comparative technique (Glaser and Straus, 1967). As meaning emerged from the data, tentative themes were explored, following the main research questions which focused on how readers of Budget Living were negotiating meaning from the texts. Ethics and member checks In a departure from Kozinets (2002a) guidelines, but following other researchers like Langer and Beckman (2005), I chose in this study to be a participant observer but not to identify myself as a researcher, for several reasons. First, the Budget Boards are open to the public and widely available, and were thus treated as public communication media, open to all and therefore available for study, following Langer and Beckman (2005). However, this was not the primary consideration. The Budget Boards are hosted by the publishers website. This connection raised issues I felt would best be addressed by not revealing my researcher status. As I knew from frequenting the Budget Boards before this research started, there was already a sense of mistrust among some of the readers who posted on the Budget Boards about whether or not the information they were providing was being used as market research. In order to avoid speculation that I was some sort of mole, or that this research was going to be used to further the interests of the publishers of Budget Living, I decided against revealing my researcher role, and instead to simply participate as a member of the group. The nal reason chosen for not revealing my researcher status relates to my role as a member of the community. As a faithful subscriber to and reader of Budget Living and a previous participant in the Budget Boards I already felt a sense of belonging in this group and therefore participated in discussions as a guest, as I had done before conducting this research. In future netnographic research, however, especially in cases where there is a lack of familiarity with or membership in the community under study, I will probably identify myself as a researcher, for the reasons Kozinets (2002a) discussed.

embraced (they dene budget in terms of living frugally) by the magazine, and they feel that their denition is more real. Issues of authenticity are discussed frequently among this group, as they critique the magazine for not being truly about frugality and for presenting goods and activities that no real people could afford. One poster stated, for instance, I was amused (a little dumbfounded) by the article Ranch Dressing in the August/ September 2003 issue. By my humble calculations, these newlyweds who bought a 50s home and then decided they didnt like 50s furniture spent $2000 on rugs, $6600 on furniture and $931 on other items. Seeing articles like this about someones frugal air makes me want to gag. Anyone can have air with $10 000 to spend. This group does not embrace the sense of aesthetics nor the sense of style that is promoted by the magazine. This group is also very interested in community, and seems to reject the magazine while completely embracing the budget online bulletin boards, where they share real frugality tips with each other. Many members of this group express the sentiment that they get so much more from the message boards than they ever do from the magazine. The embracers: Budget Living is less about Income brackets than it is about style This group of readers rejects the notion that the magazine must be authentically about frugality and living on a strict budget, and read the magazine more guratively. They see the magazine as a place to get inspiration and ideas, and they are not so xated on frugality. One poster stated, for example, I love the magazine. I would say that your magazine is less about income brackets than it is about style. I have shared your magazine with friends of all different backgrounds and they all enjoyed the articles. The magazine seems to be about incorporating style and fun into your everyday life without spending a fortune and that appeals to people from every economic background. These readers are also very interested in crafting a particular style and identity. Members of this group embrace the hip style of the magazine and strive to attain the same kind of style in their own lives. The participant critics: Budget Living is as diverse as . . . a white only country club This group is much more overtly political than the other groups, and critiques the magazine for failing to embrace diversity of race, class and gender, and for not addressing ethical issues of consumption and consumer society. One poster wrote, For some reason when I look at the front cover of BL, there is a fragrant air of white supremacy. Am I overreacting? Maybe, but that was my rst impression. This group for the most part is drawn to the magazine because of an afnity for the hip style, but do not uncritically embrace the message of the magazine; rather, they seek to politicize it. Many readers in this group try to start conversations with other readers addressing these issues, and urge others to write the editor raising such issues. One reader, for instance, says, I want individuals to be aware of the issues Ive raised. It would be lovely if there could be a continuous stream of letters to the Editor about their denition of regular people, because that group doesnt seem to include me. Hopefully, if I continue to post, I will turn someones head and perk someones ear. Other readers sometimes

Findings
This section reports ndings from my analysis of the readers discussion board, in order to illustrate the kinds of ndings that can be generated from netnographic research. Through this analysis, I found three major types of readers, based on their reading of the magazine and reactions to it. The rejecters: Who has this kind of budget? This group of readers take the magazine at face value and reads it literally their denition of budget is very different than the one
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engage them in conversation; oftentimes no one does, though. These readers sometimes join more mainstream conversations and stop raising political issues; others simply quit the forums in disgust.

Conclusion
This paper presents an overview of the methodology of netnography, especially as it has been developed and used within the elds of marketing and consumer behaviour. It argues that consumer educator researchers should explore netnography as a useful research methodology to investigate informal sites of consumer education, using methods outlined in this paper. The case study shows that the netnographic portion of the research was an integral part of understanding the meanings of the informal consumer education text Budget Living. The textual analysis of the magazine only provided a partial and static understanding of that particular site of consumer education. The netnographic portion of the research enabled me to determine that, instead of unquestioningly accepting the educational messages of the magazine, readers found meaning from the magazines and created alternative constructions and enactments of what it means to practice budget living. Netnography can thus be helpful for researchers who are interested in examining the ways in which consumers are educated and socialized as consumers in informal ways, outside of formal classroom settings. It can also be helpful for consumer education researchers who are responding to McGregor (1999) call to infuse consumer education with citizenship education and to foster empowerment through consumer education (McGregor, 2005). She states that consumer-citizens engage in a life-long socialization process, with the interest of others and the environment balanced against self-interest in the marketplace (McGregor, 1999, p. 208). She goes on to explain that one goal of citizenship education is to increase the rate and quality of social participation (McGregor, 1999, p. 208) among students. I posit that one arena of social participation and lifelong learning around issues of consumption is occurring is through popular culture and Internetbased communities. Netnography is one way to better understand how learners are participating in and enacting these new forms of community and consumption-oriented learning. Consumer educators could also utilize netnography in more formal classroom settings as a way towards creating the kind of consumer education presented by Benn (2002), in which learners more beyond an egocentric understanding of consumer education towards a type of consumer education that takes into account the complete history of the goods and the circumstances under which they have been produced (p. 172). Students could conduct their own mini-netnographies of online consumer communities to help them understand the social contexts of consumption and production; these mini-netnographies could also help learners comprehend the complex meanings consumers create through the processes of consumption and production.

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