The Virtual Objects of Ethnography

This reading gives an introduction to virtual ethnography.  As a definition of Ethnography, the text cites Hammersley and Atkinson:

“…it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly in people’s daily lives for an exended period of time [...]collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research”

This view, however relies on a realist interpretation of reality. Constructivism is challenging this view by denying that there is an objective reality.

This text looks at alternative approaches for the ethnographic study of the internet. It focuses on three areas:

1. Ethnography and the face-to-face

Previously, travel was important as a means of engaging with a different culture. Through participation and experience the ethnographer opened herself up to learning.  For an ethnography of the internet this displacement will be experiential rather than physical. Authenticity of participants cannot be proved, but should only be a problem if it arises as a problem through interaction with other participants.

2. Text, technology and reflexivity

Communication on the internet can be seen as interaction or as text (”as a temporally shifted and packaged form of interaction”, p.50). Texts can also be used as ethnographic material “in the ways in which they present and shape reality and are embedded in practice”. The text becomes “meaningful once we have cultural context(s)  in which to situate it”. (p.52) It might be of interest to follow the construction of a website or to see how contributions in a newsgroup are justified and rendered authoritative. An ethnographic researcher of the internet herself becomes a user of the internet and the account will always have elements of reflexivity. This construction of knowledge however can be challenged as not being a truthful representation of reality. 3 strategies can deal with this paradox:
- Including the member understandings of culture alongside the ethnographer’s account
- Focussing on the ethnographer, reflecting on this particular perpective, history and standpoint
- Embracing the paradox and making clear how the accounts are a constructed act

3. The making of ethnographic objects

Previously, ethnography focussed on physical space. This has come into question by a new concept of mobility. Recently, researchers have been more aware of the partiality and selectivity of their descriptions.

For virtual ethnography a multi-dimensional approach might be intersting (including online and offline relationships).
A different approach might be using “connectivity” as an organising principle. This could be “a multi-sited ethnography, conceived of as an experiential, interactive and engaged exploration of connectivity” (p.61) The new question is “not what is the Internet, but when, where and how is the Internet” (p.62) – the researcher could follow hypertextual links, follow the borrowing of material and images from other sites and other media, follow the authorship and readership of sites, the portrayal of the Internet in other media… The researcher can concentrate on flow and connectivity.

The article ends with 10 principles of virtual ethnography.

My thoughts:

While the idea of following the flow of the internet is interesting, I wonder how doable this is. As the author points out there are no boundaries, the researcher would have to set this out herself. You might be able to unravel the flow of a text from backwards, but never forwards. For instance if someone emailed you an extract from an article you could follow this up, read the article, see whether this was original or taken from somewhere else, etc. This might give you some insight on how we deal with knowledge.

Hine, C (2000) The virtual objects of ethnography, chapter 3 of Virtual ethnography. London: Sage. pp41-66

Wow, this was quite an intense week. I have to admit I found the visual artefact task really challenging!  I think this was a) because I don’t feel I’m a very creative person and b) I don’t feel very technologically able (which is why I find this whole MSc very daunting sometimes). I think the lifestream reflects how I was searching for tools and pictures and this was very random at first. I was looking at storybook, slideshare,  photostory, prezzi, etc. Photoshop particularly was a real revelation. I’d heard about it, but never used it so far. Then the first artefacts were finished and I really enjoyed them all and thought they were incredibly well done. The comments and peer review have also been extremely interesting to read. Ifeel I’ve learnt loads through this exercise and it’s really given me confidence to try out more tools and applications. It’s surprising how easy it is to use them. On the other hand it’s not only about using them, it’s also about wanting to say something with them.

There is a downside to all this, however, which was described very well in the reading “Mind the Gap”. Are we creating an exclusive society where some people become increasingly confident with technology while others are left increasingly insecure. (I can empathise really well with this. As I’ve described above I don’t feel naturally drawn towards technology, and I’m lucky to have the time and the money to embark on a programme like this MSc, otherwise I’d be one of the people left out in the rain.) I’m investigating e-readiness in my dissertation and am becoming increasingly aware that the digital divide is not only a world-wide problem of access and money (even though this is a huge problem). But also within our society you really need to keep up with the rapidly changing technology and a lot of people don’t have the resources to do this. The stunning visual artefacts that have been created really bring to life what is possible if you have the skills and the tools.

On another note I really liked the reading by Rose. I felt this was very relevant to all interpretation of visual materials whether digital or not. I liked the idea of meaning being created at various levels. The artefacts showed this, particularly the ones that weren’t immediately obvious. It was interesting to see how we (the audience) were interpreting them. But it was also interesting to hear what the authors had wanted to create.  The artefacts were also very much an indication of our times and of what is possible to create in this digital era.

A very thought provoking week! I feel quite exhausted!

Merchant, G (2007) Mind the gap(s): discourses and discontinuity in digital literacies, E-learning, 4 (3), 241-255.

Rose, Gillian (2007) Researching visual materials: towards a critical visual methodology, chapter 1 of Visual methodologies: an introduction to the interpretation of visual materials. London: Sage. pp.1-27.

This text looks at what is meant by visual culture.

Culture is defined as a process or set of practices, production and exchange of meanings between the members of a society orgroup. These meanings or represntations structure the way people behave. The visual is central to the cultural consruction of social life in contemporary Western societies.

The author outlines a framework for a critical visual methodology:

There are three sites at which the meanings of an image are made:
The site(s) of the production of an image
The site of the image itself
The site(s) where it is seen by various audiences

Each of these sites has three different aspects (the author calls these modalities)
- Technological
- Compositional
- Social

The author then exemplifies this framework by  interpreting a photo by Doisneau.

I think this will be a useful text for critically evaluating photos, or rather of finding meaning in them. I particularly liked the idea of considering the site where the image is seen by various audiences, as this means evaluating your own thoughts critically.

Rose, Gillian (2007) Researching visual materials: towards a critical visual methodology, chapter 1 of Visual methodologies: an introduction to the interpretation of visual materials. London: Sage. pp.1-27.

Merchant, G. (2007). Mind the Gap(s): discourses and discontinuity in digital literacies. E-Learning. 4(3): 241-255.

This texts states that digital literacy is “digital capital” (244) “I argue that those who have access to new technology and knowledge of its potential wield the power of the new force of digital capital”, particularly significant in advanced education and employment in late capitalism. Merchant shows an example where online socialization sparks political campaigns (street piano) and another example where category tagging in Flick-R leads to joining an interest group and founding an affinity space (p. 250). This affinity space then sparks learning through sharing of interest and “clearly constitutes socially-situated learning (Wenger)” p. 251. Merchant argues that digital literacy is necessary for these processes as it is “Central to new kinds of social practice” (p. 253) and people will increasingly be at a disadvantage if they are digitally illiterate.

I had already come across this text when I was researching digital literacy for my dissertation project. I want to conduct a survey on e-readiness amongst students in Continuing Education. This text could serve as an argument that it is worth introducing students to technology not only as a learning tool immediately for the classes, but also as a method for all kinds of social engagement.

Merchant, G (2007) Mind the gap(s): discourses and discontinuity in digital literacies, E-learning, 4 (3), 241-255.

I’ve been thinking about examples where pictures and text are traditionally put together for ease of understanding. This is particularly the case with signs. I’ve collected a few for my artefact. In this slideshow a sign without text will be followed by the complete sign with text. Please compare the examples. Does the image “need” the text? Is the image more obvious without text? Would the text alone be more effective?

I do apologise for the poor quality of some of the photos.

Another week has gone by. I’ve started to “feed” my lifestream from work as well. I thought it might be interesting to see how I make use of digital tools when preparing lessons, etc. I had been looking at quite a few videos which I was thinking of using in my lessons and had stored them in diigo.  I ‘ll probably just keep a few in for the end version of the lifestream. I like the way the lifestream keeps hold of all these different threads. It’s quite reassuring, as I’m usually the sort of person to take notes here and there and leave them lying around or save them on the computer somewhere. With the lifestream I know everything is there (somewhere – that’s the only drawback that it might get a bit unmanageable over time). The lifestream includes various sites I’ve been looking at with the visual artefact in mind. It includes my notes on the readings I’ve done and some video clips which were suggested by other students in the course.

The skype session was good this week as it was a chance to communicate more directly with the other students. My only problem was that I had only read one of the texts, but the discussion still helped me when I finally read the texts.

I read the three core texts this week and I found them all really interesting. I think these are questions that we are constantly grappling with as we make use of digital tools. How we are expanding our skills to deal with different types of communication and represenatation. What place these new forms of communication and represenation take up in our lifestyle and in our perceptions. When I was a student first time round we had to visit our lecturers during their visiting hours if we needed to speak to them. Now I get a constant flow of emails from my students. And even though there are no official “email rules” I do somehow judge my students on the way they express themselves in the emails. And even though emails are much more laid back then other forms of written communication there must be some underlying code that most students are aware of, for instance not to use texting abbreaviations in official emails etc. The genre of emails is changeable according to which activity system it is being used for.

I was also interested in the opposition between pictorial representation and representation through language as described by Kress. I’ve been on the outlook since them of examples combining the two as in picture dictionaries, signs etc.

Kress, G (2005) Gains and losses: new forms of texts, knowledge and learning. Computers and Composition.

Key definitions in this text:

Genre: These are defined by their purpose, their rhetorical actions (what they do and how they are used) rather than by what they are. (p.141)

Activity system: Any ongoing, object-directed, historically conditioned, dialectically structured, tool-mediated human interaction. (p.141)

Electronic environment: The interface , point and medium, or environment of interaction between users and systems, it offers limtless generic opportunities. (p. 143)

This text explores how the discourses and literacy practices of popular culture intersect and interact with academic discourses and literacy practices in electronic environments (p. 140)

What is new? Electronic genres are social in that they increase the possiblities for participation and interactive collaboration. They allow rapid change of literacy practice and blur the distinction between home and school literacies. Features of effective electronic texts shape the academic literacy in electronic environments. Therefore the question should not be:Do electronic genres meet the criteria of academic literacy? The question is how academic literacy is shaped by the electronic environment acting as a point of interface between academic and popular literacies. The electronic interface acts as a point of conjuncture where users encounter similar composing strategies and skills in different activity systems.  Students often bring a lot of skills with them that are shaped by their engagement with popular literacies in an electronic environment. They need to build on these skills and develop crtical awareness of boundaries, genres and literacy practices.

My thoughts:

This text takes it for granted that modern students are highly skilled users of electronic environments. I wonder whether this is true of all students.

Carpenter, R (2009) Boundary negotiations: electronic environments as interface. Computers and Composition. 26, 138-148.

“Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media” . It is “not just about computer-based materials, but about all communication types across time and culture”. Digital media is seen as “manifestation of other similar modes of communication”, for instance “the chitchat of a blog is not dissimilar to campfire stories after a day’s hunting”…We are asking each other for information more through the internet than before. Instead of being polarized between anxiety and euphoria, transliteracy is informed by the transductive relationship between technology and life.

The transliterate lifeworld is “an ecology which changes with the invention of each new media-type”.

Transliteracy means cognition of multimodality, flexibility, willingness to embrace the new.

Transliterate analysis considers the how and the why of a cultural production.

Transliterate reading incudes understanding the aural, the visual and interactive modes simultaneously.

Transliteracy can be employed to understand communication both diachronically(blogging and its relationship to diaries and journals) and synchronically (a holistic viewing of Al Gore sitting at his desk surrounded by various media).

Transliteracy research is interested in how people manage different media and modes of communication in their everyday lives.

My thoughts:
I like the idea that there is no judgement in this text. Every type of communication is seen as equal, whether this is prehistorical or modern. New media is in some ways likened to pre-literate times when there were more oral exchanges going on. I wonder whether how the notion of physical presence comes into this. Eye contact, shaking hands, embraces, physical space issues are also a form of communication and could also be considered in transliteracy.

Thomas, S et al (2007) Transliteracy: crossing divides. First Monday. 12(12). [web site]

Kress describes a new relationship between the modes of represenatation with the new media. The author no longer has authority over his writing. With a screen the reader can become author. The audience now needs to be considered in order to find the appropriate mode of representation. Design is increasingly important.

My thoughts:

I think the breaking up of the chronological is something that authors have been experimenting with for a while. Modernists at the beginning of the 20th century have been writing fiction with several entry points and postmodernists have been taking this to an extreme with experiments like cross-referencing, annotating, circular stories, fragmentation etc. As far as I know the idea of chronologically consistent writing is something that has been challenged over and over again.

Similarly the idea of combining writing with pictures goes back to the beginning of writing. To name just one example, William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience combine poems with pictures and one mode would not be complete without the other.

Certainly, new media gives many more opportunities to experiment with combinations of picture and writing/speech.

Kress, G (2005) Gains and losses: new forms of texts, knowledge and learning. Computers and Composition

Hopefully my lifestream this week has been reflecting some of the work I have been doing. The dialogue between Jen and Sian on different aspects of the lifestream has helped me by showing that in fact there are various approaches to the lifestream. As mentioned in the blo posting I had steered away from the “chaos theory” in the first week by selecting the entries carefully. I had wanted the lifestream to be more like a curation. This second week I’ve been more generous and included some of the Youtube clips from the film festival that I liked and more short blog posts.

The lifestream still doesn’t really represent the “digital life” I lead, as it does not include the bookmarks for video clips and news sites I make at work. As I had remarked in  blog post this week I’m beginning to realise how my teaching preperation has changed due to the internet and instant access to all sorts of instant materials. Teaching has also changed, even in the community classes where we have no learning plattforms. The provision of a computer alone in the classroom gives instant access to videos and audios in the classroom. Questions that go beyond my knowledge can be answered with a quick click on to wikipedia. In a way the world has entered the classroom.

The film clips from the mscworlds cluster all focus on this notion of a virtual world.  Elephant’s Dreams, Matrix and World Builder all showing the fascination with a virtual world, though ultimately they lead to destruction or alienation. I preferred the Berlin Block Tetris which was nominated for this cluster as a more playful variant. It reminded me of the vision that Soviet futurists had of building a new world, with pictures such as The Black Square symbolising a totally new approach.

The second cluster mschuman focussed on the human – machine opposition with the question whether machines can have feelings or might even be “better” than humans.

While the core reading by Hand on narratives of promise and threat is still relevant to these topics I found the secondary reading by Johnston on “Salvation or destruction: Metaphors of the Internet” very appropriate as I have described in the blog posting on this.

Hand, M (2008) Hardware to everywhere: narratives of promise and threat, chapter 1 of Making digital cultures: access, interactivity and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp 15-42.

Johnston, R (2009) Salvation or destruction: metaphors of the internet. First Monday, 14(4). [web site]