Information technology in ethnographic research

The article represents an overview of the directions of modern ethnographic research using digital technologies to establish the areas and forms of their application, indicating the advantages and disadvantages of existing technologies. The analysis of conference materials and publications reflecting the level of use of information technologies in the humanities, including ethnography, is carried out. The standard levels of understanding the use of IT in ethnography are revealed philosophical, general scientific and specific scientific levels. Research topics include issues of manifestation of ethnicity and confession in social networks and websites, presentation of cultural heritage, problems of the Internet as an information network on issues of business, crafts, nutrition, semiosphere, communicative space, peculiarities of methods for studying virtual space, monitoring social processes, the role of virtual space and information technologies in the life of communities, general issues of methodology and the development of methods for using digital technologies in ethnographic research. A separate area is devoted to testing the possibilities of using existing digital technologies in the study of material culture, primarily buildings and structures. Currently, a general methodology has been developed for fixing and information modeling of large and mediumsized objects. The technique for small objects is testing. Tools and systems such as BIM, laser scanning, photogrammetry, GIS, holography, software (e.g., AutoCAD, Revit) allow to capture and visualize data, which provides a full-fledged study of objects of material culture without involving real objects. The method of fixing and processing data, which gives the accuracy and possibilities of storing large amounts of data, is of great importance. Using laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques, they obtain information about the object and process the data to create a 3D model or a set of drawings. Information modeling expands the methodological basis of ethnography, forcing a new look at the practical application of the results of ethnographic research to work with significant, but not having official status objects. Ethnography as a user of the geographic information system, could take on the role of an accumulator of information that not only characterizes the object at the time of its study, but also allows its further monitoring, receiving justification of recommendations for its safety. This approach will help fill the gap between identifying an ethnographically significant object and assigning it the status of a cultural heritage object, when museum workers, museum experts, and restorers start working with it. It has been established that the problems of adapting various digital technologies to the tasks of ethnographic research are being actively developed. There are no voluminous general theoretical and generalizing works on the use of information technologies in ethnographic research.

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