Studying digitally mediated sites of work through visual methods: the cases of coworking, gig work and creative entrepreneurship

Purpose As digital technologies increasingly mediate contemporary workplaces, ethnographic studies need to encompass on/offline work practices and workplaces. At the same time, diverse visual practices, for instance, on social media, have become a form of digital work. In this paper, we build on and expand the critical visual methodology developed by Rose (2006) to propose a multimodal framework for ethnographies of digitally mediated workplaces. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on three ethnographic studies on coworking, gig work and creative entrepreneurship, with images collected both online and offline, combined with interviews and fieldnotes, we analyse images, the contexts of their production and their display on digital platforms as entangled sites of work. In doing so, we develop the three sites of the visual in critical visual methodology further to adapt them to digital workplace ethnography. Findings We present practical ways to incorporate visuals and embed them in their social and cultural contexts in digital workplace ethnographies, combining tools from traditional and digital ethnography. Reflecting on our own ethnographic studies against the backdrop of critical visual methodology, we formulate ways to implement a critical multimodal methodology in studying digitally mediated workplaces by taking images seriously, embedding them in the contexts of their production and reception and reflecting on one's own ways of seeing. Originality/value This study emphasises the necessity and benefits of engaging with visuals in doing digital ethnography at workplaces with multiple on/offline sites and proposes a multimodal research design to integrate visual, textual and verbal data sources.