I had a three-month participation observation in this group. Through observation, I grasped the main atmosphere of this city group and primarily knew how people acted in this group. I wrote field notes for my observation to record not only some interesting phenomenon and stories, but also my own feeling about these daily routines. What's more, I used this group for my own purpose as well. I had lived in Shanghai for five years, and came back twice during my researching period for personal reasons. I have posed contents in this group, asking for help. I also interacted with group members even when I was not in Shanghai. These kind of engagements of myself also provide specific findings. 

 

While I found it is not enough to follow the specific research questions since there were too many people in this group. Group members would not pose things very often. Hence it was hard to follow fixed person and to learn how they used this group and what this group meant to them. For solving this problem, I found people from different age groups and conducted deep interviews. I met some of them offline in Shanghai, and also did some audio and video interviews for those who I did not get to meet (since I had to move to London at that time). They shared their offline neighborhoods in Shanghai through the digital form to me, which was interesting ether: I met them in the group of Shanghai and we had had some relations through using it, and now I could engage in their neighborhoods and life environments through this digital connection. It made me feel both real and unreal at the same time. I also had one friend who was not in Shanghai anymore while still uses this group. I had a nice talk with her, which inspired me a lot. After interviews, I found our relationships moving forward: we interacted more in the group; the words between my informants and me were becoming more friendly. It made me have more sense of belonging of this online group.

 

What's more, for one person I interviewed told me that this research helped him think deep in how this group became one part of his life, I started thinking if I can do more to let them participate in this and also learn more. Thus, I asked them doing some mind maps of their own neighborhoods (both online and offline) with me. This part was entirely voluntary. I had some good reflections through this part.

 

I also tried to post a questionnaire in the group with some basic questions such as age groups, locations in Shanghai, how to use this group, etc. (with no sensitive questions in), trying to obtain more reflections to make the data more visualizing. However, the number of answers were poor. But to think in another side, it still served as a good try since it may reveal one of the conclusions that people may only search things and interactions which they are interested in in the online neighborhood.   

At the end of the ethnography, I collected several kinds of data: my field notes, interview notes, interview recordings (audio and videos), the videos shotted by my informants, screen shots and the works made by my informants and me.