9.7 Proposal, Open source software, and ethnographies

At today's meeting we did the following.

1.  ACLS proposal.  We talked about the draft for the proposal to ACLS, particularly the plan for workshops and presentations.  It sounded like everyone was on board, and that we would divide up the conferences by interest, project relevance, and funding.  I will look for additional sources since the money allowed for ACLS will not cover travel to all the planned conferences.

As planned, the initial conferences will be important places for networking/finding ideas & support for you as you work through composing your projects.  DMAC & Computers and Writing are both well known as places to make connections and find good people to work with.  Also, I was in touch with Cindy Selfe, and she indicated that we could be on the (optional part of) DMAC's program to give a workshop on doing digital ethnography.  So that is great news.  We will get started on proposals to Computers and Writing  *(deadline Oct 31) & the rest as soon as this ACLS proposal is completed.

2.  Updates from Sergio.  Sergio pointed out that we need to be collecting all our data using Open Source software.  You indicated that a workshop with Sergio would be useful - and I have been in touch - and will get back to you on whether we can do a workshop this coming Friday, at the Academic Technology lab (in the Library).

Sergio is setting up a YouTube channel for us to post/share data, and a Facebook page, where we can link to/comment on the screencasts/videos/transcripts etc we are planning to use for data.  This will be the place where to congregate the data for me to choose from for the methods chapter that will be one of our sample chapters for the book collection.

Sergio also suggested that we include analytics in our design so we can assess/track how our text is used.  I have an email out to CCDP to make sure this will work within their series.  I think this is a great idea, and am hoping it is something they will support.  I will let you know as soon as we hear back.

3. Readings to provide theoretical background on writing ethnographies.  We are still working on reading Grenfell et al, and we decided that reading some ethnographies (particularly ethnographies that study digital communities) if we are going to "extend the conversation" within ethnographic writing.  Below is a list of some of the texts I would identify as most relevant to our projects (in addition to the Ito et al, which we have read and discussed, and the essays from the Handbook of New Literacies, and the random essays I sent that addressed your individual projects).  I have copies of all of these books and will be willing to loan them.

Boellstorff, Tom. (2008).  Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human.  Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hakken, David. (1999). Cyborgs@Cyberspace: An Ethnographer Looks to the Future. New York: Routledge.

Hine, Christine. (2000). Virtual Ethnography. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Kendall, Lori. (2002).  >Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online.  Berkeley: University of California Press.

Schapp, Frank. (2002). The Words that Took Us There: Ethnography in a Virtual Reality. Amsterdam: Askant.

Taylor, T.L. (2006). Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Let me know what you are interested in and I will have it available at my office. 

4.   Discussion of projects.  For the last quarter of the meeting we spent some time talking through where you were in terms of data collection and etc (with some groaning about moving to all open source aps) and I am not going to sum up everything we talked through - except to say that it sounds like everyone is putting in some time here, and this is definitely moving along.  Sergio set up the YouTube Channel  and the SocialMedia site for easier commenting (I am going to concede that the blogs have not exactly been excellent at fostering informal sharing) and hopefully that will make working on our data a little more seamless.

 

So - great meeting - and I will be in touch about Sept. 13.

 

8.27 Plan for fall and overview of Friday's meeting

Meetings
Perhaps the most important outcome of Friday's meeting was to decide that we would meet Fridays, in CAS 308 at 1:00, with pizza from Goombas.  Our first meeting will be September 6.  The agenda will be:

1. Continued discussion of readings/research relevant to individual projects (if you have a reading you would like to discuss - you might give the group a heads up so we can do some reading before we come to the group).

2. Discussion of ethnographic methods, with particular attention to the approach described by Bourdieu.

Discussion associated with points on the proposed agenda for meeting

1. Updates on where you are, what you plan to do during the fall, and how TeamEbook can have your back.  If you have done nothing - don't feel bad since that is what I did => we will use this as planning time.

 

Sally:  I indicated that I will need some data samples by the beginning of October, and we talked about what kinds of data you will have.  I would like to have samples of different kinds of data that will both:

• illustrate what multimodal data can do in ethnographic representations,
• and introduce each of your projects

Robyn:  Robyn said that she has been posting and is looking for some feedback.  She documented her draft for her FFootball league Friday night and we noted that data collection should be as "natural" as possible - with participant observation -but no interviewing or drawing attention to the data collection process. 

 

Mark: asked for feedback on his blog to keep him focused on ethnographic methods (if/when he lapses into straight-up textual analysis).

 

Joe, Nikki, Luis, Maria: (summed up) collecting data.  The four of you talked about different kinds of data you could collect, patterns you were noticing, + problems with your individual data sets.  In terms of what would help, the consensus was that comments on blogs or in meetings and sharing what we are finding/thinking about as we work on our different projects would help.  As individuals + a group, you indicated you were not yet ready to "commit" to a specific data collection method or focus = were still looking around inside your groups, figuring out how to "be there" and how to name/focus/conceptualize what you were "seeing" / doing. 

 

My comment: YAY - that is an excellent place to be at this stage of the project.  And hopefully we can start reading each other's blogs and commenting and that way we can dig in deeper + get the real benefits of collaboration.  We will especially need help in stepping outside our own biases/assumptions as researchers (see Mark's request!)

 

  

2. Discussions of any baffling readings you may have encounters - especially readings you feel would make more sense if you talked about them a little.

 

Maria requested readings on writing groups (Mark suggested the bibliography in Irene Clark's text - the one we are using for 5030) + how to interpret data (our readings on ethnographic method will help with this and I will look around for some others); 

 

Luis requested readings on tumblr + related social networking (as you develop a focus we may be able to be more helpful with this).

 

  

3. Collaborative development of a fall calendar.  The calendar I posted is mostly about deadlines for me and Robyn and Sergio - you all can fit in where you see things as working for you.  If we want to do some quality-time work on ethnographic methods and theory - we could do that (in parallel to data collection) - or whatever.  We will talk this through.

We had a sort of general discussion on this that breaks down as follows:

• begin with some more theoretical reading/discussing (with a focus on Bourdieu, but also some broader reading on ethnographic methods)
• by the beginning of October, have some data samples to discuss, so I can pull together the methods/introductory chapter on what multimodal ethnographic data looks like/can do
• throughout the fall =>work out a template with Sergio

Summary:
 I felt a kind of intention to make better use of the blogs.  So OK!  I'm up for that.
A review of Bourdieu (again) + ethnographic methods to be the focus of fall meetings, along with on-going presentations on data.
Sally needs data samples be beginning of Octoer.
Robyn wants some comments on her blog (as does everyone else).

I will be working on the proposal and will keep you posted.

Next meeting: Friday, September 6, at 1:00 in CAS 308. 

7.27 What we did at our meeting

In light of our discussion yesterday I have changed the project's title yet one more time (check out  the blog's new name - again) - and this time I think we are REALLY close - if not on target. 

What we did yesterday. 

Defining the field.  We started with discussion of the prospectus, which began with my presentation on the texts that served as a basis for the ideas we are developing.  I'm afraid that was sort of like a flash flood - with so many ideas whooshing by all at once that there may not have been time to take in all that I was saying.  I have been intensely immersed in reading "digital ethnographies"  - from all their various perspectives and I am pretty sure that trying to pull out what I found most important in a ten minute, more or less impromptu overview was probably not such a great idea.  So this post gives an in writing overview of changing definitions of "the field" and discusses what we started to talk over as a constructive ethnographic approach to a field for our project.

Defining an approach to analysis.  Discussion of New Literacy Studies use of Bourdieu and Jennifer Trainor's ethnography of racism at an all-white school as examples of ways we might look at our data.

New perspectives for multimodal ethnography:  changes in ethnographic narrative, practice, and relationships.  After this discussion we talked about some of the ways that multimodal ethnographic representation will change: ethnographers' relationships to participants and readers relationships to "reading" - among other things - and how practices for data collection and representation will need to change in light of those changes.  Much of this discussion was based in your experiences collecting data so far - and was wonderfully useful in helping me think about how to write the introductory section to the book (I think I need a new chapter!)  Some of this material is reviewed here.

Overview of book chapters. We then briefly reviewed the descriptions for your chapters - and I am hoping each of you will continue to work on what is posted there.  Please send/post revisions and I will keep an updated version of the over.  Luis indicated we will keep working on a title, Maria really needs to help me get up to speed on hers as I kind of just ran out of energy when I got to hers, Mark's has been added from his blog,  . . .? 


For next week:
We concluded with a discussion about what we wanted to do for the next meeting, and what you would be working on during the week.  The agenda includes:

• "show & tell" - where you continue to collect data and will present what you have "so far" with particular attention to problems/questions (so that I can incorporate what you are running into in the introductory chapters! - this is almost like an ethnography of doing ethnography!)
• go over/ask for references to frame your work (I am hoping to send each of you some possible sources- also, see sources on ethnography/multimodal ethnography posted here)
• discuss the (revised) prospectus and provide feedback
• review of updated overview of chapters
• Check in with timeline to make sure we are on board for this "plan" (maybe each individual researcher should suggest a more personal version of this timeline - since eg Nikki & Joe will not really be creating their ethnographies until after the prospectus is reviewed - probably March).

7.27 Defining the field

 Hopefully, these ideas were also conveyed in the prospectus, since they are part of the rationale for our text.   This is a somewhat more detailed form - in writing - of what I "gushed" through at the beginning of yesterday's meeting.

Beginning in the nineties ethnographers began to document "digital cultures".  The problem was - it was not clear how to: 1) frame the field of study, 2) what constituted participant/observation in that field, and 3) how best to conduct (particularly in terms of ethics and what constitutes data) and "write up"  or create ethnographic texts ((particularly in terms of authority, validity, and "transcription" of events).

Framing the field.
There is not consensus - nor does there need to be - on what constitutes the field of study in terms of ethnographies of "the internet," "digitial communities," or "online culture."  Unlike Samoa or the Trobriand Islands cultures and peoples associated with these "fields" are spatially dispersed and (in a very real sense) culturally dispersed = so that the concept to make their study cohere as a field does not simply translate to place or ethnicity.  Digital ethnographers have variously solved this problem by studying groups/phenomena associated with internet cultures as text/textual constructions, a  place in and of itself (like the Trobriand Islands); and as a distinct culture defined by participants' use.

The Internet" as textual construction:  Hine's study of web sites, discussion boards, media reporting, and other digital, often ephemeral textual manifestations surrounding Louise Woodward's accusation/trial/subsequent release; in our talk we pointed out how this nodule of "reality" surrounding a highly publicized even was similar to the "reality space" currently surrounding Trayvon Martin's murder and Zimmerman's trial that many of us are currently spending time in.

Online spaces as "real" places/cultures. Tom Boellstorff's study of Second Life is an example of this approach to framing "online" studies.  He participated on Second life as an anthropologist-character and conducted his study entirely online through that character's interactions with other characters on Second Life); and Lori Kendall''s

Digital culture as postmodern ethnographies in and of themselves (spaces which "evoke" cultural experience in ways parallel to the ways ethnographic texts allow readers to experience/"know" the cultures they read about).  Frank Schapp, proposes this definition of the field for online MOOs, (Multi User Domains =Object Oriented - which I explained as Massive Multiplayer Online RPGs that are/were entirely played out in terms of text.  That is - they are similar to World of War Craft, and the Sims in that players are in a simulated world - but there is/was only text to "represent" both the world and the characters.)  His argument is made compelling in many ways because MOOs (like traditional ethnographies) were entirely made of text - and because the purpose of that text is to "evoke" or simulate a culture. 

Digital cultures as interconnected and inseparable from material world cultures.  These definitions are most relevant to approaches I see our studies as taking.  They fall within the approach set up in Leander (one of our first readings) and taken by ethnographers including Lori Kendall, Nancy Baym, and David Hakken, and the work in Ito et al's collection on digital youth. 


How our project defines "the field"
Our projects defines the field somewhat differently than each of these approaches.  Our studies clearly fall most comfortably into the "connective" category,.  At the same time,  we spent some time talking about how our definitions of culture, group, and space (the field) we will study differ from the ways these other studies have defined them.
Some factors to define our fields:

The "place" of the field is located in the individual - rather than either online or offline "places".  Because, in some sense, we define the "field" as located within the individual sensibility of the participant, our definition of "connective ethnography" assumes that experiences in both digital and material spaces are mutually constituitive (that they make and are made by each other) and the fact that once individuals have accumulated experiences in mediated spaces - they inevitably interpret all  subsequent experience in terms of understandings that seamlessly place  immediate and mediated experience within  cultural forms, interpretive rues and dispositions derived from both "cultures".   We therefore document participants' dual (simultaneous) presence in spaces and the factors that shape (and are shaped by) that dual presence as if it were continuous. 

Field of identity for participants is defined in terms of members of Kean University, particularly "college-age" students typical of teaching universities.   In particular our focus was different from Ito et al, and many other literacy studies of  "the net generation" in that it does not frame digital culture or our window on digital culture in terms of "youth" - a concept that is more useful for studying literacies for "traditional", middle class  students at research universities than for understanding literate practice of the many nontraditional, working class students at teaching universities.  In particular, just as we do not see digital culture as separate or isolated from everyday life, we do not see the practices in those spaces as belonging to or created by youth culture.   This is not to say that 'youth' may not use/participate in digital cultures in age/generationally specific ways - rather it is to focus on practices associated with college-age students - where "college-age" is defined in terms of students who attend working class universities.

Field for relationships considered in our study is grounded in material world interaction.   We define the field of relationship in terms of friendship/shared classroom /shared interest /(cultural) connections originating in the material world as opposed to digital spaces. 
For example, in Robyn, Maria & Luis' studies, participants were friends BEFORE coming to the digital space - and in some sense joined or FORMED the digital space BECAUSE of the material world connection.  In the study of the creative nonfiction class, the digital community (if there really is one) derives from a material world "requirement",   Within Joe's study, as in Luis', the field is defined in terms of the perspective of a particular circle of friends within a MUCH larger community.  (I'm not sure of the rationale for this one with respect to Mark's study).

We will keep working on this.

7.27 Methodological frame

Bourdieu + new literacy studies

Jennifer Trainor = personal ethnography

7.27 Participatory, multimodal ethnography and changing approaches to representation and practice

 

These are my notes from yesterday - I will be working on finishing thi post

 

Changes relationships to participants= multimodal ethnographers are asking much more of participants both in terms of the amount of participation (work)

Taking a picture of your blog is like taking a picture of a self

 

Places new/different kinds of demands on the ethnographer’s participation

documenting w video/sound recording is different than taking notes

 

Changes participants willingness to be in the ethnography (see their own behaviors more visibly, need to deal with seeming themselves, increased risk of "exposure" to others, more demands for "contributions")

 

Even more problems with data mountain

Issues with anonymity are changed

Makes for reproducibility (representations can be distributed over the net in a  keystroke)

Images/video of participants are different from written descriptions

Changes relationship to authenticity

New need to deconstruct illusion of seamless there-ness of multimodal representations (the illusions of immediacy, immersion and interactivity)

 

7.27 Suggested readings

These are some easily available readings to place ethnography within the changing demands presented by digital cultures and multimodal possibilities for documentation.

Robinson & Schultz: New Avenues for Sociological Inquiry: Evolving Forms of Ethnographic Practice.
This text - in some ways similar to Leander's essay - reviews the changing purposes, practices, and forms taken on in ethnographic research of digital spaces.

Bezemer & Mavers: Multimodal Transcription as Academic Practice: A Social Semiotic Perspective

This essay provides an overview of approaches to transcription that involve image & video.  I think one aim of our study would be to open up these ideas for transcription still further.

Flewit: Bringing Ethnography to a Multimodal Investigation of Early Literacy in a Digital Age.

Flewit desribes a multimodal, ethnographic study of language/literacy  - a focus shared by our study.  Her essay begins by placing multimodal ethnography within the field of ethnography itself.  I think each of us may place our studies within slightly different "fields" - and take on different methods for documentation/interacting with that field - but her "set up" section is an example of how we might want to place our work within a history of ethnographic practice.

7.20 Some more thoughts on focus= Why study LOCAL participation in global communities?

The 7.13 post forgets to nail down a relation to writing studies/new literacies.  It misses the question of WHY it might be important to study the ethos associated with hyperlives (within the context of particular groups of individuals participating on Tumblr, NaNoWriMo, Fantasy Sports, E-lit writing, IFLS, and FanFic).  So I am going to put up some notes here (I have started reading some of the New Literacy/Writing Studies stuff=Language, Ethnography & Education: Bridging NLS & Bourdieu, Jennifer Trainor's ethnographic study of racism + emotion and writing classrooms - and going back to the Ito et al and reviewing some of the important ethnographies/explorations of ethos in writing studies and thinking about how they were "used". 

So I am thinking that our proposal has to ground itself in WHY it is important to study the ethos of the particular groups we have chosen.  So far, my answer to the "so what" question is:

Line of reasoning for why study ethos:  Writers/thinkers bring discourses from their communities of practices into their other communications.  These discourses are often embodied in ways of being (ethos) and are often unconscious so that individuals may not be able to articulate them.  Writing studies has a long history of using ethnographic and autoethnographic studies (including self-authored literacy narratives)  to understand the "ways with words" individuals bring to the classroom, and how those discourses affect the ways individuals will "hear" and respond to classroom discourses (for example, Dyson, Gee, Heath,  Hicks, Rose, Selfe & Hawisher, Trainor). 

Why local:  larger studies (Livingstone, Ito et al, Macarthur foundation) are suited to providing general descriptions of broad patters.  Our study provides detailed description of local instantiations of those patterns.  From similar perspectives in that all authors are members of a single university community with "shared" demographics.  This does not make us the "same" but places us within a set of material world circumstances and life styles that are enough different from lives at residential universities, more suburban or rural institutions, or groups not associated with universities.  For example, while the focus on "youth" and technology may be appropriate for many universities, it is not so useful here at Kean, where more than X% of our students are not traditional students. 

Why study hyperlife ethos: see DeVoss, Cushman, Grabill discussion of affordances + Kress on modality; other theorists (Lankshear Knobel) on distinctness of culture/ethos

Connection to Writing studies  understanding of Discourse/identity/ethos assumptions which may be experienced as obstacles to learning (see Trainor's discussion of emotions + learning + discourse).


 

7.12 The new plan

We spent the first half of today's meeting talking through the new plan .  You all listened patiently to the long story of trying to settle the technical issues for our project, which I will not repeat here. Rather, I will post an outline of how we will resolve all obstacles.

1.) Problem: finding a host for our draft web texts.  Maria made quite clear that the University would not host any part of our project at any point during its development.

Solution:  I plan to pay for hosting during the time period when we are developing our prospectus for Utah State Press.  When (if) the project is accepted, I inquire as to whether they are open to hosting the project during the development phase.  If they are not - I will pay for the remaining development time, an USP will host the completed project.  I will also look into requesting funds (finding a grant***) that will pay for hosting.

2) Problem: technological support in the form of software and individuals with strong skills in HTML (standards compliance and basic accessibility). CSS, Java Script, Flash, and PHP.

Solution: We are in the process of working out an arrangement with Academic Technology where Sergio would act as a co-editor (with me) for the collection. He would act as the code-editor/advisor for the web texts, working with/overseeing any student programers from Computer Science who we might invite to participate.  Among other things, he (and his collaborators) would create a basic template for the pages of the web text, and style sheet with styles which we would than use to designate the different parts of our text. Sergio would travel with us to conferences where we present on developing web text ethnographies.  We have not yet defined the role of computer science students.  They may participate in an independent study and receive credit for their work, they may be indicated either as chapter co-authors, or given credit as technical authors for code, or they may be paid (pending on funding for our project).  Software and work space (computers) will be available at Academic Technology.

3) Problem: getting a proposal to USP in by September. 

Solution: we are going to shoot for turning our prospectus along with two sample chapters in by January. (see working timeline in next post)

4)  Problem: $$$$  
Solution:  Well - really we will just keep working as we are and hope we can pull something in.  I will apply for funding from two sources.  The ACLS digital innovation fellowship (due Sept 24) previously mentioned, and a CCCC Research Initiative Grant (Due October 3).  And I will keep looking for other sources.

Focus for our book: how we open up new theory and method within existing research
As with every meeting,  we spent some  time in the ongoing discussion (lots of me talking) about digital ethnography, ethnographic research presented as web text and methods for "doing" ethnographic research = and how our work is going to fit into what is out there.

This was a really long post so I broke it into three.  For other features of the new plan (focus of the book and working timeline) see the parenthetical links.

What we did for the rest of the meeting.
My notes for the rest of the meeting became increasingly useless (I have only posted sample notes from discussion of the first presenter = Luis; pasted in below).  The problem was I got so interested in your ideas and clicking through your posts that I forgot to take notes. 

I am hoping someone else has a better play-by-play record of what we did.  Let me know in the comments!

In general - you took turns describing work-so-far on your project = a show and tell of the different ways you were imagining documenting + analyzing the life/ethos of your group.  These presentations were AWESOME and so was the discussion surrounding the presentations = ideas for opening up, supplementing, re-casting the data or analytic method in light of what digital technologies (and the many easy aps available on line) can do.  Click through the blogs for more details.

Notes on Luis
Currently activities
Completed IRB

Mapped out interview materials
Talking to friends
Writing down notes about  the kinds of people/activities on tumblr
What are their motivations
Profiling self as a user
Will use this writing as a template for what to ask other users (in interview or show&tell format)

Plans:
Participants will walk Luis through their blogs + on-screen connections (documented as combo screen cast + video)
Plans to produce show and tell of (other) physical spaces where participants blog/spend time (either produced by the particpant – or by Luis)
Might give participants their choice of medium (writing, video, photos etc)

Ideas from group discussion

Create map of who is connected to whom (in terms of re-blogs & comments)
Creat map of who is connected to whom in terms of how they describe their relationships
Describe/gather information on/stories about participants’  presence somewhere else (other affinity groups) before (while?) they went to tumblr

 

 

7.13 The new plan: focus for the book

So far, it looks like our work fits into on-going developments in digital ethnography in three important ways:

1) extending & supplementing perspectives for documenting and describing "communities" or "affinity groups" - especially when they span material world and digital spaces;
2) illustrating possibilities for web texts as ethnography;
3) reconsidering questions surrounding researchers' identity/stance and issues associated with validity, authenticity, and ethics - with emphasis on the particular forms questions/issues take when conducting ethnographic research on affinity spaces/hyperlives (re-visiting and complicating on-going discussions surrounding traditional ethnography/auto-ethnography/ "going native":  defining appropriate researcher identities + purposes, "validity"; the "field", ethics and etc ).  

1. Extends & supplements perspectives for documenting and describing "community" or "groups";

Our perspective does not consider “online life” or communities as separate from the material-world lives that engender them.  We embrace and extend perspectives of ethnographers such as (need a list here= Kendall, Livingstone, boyd, Ito, and others) who cast online/offline experiences as seamlessly interconnected; afterall, no one is ever ENTIRELY online.   In keeping with practices developed by "multimodal ethnographers" (Robinson and Schultz, 2009), we look at the continuities and separations of online/offline activities & friendships, and the identities they engender as integral features of hyperlife – ways of being in the contemporary world that seamlessly integrate digital technologies immediacy, connectivity, and interactivity into the social fabric of everyday living.

The aspects of an affinity group which are the focus of our study center on activities, interests, styles of relating = an ethos, more than a the "space" where those activities take place (though place contextualizes and shapes what we do).  For example, a group of fan fiction writers,  while much of the group's identity/activity is mediated through the online spaces where individuals with hyperlives spend time and connect to interests for that group.  It is not the space, per se,  but the life patterns - discourses/identity structures - surrounding the particular focused interest and the spaces where that interest places out  which we seek to document.

For separate argument: we do not view  emerging technologies as the province of youth (discussion of how our work opens up much of new literacy studies focused on technology & education).  Rather, we see it as variously "realized" (represented) through an array of perspectives associated with particular sets of interconnected hyperlives (fan fic communities, Facebook friends/groups, sets of Tumblr followers, NaNoWriMo participants).  Necessarily require documentation of online + material world connections
 

2. Reconsiders questions surrounding researchers' identity/stance and issues associated with validity, authenticity, and ethics

Ethnographic perspective.  Ethnography has previously posed positions for researchers as “observers” or “natives”, with traditional ethnographies posed at the end of creating “objective,” scientifically gathered observations which are then theorized so as to represent the perspectives (write the culture) of the group under study.  At the other end we have autoethnography and “going native” perspectives where community members (or ethnographers so immersed in the culture they are studying that the lose their distance and”see” as natives) which contribute “authentic”, insider information.

Re-writes the sub-text of the assumption that the ethnographer “inhabits a kind of in-between world, simultaneously native and strangers (Hine, 5).  Our perspective allows that the ethnographer, as in auto-ethnography, is fully a native to the life-world s/he documents in that s/he has an extensive history within that life-world prior to deciding to “study” it.  This perspective also assumes ethnographer, like all members of humanity, as products of multiple experiences aquired in different communities and underpinned by sometimes radically different worldviews.   With social constructionism, it assumes that it is in part this identification with and investment in multiple, often conflicting assumptions - about the way the world is, what is valuble, what is fair, and how we know things – that allows us to see the world in new ways.  Through conversations and interactions  – often with others but also with ourselves – juxtapositions, reiterations, and restatements of (conflicting) ideas which are assumed true becomes something new.  It is a fundamental assumption  that trained ethnographers are capable of reflecting on their own (multipply conflicted) experiences and ideas, as well as those of others.  Through these reflections – organized by the various methodologies of ethnographic practice – worldviews can become “strange” and available for theorization.   

Much has been written about the advantages of each perspective, both for gatheraing and for analyzing data.  Won’t resolve this debate. Rather our work will extend and adapt a perspective characteristic of ethnographic practice from the form’s outset: participatory or insider (auto)ethnography.  Separate from PAR, with features of classic and autoethnography.  Similar to postmodern ethnography (Schapp, name others?)  – different from Kendall, Gee = who joined groups for the purpose of studying them, or whose joining was associated with their research agenda.  We are doing ethnographyies written by insiders.  Similar to teacher action research = member of classroom; different since teacher has a distinct role within the classroom which separates her from the majority of the members.   

Participatory ethnography – composed by longstanding member of the community through approaches to data collection, representation, and analysis which engage direct input with other members of the community.  Cite Participatory ethnography methodology by Gubrium + Harper.   

Offers new perspective on debates surrounding validity, authenticity, and ethics.

Validity. Aligns with standards for ethics developed for qualitative study, while heightening possibilites for extrinsic assessment of validity in the sense that representations by community members become data in and of themselves – and can be subject to analyses for discursive features by READERS. 

Authenticity.  (define as acurately representing one of the many points of view ascribed to within the group perspective a theory claims to represent) = postmodern critique => always a possibility in any research that findings represent projections of researcher’s theoretical assumptions, choices for research practice , and covert (a priori) worldbviews.  When participants are both community members and researchers – their theorization of their community in and of itself is representative of the community’s ethos in ways that “outsiders” theories can never be.  While they may not be “correct” in terms of how the community under study interacts with and is understood by individuals OUTSIDE the community, but by definition, in that they are representations and theories crafted by community members – they represent community ethos.  And again= these representations offer DATa for additional researchers to theorize from different perspectives.  

Ethics.  Re-assigns responsibility for “self representation”.  Does not resolve problems of “speaking for others” (since only SOME group members will “speak”

3. Illustrates possibilities for web texts as ethnography

- Reasons for persistence of ethnographic books

• essay as the proper form for ethnography (Behar, 20)
• habit, Hine
• nature of ethnographic argument, Dicks et al, Gubrium + Harper;  
• academic expectations;
• ethnographic training/bias (Boellstorf, 29)

- Reasons for making presenting web texts as ethnography

• Schapp => power to evoke ; arguments associated with postmodern ethnography (connected to discussion of what ethnography does=purpose)
• More effective form for representing participant perspectives without "saying" them; allows participants to self-represent in a larger range of forms
• allows for more interactive reading by reader (fewer words = less articulated conclusions=> more room to experience the data = see Pink?)
• documents connections between the identity of the researcher and the kind of ethnography researchers produce
• different modes offer different kinds of "analytic" processes, offer different "windows" on ethos of hyperlives

Discussion of representation as a kind of anlaysis

7.13 The new plan: working timeline

If you are all on board, we are hoping to continue weekly meetings through December.  It is probably not possible to project accurately what our meeting needs will be for the whole semester, but this is something along the lines of what I am thinking.  The point of this post is to give us a heads up (and have some talk) about what we want to do as a group so we can plan our schedules for the rest of the summer and for fall.  I am hoping to keep Fridays as our day - though we are open to re-arranging the time.  I am hoping that with enough lead time - we will all be able to adjust our work/other commitments so we can be at most of the meetings.

Overall goals for work this fall:

• identify and read the body of research that informs digital/new media/ cyber ethnography etc (including sample ethnographic works, methods texts on collecting, re-seeing (analyzing) + representing data so as to create ethnographic te
• do the literature review for your work
• spend rich time in your affinity group and explore features of hyperlife within that group through reflective writing/digital representations
• identify and work with participants to document your affinity group and explore features of hyperlife within that group
• experiment with digital approaches to representing data
• experiment with digital approaches/contexts for the analysis of those representations
• begin to think about the focus of your ethnography

(Robyn + the other sample chapter author will have a somewhat accelerated timeline)

Our overall plan is for data collection and re-representation data (working through digital methods for representing + analyzing data, e.g. writing analytic memos, + creating analogic "collages")  as a web-text (composing our ethnographies) will go on through spring semester & summer 2014..
.


July, 2013
19 no meeting = work on creating bibliography pages at google.sites + reading

26  discuss draft for book proposal (posted to blog by Sally);
show and tell for data collection so far; introduce the idea of analytic v analogic approaches (connects to multimodal/sensory approaches to doing ethnograph see Kress v Pink);
talk about & set up your page at google.sites for references: if you have not started already, you can make your page and start your bibliography - borrowing appropriately from references from the proposal bibliography (pizza + drinks provided)

August, 2013
2   show and tell - more discussion of the references (theoretical background, ethnographies on our affinity group) each of us will need to hit for our projects
if you are baffled by a particular reading - or feel you have found one that is especially exciting, bring it to the group!

9  discuss draft for ACLS fellowship proposal (posted by Sally);
discussion readings, work on research review

16 meeting at Mark's/ Rockin' Joe's?  (Sally absent)? 
show and tell: data collection tools + methods

23 Show and tell data. 
Categorize the kinds of data we will use so we can start thinking about a template and stylesheet

30  Review discussions of methods for representation in traditional v postmodern v digital ethnographies (Behar & Gordon, 1995; Clifford & Marcus, 1988; Dicks et al, 2005; Gubrium & Harper, 2013; Grenfell et al, 2012; Hakken, 2002; Hine, 2000;  Schapp, 2002;  Tyler, 1987; Underberg & Zorn, 2013, among others ); brainstorming templates for web-ethnography.

We have already done much of this in one-on-one conferences and earlier discussions; the point will be to see how much of a template we can come up with, and what the style features will be. 

Re-visit draft for ACLS fellowship/funding

September, 2013
6  show and tell drawings of web-essays. 
These are tentative/drafts = you will not be bound to them.  This is about brainstorming form. 
Talk about analysis v analogy (representation as ethnographic meaning making)

13  meet with Sergio - discuss proposal for Computers and Writing and AOIR (this is this year's conference, the call + location has not yet been posted for next year) and template

20  show & tell on template in light of discussion w Sergio (developing systems for representing what we are doing);
work on proposal for Computers & Writing (due October 1);
final review proposal for ACLS

23  show & tell analytic v analogic (sensory/metaphoric) methods;
 how representation  = analysis/analogy
review book proposal draft (all but sample chapters)
collaborative discussion of what data to present in sample introductory chapter (authored by Sally)

27 Final review of panel proposal for Computers & Writing

Show & tell data = more discussion of which data samples to include for introductory chapter

October, 2013
4  Work on proposal for PCA conference (deadline Nov 1);
Talk about International Ethnography across Disciplines Conference  CEAD Conference for November 2014

11  presentation CCCC research initiative grant proposal (Sally)

18  meet with Sergio (at Academic Technology lab) to see where we are = plug some data/in?
final review of PCA proposal

25  experiments with representing data, more collaborative analysis of data for individual projects
final review CCCC research initiative

November
1  experiments with representing data,
collaborative analysis,
review methods texts as needed

8  meet at Academic Technoglogy; experiment with template in terms of data presentation

15  meet at Academic Technoglogy; more work with the template = get real clear on use of style features + what kinds of data we can and cannot represent
discussion proposal for AOIR + plans for attending IEAD

22 workshop drafts for sample chapters

29  TG no meeting

December
6  workshop book proposal (all but sample chapters)

13  workshop complete proposal with sample chapters

20  final discussion of completed book proposal, create timeline for Spring Semester

7.3 Meeting Friday, July 12?

I know Mark will be traveling, but I am hoping he rest of us can meet to talk over the data you are thinking about providing.  I'd like there to be a selections of different kinds of data - so it might be a good idea to "divide up" the different kinds of data you have in mind. 

Also, I hope to talk to the folks at Academic Technology July 9 or 10 so I might have a more clear idea of what our web text will look like and what it will do.  Let me know if that is not going to work = and we can arrange something else.

I will be out of town from July 13- 20 - and I am not sure how much I will be able to be in touch (it is up in the woods in New York State, and the last time I was there was not really phone service to speak of and two very old computers that 80 people had to wait in line to use.  So we'll see.

Please leave suggestions/comments for the 7.2 post on ideas for different forms of data.  That is not a "complete" (or even the "best ideas") kind of a list - it is just a put something up there list.  

Have a Happy 4th of July, and I will be looking through your posts this weekend - and maybe even getting back to them!

7.3 Very much in progress listy/oultine for chapter 1

 

I am pretty sure this is going to end up being TWO chapters, but I am going to dig in and start writing and I will see where it takes us.  I want to discuss the sample data representations you all will provide in light of discussion set up under the first 3 points.

 

Working book title: Being there in a new media age: Ethnography of digital culture as web text

 

Working chapter title: Immediate lives, mediated cultures, and ethnographic practice  

1.New ethnographies for new times  (lead in + examples of digital ethnography)

documentations of literate lives and practices=articles in Kairos + enculturation, DALN, Transnational lives

Blank’s book with icons

sample research blogs used as ethnography

Dicks’ site for the science museum project

in this book/in this chapter transition

2. New challenges for "Writing” culture in the context of immediate experiences, mediated places, and multimodal representations

 

1) Background:

definitions of ethnography =>ethnographic gaze + focus on representation:

Clifford & Marcus, writing culture; Clifford’s discussion of “experimental” form - Tyler the idea of evocation

Behar & Gordon - role of technology

Austrailia_ Digital ethnography research center
rethinking digital ethnography today http://www.uq.edu.au/mia/2012-issues#145

list of digital ethnographers http://www.edelmandigital.com/2010/12/03/friday-five-leading-digital-ethnographers/

2) demands for new theory and practice with the advent of online commutities

 

documentation of mediated communities: survey piece from sociology (robinson & Schulz, 2009)

+ discussion of changing perspectives of works documenting online communities

pioneering, legitimizing, multimodal => discuss in terms of purpose, focus, ideology, data selection + representation

pioneering = focus on MUDs + identity play; often focused "on the schism between online and offline realities (686)

legitimizing- "underscored the unitiy and cohesiveness between online and offline interaction and identity projects; concerned with "translating offline methodology to online practice"=> insisted on  "continuity between the techniques an analytic frameworks of traditional ethnography and ethnography of social life in online envoriments. . . endorsing a vision of the cyberfield as part of a flow between online and offline realities"
 
multimodal - new ways for "tackling the latest waves of multi-modal mediated communication => "necessity of increased sociological engagement" ; within this wave=> "many cyberethnographers engage in participant observation as active content producers"

multimodal ethnographies are "questioning the viability of traditional modes of dissemination of both results and primary data" 692 => paying increased attention to how "online interaction generates physical co-presence or activities in the offline world"

Pioneering
Turkle 1997

Dibble 1998  Online RPG

 

Legitimizing

Kendall 2002, hanging out in the virtual pub

Schaap 2002  online rpg = MUD as ethnography (?)

 

Multimodal

Horst, 2006  Cell Phone

Taylor, 2006 MOORPG

 

And beyond (written after this article)

Baym, 2010 Cell phone

Boellstorf, 2010 Second life

Blank

MacDougal (ethnographic film) see Hurdley and Dicks p 285)

 

a.  theoretical perspectives on data

i) influence of the machine = Haaken influence of the machine

ii) Multimodality  + analytic perspective

Kress v Pink

Hurdley + Dicks = compromise= presents differences as one of emphasis

*  sensory ethnography obscures constraints of subjectivity from past experiences/cultural discourses (p 284, Hurdley & Dicks)

but see Howes, 284-285 senses cultural/discursive

* semiotics/multimodal - privileges gaze/bookish abstractness,=> looks at rather than living with

BUt- see Kress & L, 2001, always contextual 281-282

iii) definitions of affordances (Pink, Hurdly & Dicks, Kress)

b. practical considerations for collecting data

c. practical considerations for analyzing data

3) Theoretical perspective for our book

a. working the boundaries  (Hurdley & Dicks, 2011; Dicks et al, 2011)

b. representation as interpretation (transcription essay, Bezemer + Mavers)

3.  New horizons for representation

Invoke Iser’s discussion of horizon

1) review discussion of what has been done

2) discussion of what we do in the book

one or two examples from each chapter, cover range off data “types” listed on last post