CYBERSPACE ETHNOGRAPHY 2.0

Initial Reflections on Course Blogging, and Course Revisions

2009-04-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

The blogs for the Winter 2009 course varied substantially, but also differed considerably from the previous time this course was offered, and the reason for that is in part due to a change in the technology: "following" is now built into the blog structure, and I encouraged following explicitly in the course blogging guidelines. As a result, many students in the class made a regular practice of visiting and commenting on each other's blogs, which was very refreshing to see as it extended class participation beyond the confines of the physical classroom (enough that it caused me to revise several grades for course participation -- in the future, I might make the participation component of the grade entirely dependent on blog comments). The previous time I offered this course, we had such restrictive comment moderation and blog privacy that in most cases students were not able to either comment on or even see other students' blogs.

As I mentioned, the blogs varied considerably. One of the most keenly ethnographic of the blogs, taking us step by step into a virtual world, sharing personal reflections, reactions, emotions and insights into various actions and experiences, was Thinkardin's blog. On the other hand, one of the most exhaustive blogs (with more than 40 posts), and one of the most theoretically involved blogs was Moving Online. Snowrunner's blog seemed to be a combination of the strengths of both of the last two. Exploring a book-length ethnography, which differed from the other projects because it was not rooted in the student's own ethnographic research, had its own successes, making respectable and interesting what in hindsight I think is a flawed assignment. On that blog we see a link to the student's very interesting interview with Jenny Ryan, author of The Virtual Campfire.

In terms of shortcomings, and I cannot generalize across all blogs here, what I noticed was a strong reticence to use the blogs for the purposes that they were intended or, shall I say, mandated. The purpose of the blog was to lay the massive foundation for a research paper, which would be shorter and more focused than the blog. Indeed, I mentioned early on that if the research paper was longer than the blog, it meant the blog was underutilized, used as an accompaniment for afterthoughts, or kept as a formality to ostensibly meet a course requirement. As I outlined in my guidelines for course blogging, and right here on this blog, there should have been little standing between the blog and the final paper. The blog was to be a scrapbook, a journal, a non-confidential diary of sorts, basically anything and everything of potential relevance to the final paper that did not violate the confidentiality of informants. Yet, in many cases we find students writing of their reticence to blog to this degree, reluctant to share too much, and reluctant to write in a way that was not for a formal paper. In addition, I preferred to maintain a safe distance (while the T.A., Owen Wiltshire made regular appearances on all the blogs), posting at most one or two comments on most blogs, leaving it in the hands of students to arrange matters for themselves, hoping that their blogging would evolve into what was required for the course. In some cases, that never really happened.

I have begun the process of revising the course for its third "incarnation," with a planned "overhaul" of the list of assigned readings, as well as the assignments themselves. Should I continue asking students to blog, it is clear that I am going to need to dedicate more time to "indoctrinating" students into the nature and purpose of blogging for this course -- this is funny because I already think of myself as a very emphatic speaker who often likes to repeat himself. What the course as a whole cannot become is a paper-only, standard kind of course with readings, some library research perhaps, and exams -- but then we have the problem of students without Internet access at home, or who do not own a computer. The course also has to maintain a methodological focus, as a follow up to the rich and theoretical Sociology of Cyberspace course offered in the Department.

The challenge will be to again communicate all of these things to students in advance of the start of the course. I tried each time that I offered this course so far -- however, thanks to Concordia's policies, and to students who use the first two weeks of the semester for course tourism, not settling down until a significant early stage of the course has passed, it is almost impossible to communicate with anyone who will receive the message and for whom it will matter, except for a small core of students. Many who receive the early messages either leave, never show up, or later drop the course. Some of those who remain until the end, arrive late. Hopefully as our Department website is being revamped, students will make a practice of using online means for their course shopping and perhaps we can look forward to more settled classes in the future.

(7) Overview for Session #8 (Mar. 2, 2009)

2009-03-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Session 8-9 Presentation

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

(6) Overview for Sessions #6 & #7 (Feb. 9-16, 2009)

2009-03-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

Session 7 Identities Presentation

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

(5) Overview for Session #4 (Jan. 26, 2009)

2009-02-02T03:13:00.000-08:00

The previous session, not covered on this blog, involved viewing and discussing AVATARA, with especial emphasis on Chapter 3 from Coming of Age in Second Life, as well as the problems in defining "virtual worlds."

Session 4 focused entirely on principles advanced, and debates surrounding guidelines for conducting ethical research online. The main components of the discussion had to do with notions of privacy, the nature and role of informed consent, issues of confidentiality, and questions concerning doing no harm as well as providing benefits to participants.

While much of the discussion focused on the effects of published reports, it is clear that in a course where student papers are not circulated and published, that some of the concerns we discussed may not be as pertinent. However, there is also the possibility that we may post papers from this course online, and therefore certain issues come back to the fore.

We all seemed to agree that it is important to create a pseudonym to disguise the pseudonym (or actual name) used by an online research subject. In addition, that we should not transcribe their statements word for word, but rather paraphrase, or create statements that reflect the intended meaning of the original statement but do not repeat its particular wording.

We also discussed the benefits of email interviews, in terms of empowerment for research subjects, allowing for greater self-monitoring and revision.

(4) Summary for Session #2 (Jan. 12, 2009)

2009-01-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

This is a relatively brief summary for the main points that were discussed in class, along with the lecture outline (you might recall that due to a technical mishap, only half the outline was visible), and what I am calling Christine Hine's "manifesto" for Virtual Ethnography.

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

SUMMARY:
The primary goal of the lecture, besides bringing out some of the key ideas from the assigned readings, was to begin to prepare ourselves mentally for the fields of interactions that constitute the virtual, cyberspace. The point of this being that this is not "fake" ethnography, or secondary ethnography, or a crude version of textualism. We understand what happens online, especially and prominently in social media, as very vivid social interactions that often produce new cultural meanings, or reinforce or challenge older ones. We are mindful of the copresence and interactions of users. Following Barry Wellman, we understand "community" not to be about proximity, but about networking.

The second part of the dicussion was more challenging: establishing the normalcy of virtuality, and applying virtuality to a great deal of what we know and talk about, especially with reference to non-Internet phenomena, indeed, with reference to most of social science throughout history. This is one of the philosophical and methodological benefits to have emerged from virtual research -- all research is virtual research. Cyberspace is simply one of the arenas where we can go to find clusters of virtualities.

Real is not the opposite of virtual. Reality is constituted by both the virtual and the actual, the ideational and the concrete or material.

In the third part of the dicussion we covered some of the problems, and promises, of doing cyberspace ethnography. We focused on why it may be irrelevant, problematic, and even productive to take interactions discovered and experienced online into offline settings. We also considered some of the prejudices that drive some of us to think about pairing offline with online research, as if the offline somehow qualified or made more real the online. Here we also considered Hine's notion that the new drive in ethnography is towards connectivity, and away from holism. We will never know whole persons, or whole social settings anyway, and the desire to meet online persona offline, in offline social settings, merely sets up possibilities for contradictions that may not be appropriate (as if the real person is to be found offline).

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

LECTURE/DISCUSSION OUTLINE:

FIRST STEPS: WHAT IS “CYBER”?

“Cyberspace”
key: copresence & interaction of multiple users

THE CYBER AS VIRTUAL, AND THE NORMALITY OF VIRTUALITY

as linguistic communities
not about proximity, it’s about networking
intensity, exchange
self-disclosure

“Virtualities,” by Rob Shields (284):

Intangibles are often a mixture of abstractions, potentials and ‘virtualities’ – ‘things’ that have a ‘real’ existence, even if they can’t be seen or touched. Virtualities are not just ‘ideas’ but things: a code, habitus or class that exists even if one cannot treat it as a tangible object. Gender is a case in point – not a tangible ‘thing’ or materiality, not simply ‘sex’, but rather a performative identity, a theoretical object with predictive power, independent of the age or form of the body itself. Even the body has been argued to be much more than its material ‘stuff ’ (Butler, 1993). One could add race – neither just ethnicity nor skin colour but something held to exist in popular racisms. Yet racialization is neither reducible to a single material aspect of a body nor even a single category of embodiment – the shape of noses or other equally debunked trait which has been latched on to as an indicator of difference. Signs are independent of a given set of print characters or vocalizations. ‘Social facts’ including identity and social groupings are intangible but are widely felt, defended and held to exist – community, the public, gender, race, the ‘global’.

exist only in virtue of other relations or become manifest only in their effects
So how do we define the Virtual?
‘that which is so in essence but not actually so’?
potential, not actual ?
More philosophically: the Virtual designates objects and states that exist but are not tangible, not ‘concrete’. The Virtual is known only indirectly by its effects
‘real without being actual, ideal without being abstract’.
“the Real” is not opposed to the Virtual, it incorporates it
actualization is performed, a process of becoming
What about the actual becoming virtual?

CYBER-ETHNOGRAPHY: ISSUES AND PROBLEMS

SOME CONCERNS ABOUT ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHY

questions of online-offline fieldwork
boundaries of the group to be studied
interpretation
ethics

different personae
"virtual" and "real" personae
(non)disclosure of one's social markers
ethics of "lurking"

WHAT ARE THE STRENGTHS OF ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHY

new realities, new ideals, new movements, new ways of being
rituals, social relations, practices, values
production of new subjectivities
changing notions of identity and the self
one way to approach globality, globalization, ethnographically

DOING CYBERSPACE ETHNOGRAPHY

MAINTAINING SYMMETRY IN CYBERSPACE ETHNOGRAPHY:

Going offline? problem of using more varied and different means of communication to understand informants than are used by informants themselves
experiential authenticity
understand the world the way it is for informants
reading and writing texts
Internet as cultural context
away from holism, towards connectivity

A VIRTUAL MANIFESTO: 10 Principles of Cyberspace Ethnography

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

A VIRTUAL MANIFESTO: Christine Hine's 10 Principles of Cyberspace Ethnography

The sustained presence of an ethnographer in the field setting, combined with intensive engagement with the everyday life of the inhabitants of the field site
Interactive media provide a challenge and an opportunity for ethnography, by bringing into question the notion of a site of interaction
The growth of mediated interaction renders it unnecessary for ethnography to be thought of as located in particular places, or even as multisited. The investigation of the making and remaking of space through mediated interactions is a major opportunity for the ethnographic approach. We can usefully think of the ethnography of mediated interaction as mobile rather than multi-sited
As a consequence, the concept of the field site is brought into question. If culture and community are not self-evidently located in place, then neither is ethnography. The object of ethnographic enquiry can usefully be reshaped by concentrating on flow and connectivity rather than location and boundary as the organizing principle
Boundaries are not assumed a priori but explored through the course of the ethnography. The challenge of virtual ethnography is to explore the making of boundaries and the making of connections, especially between the 'virtual' and the 'real'. Along with this goes the problem of knowing when to stop. If the concept of ethnography (andlor culture) as having natural boundaries is abandoned for analytic purposes, we can also abandon the idea of a whole ethnography of a given object. Stopping the ethnography becomes a pragmatic decision. The ethnographic object itself can be reformulated with each decision to either follow yet another connection or retrace steps to a previous point. Practically it is limited by the embodied ethnographer's constraints in time, space and ingenuity
Along with spatial dislocation comes temporal dislocation. Engagement with mediated contexts is interspersed with interactions in other spheres and with other media. Virtual ethnography is interstitial, in that it fits into the other activities of both ethnographer and subjects. Immersion in the setting is only intermittently achieved
Virtual ethnography is necessarily partial. A holistic description of any informant, location or culture is impossible to achieve. The notion of pre-existing, isolable and describable informants, locales and cultures is set aside. Our accounts can be based on ideas of strategic relevance rather than faithful representations of objective realities
Virtual ethnography involves intensive engagement with mediated interaction
New technologies of interaction make it possible both for informants to be absent and to render them present within the ethnography
Virtual ethnography is not only virtual in the sense of being disembodied.Virtuality also carries a connotation of 'not quite', adequate for practical purposes even if not strictly the real thing (although this definition of virtuality is often suppressed in favour of its trendier alternative). Virtual ethnography is adequate for the practical purpose of exploring the relations of mediated interaction, even if not quite the real thing in methodologically purist terms. It is an adaptive ethnography which sets out to suit itself to the conditions in which it finds itself

(3) Don't Like How Your Blog Looks?

2009-01-16T02:14:00.000-08:00

If for any reason you want to change the appearance of your blog, there are a number of things you can do to alter the template you have chosen.

(1) Click on the LAYOUT tab in your dashboard
(2) Click on "Fonts and Colors" in the menu bar
(3) Experiment with the different settings, and as you change them you can see a preview in the bottom half of the screen. When you are satisfied with what you see, you can click on the orange button that says "SAVE CHANGES."

If you know how to edit HTML, you can also try that, and preview before saving changes. With that same "Edit HTML" option in the menu bar under LAYOUT, you can also copy and paste code from a free template available elsewhere online, or upload a new XML template. There are a great many free templates for blogger, and the best way to find them is to Google either "free blogger templates" or "free blogger themes" or "free blogger skins". Be careful to always preview before saving changes, and be prepared for the possibility that the templates will not work or have a lot of bugs in some cases (and getting help will not be easy). You may also need to have a photo account, for example at photobucket, in order to save the images for the new template, and you will then need to edit the code in your newly installed template to point to your photobucket URLs for the images.

(2) Blogs and Research Papers: After the Course Ends

2009-01-16T02:07:00.000-08:00

After the course for Winter 2009 comes to an end, please consider leaving your blog online. If you do not want to have to manage comments for months and years to come, you can go to Settings > Comments and do the following:

(1) Comments: click on HIDE
(2) Who can comment? click on "Only members of this blog"

That will effectively turn off commenting.

Also, please consider allowing your final research paper to be posted on the site. You would be free to have it posted either with your actual name, or your Internet name.

(1) Students of Cyberspace Ethnography...Welcome to Blogging!

2008-12-28T20:07:00.001-08:00

Welcome to everyone joining this class. If you have not yet set up a blog, please see the document here. There are also general guidelines for blogging in this course, available here. In addition, on this page, I expect to put small screen shots of each of your blogs, so please send me an email at info@openanthropology.org telling me the web address of your blog, and what the real name is behind your screen name.

Here are some important tips for getting started with your research blog, so you get past any writer's block:

(1) In your very first post (this is a post, in case you are wondering what the word refers to), identify the "location(s)" on the Web in which you will situate your ethnographic research. Do so by providing the name of the website(s) and the address(es) or URLs. Explain why you chose that location, or locations (I would advise focusing either on one central site, for example, Second Life, or a closely knit group of intercommunicating websites).

If you are one of the few persons allowed to do a study of a book-length ethnography, please identify the book and why you think you may be interested in that particular one.

The reason for these explanations is to start facing you with your own possible biases -- which are not a bad thing as such, but you need to be conscious of them so as to develop a more focused, directed, and potentially self-critical approach to your work.

(2) In your second post, list the key questions, in order of importance, that you bring to your research topic. Why are those the key questions?

(3) In your third post, start talking about the kinds of research methods that you want to use that are most appropriate for the setting, and discuss some of the ethical implications of your work. How will you prevent doing any psychological or emotional harm to others? Are you following key persons within a particular setting? Do they know about your work?

(4) Your next posts should vary, somewhat, between the following:

diary-like entries on your experience within your research setting, what entering was like, the difficulties in adapting, what you do not currently understand about how that network works, and so forth
questions to self: worries you might have about your work, new questions that have come to mind that you want to explore
notes from readings you are doing to provide some background or some analysis, especially any key quotes you might use for your paper (therefore, remember to fully identify the source, the bibliographic data, the page on which you found the quote, etc.)
preliminary analysis: "this is what I think is going on," "this is what I think this means"

How much you post each week is up to you, it will vary according to student and research topic. However, by the end of January, I should be able to find at least one new post per week, and I will be able to track this through my RSS feed from your blogs. The length of the posts is not really what matters. What matters is that you are building useful material so when the time comes to write your research paper the work will consist 80% of just tying all the stuff together, and 20% of refining, reformulating, and articulating your ideas.

Please feel free to post any questions or comments on the above right here. I have comment moderation on, and I may not respond immediately, so check back within 24 hours.

Looking for posts on this blog is a bit of work, once there are many (if there are ever many) -- you can either search using the archive menu in the sidebar on the right, or, you can scroll from page to page (keep clicking on "Older Posts" at the bottom of this screen, which will appear once I have more than seven posts), or use the 'SEARCH THIS BLOG' bar at the top of the screen.

Remember that posts are in reverse chronological order, so the latest post always appears first.

Very best wishes for your work, and remember, you should be enjoying it!