Locating ‘Digital’ in Ethnographic Practice

I draw from experiences with WhatsApp group chats used by Milanese LGBTQ+ organisations to study a peculiar point of interest, for ethnographers in digital contexts: the non-gradual dynamics of digital spaces. I employ Science and Technology Studies concepts to explain two ‘oddities’ about group chats: the instantaneous act of ‘adding’ someone to a messaging group, and the ability to sort participants into neatly separated ones. These instances of group chat non-graduality are scarcely representative of the social dynamics happening among participants. Therefore, I argue for not approaching group chats as representations of offline groups, but as tools of non-graduality employed by them. I suggest a parallel between digital media and symbolic social categorisations, arguing that they both offer to society particularly clear tools for non-graduality and boundary drawing.