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Mediating ethnography: Objectivity and the making of ethnographies of the internet
Abstract
This paper aims to contribute to current discussions about methods in anthropological (especially ethnographic) research on the cultures of the internet. It does so by considering how technology has been presented in turn as an epistemological boon and bane in methodological discourse around virtual or online ethnography, and cyberanthropology. It maps these discussions with regards to intellectual traditions and ambitions of ethnographic research and social science, and considers how these views of technology relate to modernist discourse about the value of technology for producing a particular kind of objective knowledge. For this article, I have examined a number of monographs and methodological texts in which the internet, as both a new setting and a new technology for doing ethnography, is shown to raise new issues for ethnographic work and for theorising anthropological approaches. In this material, questions of presence, field relations (including trust and confidentiality), and new possibilities for observation are especially prominently discussed. Anxieties about whether the internet can be a field at all are also expressed. In my analysis, I place these issues and dilemmas facing the researcher in the context of the intellectual tradition of ethnography as applied to technology. The main themes found to subtend these discussions of ethnography's 'way of knowing' are the notion of 'field', technology, intersubjectivity and capture. The paper ends with a reflection on the kind of knowledge about the internet that ethnography can be expected to produce, given these methodological prescriptions.
... In other words, ethnography, before going online, needs to rethink the process and products of enquiry (Markham, 2018). Evolving ethnographic methods to capture life online creates new demands on the researcher (Beaulieu, 2004;Murphy, 2014;Shumar & Madison, 2013), including ethical challenges regarding online content (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007;Markham, 2018;Markham & Buchanan, 2012;Sahlström, Tanner, & Olin-Scheller, 2019;Spilioti & Tagg, 2017;Sveningsson, 2003) where the line between public and private is easily blurred. Further, applying pre-digital ethical guidelines might cause complications, such as using non-digital principles of public versus private in an online context (Sugiura, Wiles, & Pope, 2017). ...
... Few contexts are entirely offline, and all contemporary research can be considered online to some extent. The term does, however, have a function when stressing that the fieldwork is conducted online, since this presents a challenge to understand where the line between private and public is drawn in the online context (Beaulieu, 2004;Beneito-Montagut, 2011;Sahlström et al., 2019;Shumar & Madison, 2013;Sveningsson, 2003). Further, according to Quinton and Reynolds (2018), one approaches digital research either as a method (or instrument), or as a phenomenon. ...
... When the studied phenomenon or context is online, it creates new demands on the ethnographer. The definition of fieldwork is blurred when the ethnographer has constant access to the field from their computer, and accessing a participant's perspective is made more complex when there is no, or limited, face-to-face interaction with the participants (Beaulieu, 2004;Murphy, 2014;Shumar & Madison, 2013). Additionally, as interaction mediated via a screen might lower inhibitions, research endeavours need to put emphasis on boundary management in online ethnography. ...
Employing ethnographic methods online offers additional understanding of how online contexts are connected to education (Rusk, 2019; Ståhl & Kaihovirta, 2019; Ståhl & Rusk, 2020). As society evolves, new challenges arise for ethnography to claim its position as a methodology for understanding human sociality. For example, the definition of fieldwork might become blurred when the researcher has constant access to the field from their computer, and accessing a participant's perspective is made more complex when there is no, or limited, face-to-face interaction with participants (Beaulieu, 2004; Shumar & Madison, 2013). This chapter discusses some of the challenges experienced during the process of employing ethnographic methods with students playing the online multiplayer video game Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO, Valve Corporation & Hidden Path Entertainment, 2012) within an educational context. The challenges included maintaining participant integrity in terms of gaining informed consent from players that became co-observed, defining privacy online during the analysis and in dissemination and portraying participants accurately despite stakeholder interests. These challenges are discussed in relation to maintaining research ethics in situ together with participants and with the research context in mind. The intention is not to portray our approach as best practice, but rather to highlight and discuss the challenges faced.
... With the addition of new considerations for ethical practice, cultural entrée, and data preparation (Kozinets, Dolbec & Earley, 2014), the discipline has adapted to become better suited theoretically and practically for the Internet, even with some resistance. Although various names have been proposed for the new methodology -the one used in this chapter will be "digital ethnography" (Murthy, 2008) 2 -, the result is the same: a toolset for the cultural analysis of online community data resulting fast and discreet research, merging the traits of traditional ethnography with new ways of choosing field sites and collecting data, as well as new ethical considerations (Beaulieu, 2004). Even if members of the scientific community were slow to acknowledge its legitimacy (Kaur-Gill & Dutta, 2017) and there is a danger of missing out on the parallel component of "real-life" interactions, online ethnography is used with increasing regularity, combining ethnography's qualities with new responsibilities, "maintaining the cultural quality of the social media phenomenon through the careful consideration of the researcher's own role and social intelligence throughout the process of online social scientific research" (Kozinets, Dolbec & Earley, 2014, p. 275). ...
... One of the most widely-used processes is "lurking", "a form of online reconnaissance -to gain information on the community before making the entrée" (Kozinets, Dolbec & Earley, 2013). It is often considered an important way of initial contact with a community (Shoham, 2004); it should, however, lead to further interactions with it, as there is a possibility of missing less visible pieces of the observed phenomenon (Beaulieu, 2004). As a result, the researcher enters a specific cultural space smoothly but also after some personal introspection (Cherny, 1999), like in any ethnographic research project. ...
Where human communication and development are possible, folklore is developed. With the rise of digital communications and media in past decades, humans have adopted a new form of folklore within this online landscape. Digital folklore has been developed into a culture that impacts the ways in which communities are formed, media is created, and communications are carried out. It is essential to track this growing phenomenon.
The Digital Folklore of Cyberculture and Digital Humanities focuses on the opportunities and chances for online folklore research and research challenges for online folk groups. It presents opportunities for the production of digital internet material from items and research in the field of folk culture and for digitization, documentation, and promotion of elements related to folk culture. Covering topics such as e-learning programs, online communities, and costumes and fashion archives, this premier reference source is a dynamic resource for folklorists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, students and faculty of higher education, libraries, researchers, and academicians.
... Del seu interés per investigar l'ús d'Internet i la seua integració en la vida quotidiana de les persones naix la seua proposta metodològica: l'etnografia virtual. Després de les primeres formulacions, com la d'Hine (2011), la diversificació de propostes al voltant de l'etnografia virtual va portar amb si "l'etnografia mediada" (Miller i Slater, 2000;Beaulieu, 2004) o la netnografia (Kozinets, 2010;Del-Fresno, 2011), entre altres. ...
En el present article s’analitzen les entrades produïdes en tres grups de la xarxa social Facebook que funcionen com a comunitats virtuals d’atenció, creats i utilitzats per persones diagnosticades d’agorafòbia. L’objectiu d’aquest article és el d’explicar com es construeix i significa la identitat biomedicalitzada agorafòbica en aquestes comunitats. Com a estratègia metodològica ens fem servir de la netnografia i de l’anàlisi de discursos de les entrades. Com a conclusió, podem dir que la identitat biomedicalitzada agorafòbica es construeix en aquestes comunitats: a) a partir de la identificació amb les persones agorafòbiques i l’alteritat respecte a aquelles no agorafòbiques; b) com una identitat essencialista però també posicional; c) com una identitat múltiple; i d) com una identitat discursivo-materialista. També s’observa com l’assumpció per part de les persones usuàries dels grups del discurs mèdic agorafòbic implica la repetició d’aquest en formes que escapen al mateix discurs.
... É o que apontam, por exemplo, Kozinets et al. (2014) e Costello et al. (2017), os quais denominam tal prática de lurking (do inglês "espreitar"), reconhecendo a sua validade em determinados contextos e chegando, inclusive, a recomendá-la visando a obtenção de informações históricas, estrutura social, rituais e movimentos identificatórios, sendo mais precisamente sobre esses últimos que recaiu o nosso interesse aqui. Acrescentamos o quanto é possível valorizar o caráter discreto e menos intrusivo de tal abordagem, que traz consigo o benefício de, em geral, produzir menor interferência no fenômeno estudado, conforme expressam Beaulieu (2004) e Kozinets (2010). Assim, trabalhamos com dois tipos de dados: os arquivais, públicos e resultantes das interações entre os membros do grupo e usuários que vinham participar das discussões na página e os dados reflexivos, ou seja, nossas próprias anotações de campo (Silva, 2015). ...
Na pesquisa que deu origem a este artigo buscamos identificar e analisar os regimes de identificação presentes em parte da nova direita política brasileira a fim de debater as atribuições de fascismo que a ela têm sido feitas. Para tanto, além de um levantamento teórico-bibliográfico acerca das temáticas da psicologia das massas e da personalidade autoritária inspirado nas ideias de Freud e Adorno, utilizamo-nos do lurking, técnica de coleta de dados associada à netnografia, acompanhando assim com regularidade as interações no campo de comentários da página de Facebook do Movimento Brasil Livre - MBL para, em seguida, proceder à análise de seu conteúdo. Em termos conclusivos, validamos a noção de fascismo como categoria analítica capaz de dar conta das tendências sociais supramencionadas e defendemos que o que vem se sucedendo na atualidade política nacional pode ser lido como a (re)politização de uma personalidade autoritária preexistente, aqui compreendida como sistema ideológico e psicológico profundamente vinculado ao desenvolvimento das sociedades capitalistas modernas, constitutivamente inclinadas ao preconceito, à discriminação e à dominação.
... Ethnographic and qualitative research provide detailed descriptions of fans' modes of media consumption, cultural production, and interpretative communities, considering the broader social context and its impact. This study developed an intimate understanding of this fandom, which is difficult to achieve without interacting with others (Beaulieu 2004). Although fan activities were mainly online during the pandemic, fandom activities are also taking place in the real world space in the form of "co-creative" and "spillover effect to others" (Shimauchi 2023a). ...
This study focused on the Japanese cyber-fandom of Thai boys’ love (BL) dramas, examining how their perception of Thailand was transformed through viewership and participation in fandom activities and how it affected the fans themselves and the broader Japanese society. In the Japanese cyberfandom of Thai BL dramas, people with diverse gender identities and sexualities intermingle, learn, and become aware of their changing gazes toward Thai and Japanese culture, queerness, and other related issues. Through a qualitative analysis of audience ethnography and interviews with 25 participants, this study shows that Thailand’s culture contrasts with others, particularly the cultures of the West, and an Oriental gaze from the Japanese point of view has emerged in this context. A movement beyond the national Thailand–Japan framework has also emerged, which explores the multifaceted nature of BL dramas within a single-issue context. Thus, Thai BL drama fandom extends beyond an Oriental perspective, practising inter-Asian referencing and reflecting on the national framework by watching BL dramas and participating in fandom. In other words, this study presents new possibilities for BL: (1) overcoming an oriental perspective and reflecting on a national framework for the acceptance and consumption of BL content and (2) cultural experience and real social connection through fandom activities and discourse through inter-Asian referencing in practice.
... Because in the interview method, raw data needs to be translated, in this process, some contents may be lost or unclear, the translation sometimes can be wrong, etc. for the netnographic method, although the data needs to be interpreted as well, the raw material is fixed and can be presented to the readers in its original format. Last but not least, the released content is not like a structured interview or a questionnaire where the content is somehow elicited by the researcher's questions (Beaulieu, 2004). It expresses and reveals the authors' initial ideas, which are considered authentic. ...
This study is to explore creative tourism activities in urban districts. Through the analysis of several chosen places in South Kensington and Knightsbridge, in London, the creative tourism experience provided in these places was identified and their roles or specific features in attracting tourists were also discussed. The result of this study shows that South Kensington is a cultural and historic district, it offers tourists creative cultural and historical experiences. The Knightsbridge area is an entertainment and tourist shopping village district, the creative experience in this area has the main function of satisfying tourists’ state of mind. This study also highlighted the significance of integrating creative activities into tourist attractions and according to tourists’ demands to design the creative experience.
... E-mails, chats, blogs, bank transactions, electronic games, applications and social networks are some of the examples raised by the authors who were and continue to be mobilised by disciplines that include sociology, communication, philosophy, anthropology and the arts: 'Not for less, this field has been dynamic, challenging, controversial and has mobilised intense debates in events and publications. The authors argue in defence of ethnography as the 'master key' of research in this field, with 'Internet Ethnography', 'Virtual Ethnography', 'Online Ethnography' and/or 'Netnography' already propounded as methods in different research works (Beaulieu, 2004;Hine, 2011;Martinhago, 2018). ...
As the COVID-19 pandemic sprawled across every continent, ‘hand-washing’ became the official guideline to prevent contagion. In this scenario, governmental and non-governmental actors mobilised to promote the provision of water supply and customer services to the largest number of people. With the imposed isolation, virtual events became the centre of the political debate, bringing to light strategies and challenges to guarantee basic needs, debated within the scope of the federal legislative and executive branches and civil society. The purpose of this article is to explore the discourses produced and the interventions proposed between April and May 2020. In the light of social studies of science and technology and discussions regarding the enactment and production of the state, mapped through the actions of key actors, this ethnography enables us to outline the conflicts of sanitation governance in Brazil.
... Del seu interés per investigar l'ús d'Internet i la seua integració en la vida quotidiana de les persones naix la seua proposta metodològica: l'etnografia virtual. Després de les primeres formulacions, com la d'Hine (2011), la diversificació de propostes al voltant de l'etnografia virtual va portar amb si "l'etnografia mediada" (Miller i Slater, 2000;Beaulieu, 2004) o la netnografia (Kozinets, 2010;Del-Fresno, 2011), entre altres. ...
En el present article s'analitzen les entrades produïdes en tres grups de la xarxa social Facebook que funcionen com a comunitats virtuals d'atenció, creats i utilitzats per persones diagnosticades d'agorafòbia. L'bjectiu d'aquest article és el d'explicar com es construeix i significa la identitat biomedicalitzada agorafòbica en aquestes comunitats. Com a estratègia metodològica ens fem servir de la netnografia i de l'anàlisi de discursos de les entrades. Com a conslusió, podem dir que la identitat biomedicalitzada agorafòbica es construeix en aquestes comunitats: a) a partir de la identificació amb les persones agorafòbiques i l'alteritat respecte a aquelles no agorafòbiques; b) com una identitat essencialista però també posicional; c) com una identitat múltiple; i d) com una identitat discursivo-materialista. També s'observa com l'assumpció per part de les persones usuàries dels grups del discurs mèdic agorafòbic implica la repetició d'aquest en formes que escapen al mateix discurs.
... Digital ethnography is an evolving field, encompassing a diverse and sometimes incompatible array of approaches to integrating ideas about the internet and digital tools with ideas about ethnography (Beaulieu, 2004;Caliandro, 2018). For some thinkers, the internet represents an ontologically distinct sociological phenomenon, a brave new world where the rules of the social are rewritten anew. ...
In this chapter, I explore how we can put institutional ethnography (IE) in dialogue with digital sociology to make visible the coordinating role of digital platforms in everyday/night life. My argument focuses on the popular community questions and answers platform for programmers, Stack Overflow. I put forward a case for understanding digital platforms as institutions and I examine the benefits of an IE approach. Rather than analyzing text only as user interaction, I make a case for understanding temporal ordering, programmability, and text-reader conversation within digital platforms. I highlight ways that we can think about text in digital settings and unpack how institutional ethnography can offer insights into digital settings that enrich current methods in digital ethnography.
... Ethnography is a discipline that captures the "social meanings and ordinary activities" of subjects in "naturally occurring settings", spaces that are called "fields" [41]; while in recent decades it has expanded further into the Internet. The result is a variety of new methodological tools for the collection and analysis of online data from wider communities [42], gathered quickly and efficiently [43]. The combination of the above allows for the acquisition of data from non-traditional but reliable sources, given the subject matter's niche interest and lack of documentation in official sources. ...
Culture, in its various forms, is currently perceived as a key driver for urban development and a sector that lies at the heart of SDGs’ attainment; while various studies around the world demonstrate its power in cities’ flourishing and achievement of sustainability objectives. However, rapid technological and other developments have severely affected certain facets of culture, with cinema being one of the most impacted ones. Τhis paper explores the evolving spatial pattern of this specific cultural sector, which is perceived as a vital part of local urban socio-economic and cultural development and community invigoration. As case study region, the Athens metropolitan area is considered. The proposed methodological approach is grounded in particular types of open and volunteered geographic data, as well as spatial tools. More specifically, data are sourced from the OpenStreetMap platform and supplementary digital sources through digital ethnography; while errors/discrepancies identified in these data are also addressed and resolved. The time span of the cinemas’ spatial pattern exploration in the Athens area is 2005–2022, with specific interest in 2005, 2012, 2019 and 2022 instances. Key findings demonstrate a certain decline of enclosed, single-screen enterprises; a relative stability of open-air, neighborhood and municipal cinemas; and a fragility of multiplexes.KeywordsCulture/cinemasOpen dataOpen Street Map & Volunteered Geographic InformationLocal urban developmentSpatial analysis
... The opening of ethnography to online and digital social spaces, has been called in different ways by different authors: Netnography (Kozinets, 1998(Kozinets, , 2002(Kozinets, , 2010(Kozinets, , 2015; Cyber Ethnography (Morton, 2001;Escobar, 1994), Ethnography of Virtual Spaces (Burrel, 2009), Ethnography of the virtual word (Boellstoorff et al., 2012), Virtual Ethnography (Hine, 2008), Internet Ethnography (Boyd, 2008), Ethnography on the Internet (Beaulieu, 2004), Internet related ethnography (Postill, Pink, 2012); Digital Ethnography (Murthy, 2008), Webnography (Puri, 2007), Expanded ethnography (Beneito-Montagut, 2011) multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 1995). ...
Digital ethnography can be defined as a contemporary form of ethnography which considers online social spaces of discussion following the advances in data transmission technology. In the last few years, various attempts of considering online spaces in ethnographic research have been made producing different styles of online ethnography, each identified by a different label. This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the topic to map the practice of digital ethnography. The research process followed four key steps: search, selection, analysis and synthesis. In the search phase, we searched contributions iteratively in Web of Science and Scopus by using a variety of keywords corresponding to the different labels used to refer to digital ethnography. In the selection phase, we adopted a selective stance that aims to provide a critical review of the existing research and practices in the context of digital ethnography. In the analysis phase, we carried out a content analysis of the papers combining deductive and inductive coding. The synthesis phase involves a process of typology development to pragmatically reduce and systematize an extensive set of features and digital ethnography practices. Basing on the type of data collected (Small vs Big Data) and the type of fieldwork (meta or contextual field), we detected four types of ethnographic research: social media ethnography, contextual digital ethnography, meta digital ethnography, cross-media ethnography.
... This "empirical vagueness" is also reflected in the nebulousness of terminology and in the fact that there is still no unambiguous direction to recognize this approach. Among the most common labels are: Netnography (Kozinets, 2002(Kozinets, , 2010(Kozinets, , 2015; Cyber Ethnography (Morton, 2001), Ethnography of Virtual Spaces (Burrell, 2009), Internet ethnography (Boyd, 2008), Ethnography on the Internet (Beaulieu, 2004), Internet related ethnography (Postill, Pink, 2012); Digital Ethnography (Murthy, 2008), Webnography (Puri, 2007). ...
The digital society is a research object that still lacks a clear and shared definition, as it is always in progressive and whirling transformation. From a methodological point of view, digital society is then a fruitful ground for experimentation and innovation. However, the unceasing flourishing of online social practices and the innovative ways to frame into data the online activities of individuals make the knowledge drawn from the web always uncertain, revisable, and at high risk of obsolescence. Social research tried to face the challenges posed by the digital society first by adapting the established social research methods to the new digital environments and then creating new ones. Neither approach has been able to define which are the most valid and reliable methodological tools to study the digital society, nor to draw a shared vision that would allow social research to advance. This chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities that the digital society poses to social research methodology and reflects on the need for new epistemological and methodological positions.
... Interpretivist research gains access to peoples' thoughts to interpret actions and outcomes from their point of view [35]. The methodology blended aspects of established distance [40,41], online [42,43,44,45,46,47] and comparative [48] ethnographic practices as well as phenomenographic [49,50,51,52,53,54] processes, resulting in a bespoke methodological design tailored to suit the study's specific requirement [55]. ...
A recent study conducted by researchers at a University in Australia examined curriculum content and pedagogical practices of guitar tuition in Contemporary Popular Music (CPM) courses offered by Australian higher education institutions. The study observed potential modes of cultural revivification within the courses examined and discussed them from the perspective of UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Data were collected via surveys, interviews and documents, and analysed using procedures of Inductive Thematic Analysis. The discussion employs metaphors of mythological creatures from ancient near east, and Australian Indigenous mythologies, to describe the process of culturally bound evolving musical genres, and discusses the role of higher education in the process. The findings reveal many Australian educators in CPM embrace the heterogeneous cultural heritage of Australian music and encourage students to engage with developing new varied forms of music from a broad range of cultural influences. There are many cultures in Australia; Indigenous, Settler, Post-Colonial, and Immigrant, providing an eclectic cultural melting pot for a metaphorical Chimera-Phoenix-Bunyip hybrid to give birth to various new aesthetics derived in, and from, Australian CPM through processes employed in higher education
... How to go about it then? The answer lies in some of the newly emerging approaches like "virtual ethnography" (Hine, 2000), "ethnography on the internet" (Beaulieu, 2004), "internet ethnography" (Sade-Beck, 2004;Boyd, 2008), "digital ethnography" (Murthy, 2008), "cyberethnography" (Robinson and Schulz 2009), "ethnographic research on the internet" (Garcia et al., 2009), "internet-related ethnography" (Postill and Pink, 2012) and "netnography" (Kozinets, 2009). ...
The outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic has changed many persisting modalities of human life. It has made a huge impact on the lives and livelihoods of people living across the globe. Imposition of restrictions on the movement made life difficult for researchers of many fieldwork-based social science disciplines like anthropology, sociology and others. It is in this context, this article tries to explore the possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of some of the new and emerging approaches like virtual/digital ethnography. This article plunges deep into the methodological issues of doing ethnographic fieldwork to show that innovative research strategies have always been adopted on grounds of the sheer necessity of capturing human life within complex and ever-transforming social situations. Thus, growing instances of innovative research strategies that researchers are adopting now might be seen as the need of the situation; whether good or bad, proper or improper, only the future will tell.
... Η δεύτερη, στηρίζεται σε μία επιστήμη που συλλαμβάνει τα «κοινωνικά μηνύματα και τις συνηθισμένες δραστηριότητες» υποκειμένων σε «περιβάλλοντα που προκύπτουν φυσικά» -χώροι που έχουν ονομαστεί «πεδία» (Brewer, 2000) -, ενώ αξιοποιείται η επέκτασή της στο Διαδίκτυο. Έτσι προέκυψε μία ποικιλία μεθοδολογικών εργαλείων για τη συλλογή και ανάλυση διαδικτυακών δεδομένων ευρύτερων κοινοτήτων (Kozinets και άλλοι, 2010), με αποτέλεσμα τη γρήγορη και αποτελεσματική έρευνα (Beaulieu, 2004). Ο συνδυασμός των παραπάνω βοήθησε στη ταχεία απόκτηση ψηφιακών δεδομένων από μη παραδοσιακές αλλά αξιόπιστες πηγές, όπως θα αναλυθεί στη συνέχεια. ...
OpenStreetMap, συλλέγονται δεδομένα για τις θέσεις των κινηματογράφων του Δήμου Αθηναίων για τέσσερις χρονικές στιγμές (2005, 2012, 2019 και 2022). Η εμβάθυνση στα δεδομένα αναδεικνύει: την πτωτική τάση του αριθμού των κινηματογράφων-ειδικά των χειμερινών-που ξεκινά πριν την οικονομική κρίση σε γειτονιές στα δυτικά και το κέντρο· τη μειωμένη ανθεκτικότητα των πολυκινηματογράφων και τη μετατόπιση του κλάδου στα βορειοανατολικά· τη μερική ανάκαμψη του κινηματογράφου πριν την πανδημία του κοροναϊού· τη σταθερότητα των θερινών και την τάση επαναλειτουργίας των παλαιών κινηματογράφων. Τα παραπάνω καθιστούν ανάγλυφες τις επιπτώσεις διαφόρων ειδών κρίσεων-οικονομικών, υγειονομικών, κ.λπ.-αλλά και των τεχνολογικών εξελίξεων στον τομέα του πολιτισμού και τον κινηματογράφο ειδικότερα, με δυσχερείς επιπτώσεις στην τοπική οικονομική, κοινωνική και πολιτιστική ανάπτυξη· ενώ ταυτόχρονα επισημαίνουν τη δυνητική αντοχή του μοντέλου του κινηματογράφου της γειτονιάς. ΛΕΞΕΙΣ ΚΛΕΙΔΙΑ πολιτιστική ανάπτυξη, πολιτιστική οικονομία, τοπική ανάπτυξη, χωρικό πρότυπο-διαχρονική εξέλιξη κινηματογράφου 1. ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗ Η σημασία του πολιτισμού για την ευρύτερη οικονομία έχει εξεταστεί ποικιλοτρόπως στη βιβλιογραφία, ενώ πρόσφατες εξελίξεις καθιστούν απαραίτητη μία πιο διαχρονική ματιά. Η ιδέα του πολιτισμού ως πυλώνα ανάπτυξης σε επίπεδο πόλης (Jacobs, 2016; Hall, 2000), είτε ως ενός συστατικού στοιχείου μιας νέας οργάνωσης της οικονομίας (Brooks, 2018; Kotkin, 2000) είχε συζητηθεί ποικιλοτρόπως ήδη από το δεύτερο μισό του εικοστού αιώνα, αλλά ήταν η ιδέα της «δημιουργικής πόλης» του Florida (2004)
... 70) en un acto performativo y en situación cara a cara. No obstante, las mediaciones tecnológicas que permitieron llevarlas a cabo durante el período de ASPO alteraron ese contexto cara a cara, tensionando la definición de etnografía al motivar la reflexión sobre la presencialidad física y la inmersión en el campo (Beaulieu, 2004;Hine, 2005). Según Hine, la etnografía se ha construido, convencionalmente, a partir del principio de interacción y observación participante en un trabajo de campo que implica desplazamiento físico; señala, en el nacimiento de la etnografía virtual, la percepción de la tecnología en una instancia de enmarcamiento en las interacciones. ...
La finalidad de este trabajo es mostrar un análisis parcial de la indagación en prácticas docentes desarrolladas en escuelas públicas de San Carlos de Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina, comprendidas en el contexto de la política educativa que instaura la Escuela Secundaria Rionegrina (ESRN). Ante la suspensión de la presencialidad y la continuidad pedagógica impuestas en el año 2020 por la pandemia de COVID-19, incididas en muchos casos por escasas posibilidades de conectividad, se procura conocer las prácticas docentes desde la mirada de sus actores, por lo que desde una metodología cualitativa, relacional e interpretativa se llevaron a cabo entrevistas en profundidad (sostenidas en entorno virtual) a diversos actores institucionales (supervisor, directivos y docentes). El análisis da cuenta de las dificultades que supuso la mediación tecnológica y de la relevancia que para los diferentes actores de la ESRN adquirió el trabajo interdisciplinario y entre áreas. Se pormenoriza en el caso del área Educación en Lengua y Literatura, para observar tensiones de las prácticas en una asignatura disciplinar específica. Consideramos que un año de trabajo en estas condiciones de virtualidad necesita ser analizado por su implicancia en el disloque sobre las prácticas docentes cotidianas, así como de las instituciones educativas. Asimismo, por la incidencia en una continuidad formativa que se lleva a cabo en las escuelas y que necesariamente dejará sus huellas.
... As has been widely discussed in the scholarship, digital ethnographies inthe-making involve a high degree of uncertainty and different levels of tension and concerns that, while being a characteristic of ethnographic fieldwork in general (Hammersley 1992;Fabian 1994), have in this context their own peculiarities (Markham and Baym 2009;Hine 2012). In this regard, following Beaulieu (2004), we can summarise epistemological and methodological anxieties in relation to three aspects. First, the accountability of the field: what is 'real' and how to assess it. ...
Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms.
... As has been widely discussed in the scholarship, digital ethnographies inthe-making involve a high degree of uncertainty and different levels of tension and concerns that, while being a characteristic of ethnographic fieldwork in general (Hammersley 1992;Fabian 1994), have in this context their own peculiarities (Markham and Baym 2009;Hine 2012). In this regard, following Beaulieu (2004), we can summarise epistemological and methodological anxieties in relation to three aspects. First, the accountability of the field: what is 'real' and how to assess it. ...
Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms.
... Yet, observation may be perceived as intrusive, and some practices resist being witnessed because of their solitary or regulated nature (Garforth 2012;Star and Strauss 1999). STS researchers have therefore made use of alternative methods like interviews and document analysis to study (knowledge-making) practices (Beaulieu 2002(Beaulieu , 2010. ...
In recent years, the potential of contemplative practices like mindfulness meditation to alleviate modern ailments such as stress, chronic conditions and signs of old age has been studied with neuroscientific, psychological and clinical approaches. Researchers conducting such studies, sometimes called 'contemplative scientists,’ have been featured in the media to provide scientific legitimacy for the benefits of meditation. While proponents of contemplative science present this kind of research as unambiguously benevolent and capable of remedying global crises, opponents find it ethically dubious. Some social scholars and Buddhist practitioners worry that a scientific framing of meditation strips it of its intellectual, affective and ethical roots in Buddhism and makes it amenable to use for unethical ends, for instance as a concentration training in the military or a productivity booster in business corporations. Instead of reasoning in the abstract about these potential normative effects of contemplative science (for good or ill) and projecting them into the future, this dissertation explores the ethicality of contemplative science by studying how values emerge in practice. The exploration is guided by the following research questions: How are values enacted in contemplative science practices? How does the contemplative science community valorise and justify its research as epistemologically rich and ethically benevolent? How are knowledge-making practices related to scientific norms of good research on meditation? How can engaged social science research critique contemplative science in a way that is generative of changes in thought and action?
To answer these questions, this dissertation draws on theoretical and methodological resources from the field of Science & Technology Studies as well as from interrelated discourses on Responsible Innovation and Responsible Research and Innovation. It combines multi-sited ethnography with engagement research guided by adaptations of the Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) method to study and critique practices of valuation in contemplative science. The main finding is that contemplative scientists mobilise different strategies and repertoires to enact values – they perform what is here named ‘valuation work.’ The concept of valuation work captures how scientists make seemingly incompatible values, forms of authority and systems of orientation merge, coexist or alternate in practice. Ethnographic research on the laboratory floor, during scientific meetings and at conferences highlights that deliberations on and practical attempts to resolve value conflicts are inextricably bound up with scientific socialisation processes and knowledge production. Such valuation work can become visible and modifiable in interdisciplinary collaboration and practitioner dialogues guided by the STIR decision protocol.
In examining and inflecting the processes through which scientists engage with the socio-ethical aspects of their work, this dissertation adds an empirical perspective on ‘ethics in action’ to public and academic debates on ‘ethics in theory’ in contemplative science. The analysis reveals that contemplative science does not automatically have the normative effects which proponents and opponents anticipate. For example, by turning mindfulness meditation into an object of research it does not necessarily lose its ethical roots in Buddhism, neither does it automatically result in improved mental health and well-being in society. Rather, both Buddhist and modern framings of meditation can be traced, destabilised and modulated in scientific work through reflexive practices that are already embedded in contemplative science and those that are stimulated by social science engagement research. This finding indicates that scientists can account for the ways in which their research influences society and culture – the kinds of impacts which are usually assumed to fall outside the scope of their responsibilities. Hence, Ethics in Action is not only relevant for contemplative scientists, but also for other technoscientific practitioners, policy-makers and engaged social scholars because it suggests that joint efforts to open up reflexive spaces, where conventional approaches and convictions are made available for reconsideration and revision, can facilitate the social steering of technoscience.
... DE facilitates the study of habits and movements (Postill & Pink, 2012;Beaulieu, 2004;Hine, 2000Hine, , 2008Kozinets, 2010;Postill, 2008Postill, , 2010aPostill, , 2010bPostill, , 2011. My methodology allowed me to observe how touring musicians and singers move from one location to another as they perform in several venues. ...
Since the 1950s, a new wave of music festivals has emerged in North America in response to the systematic exclusion and cultural gatekeeping cultural organizations have historically conducted. This has created a more inclusive space for marginalized artists and communities in which political discourse and anti-discrimination movements have become the focus (Getz, 2010; Duffy & Mair, 2021; Quinn, 2005; Li, Moore & Smythe, 2018; Wilson, Arshed, Shaw & Pret, 2016; Bekenshtein, 2020; Fernandez, 2006). This study highlights some of Canada’s diversity-focused festivals, which are founded on the principles of multiculturalism and support the national narrative of a welcoming nation. However, these events sometimes reproduce existing societal conditions that position racially marginalized people as the “Other”. The study applies a digital ethnography (DE) methodology (Pink, 2012, 2013, Postill, 2008, 2010a, 2010b, 2011) to investigate the promotional activities festivals and marginalized music artists conduct as they negotiate existing power imbalances, cultural hegemony, and language hierarchies. Between July and November 2019, I carried out field visits to five Canadian festivals that focus on diversity and multiculturalism. I collected field notes, photos, videos, and audio recordings, and captured 1083 Facebook posts from the events and the artists who performed there. Through digital content analysis and ethnographic inquiry, the data revealed that racially marginalized francophone music artists express fluid and hybrid identities constructed by multilingualism, geographic mobility, and their musical influences. These identities are evident in the music styles artists express, the languages they use, and the symbolic meaning of their Facebook content. The findings show that festivals are largely apolitical and focused on the commodification of diversity and multiculturalism. This commodification can nationalize, fetishize, exotify, and culturally appropriate the identities of marginalized communities. As a result, festivals can reproduce difference rather than create the social cohesion they aspire to. Music artists use strategies like hashtag activism, code-switching, music remix, public speaking, and content curation to negotiate these social constraints. In doing so, they challenge the compartmentalization of the music industry and introduce positive representations of racially marginalized communities.
... Ethnographic research on online and offline practices and classroom communication influenced by digitalization has significantly become popular in recent times, generally due to the availability and access to the internet in everyday life. This research approach has diverse forms across the disciplines having different nomenclatures such as digital ethnography , virtual ethnography , cyberethnography (Robinson & Schulz, 2009), discourse-centered online ethnography , internet ethnography (Boyd, 2008;Sade-Beck, 2004) ethnography on the internet (Beaulieu 2004), ethnography of virtual spaces (Burrel 2009), ethnographic research on the internet (Garcia et al. 2009), internet-related ethnography and netnography (Kozinets 2009). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us. Some have been affected more, some less. In many cases, the poor have become poorer and students have lost learning opportunities, which is more so in the developing world. Also, this pandemic has exposed both the strengths and weaknesses of the healthcare systems in most countries. This chapter sets out to explain how learning has been affected by this pandemic. It also highlights the author's experience as a lecturer and researcher during the pandemic. Pandemic responses are described as inefficient and reactive and characterized by delayed action, poor planning, and corruption. With the increased levels of poverty, unemployment, and inflation, it heavily impacted the low-income households restricted by the strict lockdowns and pandemic protocols. This motivated non-governmental organizations to act and initiate by pooling their resources to mitigate the gaps in the government's responses. The recovery framework also needed to set a clear path for the country's new normal.
... Ethnographic research on online and offline practices and classroom communication influenced by digitalization has significantly become popular in recent times, generally due to the availability and access to the internet in everyday life. This research approach has diverse forms across the disciplines having different nomenclatures such as digital ethnography , virtual ethnography , cyberethnography (Robinson & Schulz, 2009), discourse-centered online ethnography , internet ethnography (Boyd, 2008;Sade-Beck, 2004) ethnography on the internet (Beaulieu 2004), ethnography of virtual spaces (Burrel 2009), ethnographic research on the internet (Garcia et al. 2009), internet-related ethnography and netnography (Kozinets 2009). ...
This chapter will analyse indigenous knowledge's significance in sustainability for climate change. There is a pattern that demonstrates that there are connections between bigger life systems and other causes or occurrences which require constant engagement with nature and generational knowledge. Indigenous peoples employed totems, symbols, and messages to transmit their understanding of natural phenomena, causes, repercussions, and conservation measures. The study examines the use of digital ethnography to maintain both knowledge and experiences. The research also aims to bring new insights into systemic thinking and philosophical elements that influence ethical actions. In the name of globalisation, place-based contextual issues have been marginalised, reducing the local value that is distinctive to geographical places. The theory of change (TOC) informs here with an in-depth understanding of the philosophical concepts and systemic thinking.
... In the context of this essay, it is sufficient to point out that postmodern anthropologists consider anthropology to be a part of humanities. From this perspective, anthropology should not be subjected to the rules and principles of the positivist, materialist, and naturalistic scientific research (for discussion seeBeaulieu, 2004;Bužeková, 2012Bužeková, , 2018Carrithers, 1990;Gellner, 1992;Lett, 1997aLett, , 1997b Marcus & Fischer, 1999;Spiro, 1996). ...
The question of objectivity and subjectivity of anthropological research has been prominent in academic discourse since the second half of the
20th century. The article aims to contribute to debates on objectivity and subjectivity in anthropological and ethnographic research. Specifically, the author
addresses the issue of how to deal with personal feelings and emotions that researchers encounter during field research. The author tackles the methodological and epistemological aspects of ethnographic research associated with using
personal experiences, feelings, and emotions as ethnographic data. These issues
are considered in the context of research of religion. In conclusion, the author
expresses the view that personal experiences, feelings, and emotions should not
be perceived as equivalent to data obtained by the scientific method. Despite
this, they play an important role in the process of writing ethnography
... 173). Beaulieu (2004) likewise notes that the inclusion of, and attention to, reflexivity helps to ground the research and bolster the legitimacy of digital ethnographic work. ...
... As a result, a digital and nondigital range of ideas and methods were trialed to continue fieldwork in pandemic times [5]. However, much research was conducted online in previous years, and many examples of online surveys, interviews, and digital ethnographies are available in the literature [6][7][8]. ...
Focus group discussions (FGDs) are widely used to obtain qualitative data from purposely selected groups of people. This paper describes how the Learning and Capacity Development (LCD) unit of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) digitalized FGDs to engage with WHO staff from around the world, to listen, share, and collect their feedback in the development of a WHO learning framework. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduction of local lockdowns and travel restrictions resulted in the wide use of digital platforms, such as Zoom, for employee communications and collaboration capable of reaching employees wherever they are working. The LCD/WHE team drew upon the experience of WHO colleagues from human resources, country, and regional offices to set up and hold FGDs in 6 languages with participants from all WHO regions. Building on the findings of a 2019 WHO staff survey, which was part of a comprehensive, organization-wide career development initiative, the digitalized FGDs allowed for the exchange of substantive feedback, novel ideas, and alignment, connecting across different geographies, disciplines, and levels of seniority. As a result, FGDs can be successfully conducted online, but it is essential to remove barriers to participation by adopting a multilingual and flexible approach in multinational and international organizations such as the WHO.
... Yet, observation may be perceived as intrusive, and some practices resist being witnessed because of their solitary or regulated nature (Garforth 2012;Star and Strauss 1999). STS researchers have therefore made use of alternative methods like interviews and document analysis to study (knowledge-making) practices (Beaulieu 2002(Beaulieu , 2010. ...
Mindfulness and compassion meditation is a popular lifestyle intervention in randomised controlled clinical trials (RCTs), which examine its efficacy to ameliorate health and well-being. Studying meditation in an RCT poses the challenge of standardising an intervention that relies on a mix of people, skills and activities. This article describes how, in meeting this challenge, researchers engage in diverging knowledge-making practices. It draws on praxiographic inquiry in an RCT on the effects of meditation compared to a foreign language training on healthy age- ing. To analyse normative dimensions of knowledge-making practices, the concept of ‘epistemic goods’ is introduced. Researchers juggled partly incoherent epistemic goods—internal validity, social relevance, assessing efficacy, attending to qualitative effects, objectivity, trained judgment—and resolved tensions between them. Strategies to respond to unexpected events in the research process were: reinterpreting the study protocol, caring informally while playing by formal rules and adjusting the procedure of a study task. Analysing epistemic goods and strategies that make them coexist is relevant to problematise what counts as evidence in evidence-based medicine. Instead of evaluating knowledge by reference to a ‘gold standard’, evidence claims should be placed in the context of their production to evaluate them on their own terms.
... (1) Lack of face-to-face interaction Lack of face-to-face interaction is a common objection to online research (Beaulieu 2004;Liamputtong 2013). Some researchers suggest that the online environment, where the data is represented as 'text-only', reduces social cues such as expression, emphasis and movement (Mann & Stewart 2000). ...
... For instance, G. W. Evans et al. (2000) discovered that Latin Americans and Asians have a smaller personal space than North Americans or Northern Europeans. Cross-cultural differences of personal space can be explained by two theoretical accounts based on differences between contact (larger distance of personal space) and noncontact cultures (shorter distance of personal space) (Beaulieu, 2004), and differences between collectivistic and individualistic cultures (McSweeney, 2002;Triandis, 2001). Thus, personal space is likely to influence the way that people respond to information regarding social relations or social environments such as selfies. ...
A selfie, as a form of self-presentation, is known to display an “ideal” self. Selfies publicly posted on Instagram were analyzed to see if the size of faces in selfies affects the perceived privacy boundary between selfie takers and viewers, and eventually leads to social media users’ negative evaluation toward selfies. The data showed that close-up selfies were associated with fewer likes received from other users, while full shot selfies received more likes. Meanwhile, influencers with a high number of followers moderated the perception of privacy boundaries. Theoretical and practical implications of these phenomena are also discussed.
... In spite of the misgiving of the lack of the "actual field" in online data collection methods, Howlett (2021) found that she was able to be grounded on the research site even though she was in London and her research participants were in Ukraine. Similar earlier research (Beaulieu, 2004;Pink et al., 2016) back Howlett (2021)'s research experience. ...
The pandemic closed the door for the use of conventional, face-to-face data collection methods. At the same time, it built a momentum for the exploration and utilization of online data collection methods. However, the belief about superiority of the offline data collection persists. The literature review and the authors’ research experience reveal that offline and online data collection methods yield similar result in terms of data completion and quality. All data collection methods contain weaknesses and strengths. Nonetheless, the online data collection methods are very versatile. They allow the researchers to choose the tools that best align with their research objectives.
... Çevrimiçi toplulukların ve kültürlerin katılım olmadan tamamen gözleme dayanarak incelenebileceği fikri başta kabul görse de hem etik açıdan hem de metodolojik açıdan yetersizlikleri farkedildi (ilk dönem etnografilerine eleştirel bir bakış için bkz. Beaulieu, 2004). Sahanın tamamının tanımlanabileceği ve ana akım antropolojide terkedilmiş bütüncül yaklaşımın (holistic approach) internet üzerinde gerçekleşebileceği fikri başta heyecan yarattı. ...
Çok hızlı dönüşümlerin yaşandığı dijital çağda kültürel dinamiklerin nasıl evrildiği ve modern toplumların dijitalleşme süreçlerinde değişen kültürel ve sosyal dinamikleri nasıl deneyimlediği son yıllarda araştırmacıların ilgisini çeken konular arasında yer almaktadır. Nitel paradigmadan hareketle tasarlanan “Dijital ortamda kültürel inşa süreci nasıl gerçekleşmektedir ve etkileşimlerin bu sürece etkisi nedir?” temel araştırma sorusu ile dijital ortamdaki etkileşimlere odaklanılmıştır. Bu çalışma, dijital ortamlarda kişilerarası iletişim süreçlerinin işleyişi, dijital ortamların taşıdığı kültürel unsurları, bu kültürün nasıl oluştuğunu veya inşa edildiğini, bireylerin bu ortamlara nasıl dahil olduklarını, bu dahil olma sürecinin ne kadar sürdüğünü anlama amacını taşımaktadır. Böylece fiziki ve dijital ortamlar arasındaki benzerlikleri ve farklılıkları anlamak da hedeflenmiştir. Dijital ortamın kapsamlı bir şekilde anlaşılmasına katkı sağlamak amacıyla bu araştırmada hem nitel hem de nicel veri toplama imkânı sunan antropoloji temelli bir yöntem olan etnografi tercih edilmiş, özellikle de verinin dijital ortamlardan elde edilmesini sağlayan siber-etnografi kullanılmıştır. İki ay süresince katılımcı gözlem gerçekleştirilerek “Pir Yolu” başlıklı forum incelenmiş, forum kullanıcılarının kültürel etkileşimlerine odaklanılmıştır. Etnografın alan notlarından hareketle içeriklendirme süreci ile oluşturulan başlıklar, nitel veri analizi türlerinden biri olan betimsel analiz yöntemiyle çözümlenmiştir. Dijital ortam olarak forumun, kullanıcılar için Alevilik ile ilgili doğru bilgiye erişim ve paylaşım imkânı sunma, Alevilerin inançlarını ve kültürlerini yaşatma ve toplumda bu konu hakkındaki bilgi kirliliği ile mücadele etme amacını taşıyan bir platform olarak işlev gördüğü anlaşılmaktadır. Dijital ortamda kültürel inşa sürecine odaklanan bu çalışmanın, sanal toplulukların kültürel etkileşimlerini ve dinamiklerini anlamak konusunda katkı sağladığı düşünülmektedir.
Durante 2020, en la génesis de la pandemia por COVID-19, iniciamos una investigación sobre el trabajo en plataformas de reparto digital. Las políticas de contención de la enfermedad nos confinaron en las casas, en tanto veíamos desde las ventanas como las y los repartidores se extendían por las desoladas calles; decidimos, entonces, acudir a una Etnografía para Internet. Navegamos por WhatsApp, Twitter (hoy X), Facebook e Instagram siguiendo los rastros del trabajo de reparto digital y la expresión de este en la vida de las y los repartidores en Bogotá, Colombia. El objetivo del trabajo es, entonces, abordar metodológica y éticamente la Etnografía para Internet conducida, a través del caso de estudio. En particular, presentamos qué entendimos y cómo hicimos una Etnografía para Internet, cómo fabricamos el campo, qué tipo de observación desplegamos y cómo afrontamos las consideraciones éticas propias de este enfoque.
Arabesk müziğin sinema ile olan yakın ilişkisi göz önünde bulundurulduğunda, arabesk şarkıcıların hayatını konu alan yakın dönem filmlerinde bu şarkıcıların gerçek kimliğinden ziyade şiddetle mücadele gibi farklı konulardaki söylemler üzerinden yeniden nasıl inşa edildiği ilgi çekmektedir. Bu araştırmanın amacı, arabesk kimliğin zaman içinde uğradığı değişime bağlı ortaya çıkan neoarabesk kimliğin söylem aracılığıyla inşa sürecini kadına şiddetle mücadele bağlamında araştırmaktır. Dijital etnografi araştırma deseninde kurgulanan bu çalışmada, Bergen filmi resmî Instagram hesabında yer alan 112 adet içerik Teun van Dijk’in eleştirel söylem metoduyla incelenmiştir. Araştırmada elde edilen bu bulgular ilgili literatür araştırmaları çerçevesinde tartışılmıştır. Bu araştırmanın sonuçlarına göre film, Bergen’in arabesk ses sanatçısı kimliğinin sınırlarını genişletmiş ve dinleyicilerin arabesk şarkı sevip sevmeme durumundan bağımsızlaşan neoarabesk kimlik, acıların kadını söylemiyle inşa edilen arabesk kimliğin yerine geçerek acılara rağmen başarılı kadın söylemiyle mücadeleci, aktif bir role bürünmüştür. Günümüz ihtiyaçlarına göre değişen neoBergen, arabesk şarkı temalarında yer alan kurban figürünün aksine kadına yönelik şiddetle mücadelenin sembolü olarak yeniden inşa edilmiştir.
The term ethnography comes from the Greek ethnos (folk, the people, cultures) and gráphein (to write, to describe), and therefore, its literal meaning refers to the description of cultures. The current perspectives of ethnographic research are widening to digital contexts for several interrelated motivations: decolonization, globalization, information and communication technologies (ICTs). The classical loci of digital ethnography is represented by online communities, delimited digital spaces of social aggregation around a given domain of interest. However, in the last years, these privileged sites are complemented or sometimes substituted by social media sites and metadata in digital ethnographic research. As a result, new sites for ethnographic fieldwork are emerging fostering new types of ethnographic practice. The difference in digital ethnographic fields imply an internally diverse array of approaches. The chapter starts from the origins of ethnographic research to investigate its digital developments, methodological challenges, and variety of approach.
Este artículo tiene como objetivo reflexionar acerca de las experiencias cotidianas y de las interacciones sociales de brasileños en Italia y otros países de Europa durante la pandemia de covid-19 en los años 2020 y 2021, que trajo muchas transformaciones en los escenarios internacionales de movilidad y exigió la inmovilidad por cuestiones de salud pública y control de circulación del virus sarscov-2. La investigación la reali-cé por medios virtuales, aplicando dos cuestionarios mediante Google Forms, uno en 2020 y otro en 2021. Las solicitudes de participación las hice por medio de redes de contactos (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, correos electrónicos y otras), en los que presenté los objetivos y los cuidados éticos presentes. La imposibilidad de ir y venir, y en algunos casos incluso de salir de casa durante el periodo más tenso de la pandemia, fue narrada como una experiencia impactante en sus vidas cotidianas.
Introduction
This work aims at transposing ethnographic research into digital contexts to probe its potential and limitations in a specific field of study: that of sexuality, particularly suited to ethnographic exploration. We chose as our case study a web community of Italian asexual people. As we shall see, this allowed us to simultaneously explore both the various techniques called into play in digital ethnography and the digital as a specific sphere within which sexuality takes on a very peculiar meaning. Digital sociality is paramount for the definition of imaginaries, meanings, and practices that could not be explored elsewhere. This is due to the implicit characteristics of the population studied, which does not find corresponding physical spaces of aggregation.
Methods
The paper will present the research design using this specific case study to address some of the typical dilemmas that researchers face when following the digital ethnographic approach and will explore the research results as an example of the kind of analysis available with the information and data collected through this method.
Results and discussion
The conclusions will attempt to briefly outline the shortfalls and advantages of this method, considering its application to this specific field of study.
Doctoral thesis monograph - Sarahanne M. Field, 2022
Ethnographers must balance the tensions between the emic and etic dimensions of research. For example, they must simultaneously become an emic insider of the group studied, while at the same time retain their analytical distance to remain an etic outsider. This article discusses how these tensions manifest in head-, field-, and text-work by reviewing 52 self-declared management accounting ethnographies published between 1997 and 2017. The review shows that there is an (over-)emphasis on a realist tale-telling approach, in which the author’s voice is almost always effaced as tale-tellers detach themselves from the tales being told. As alternatives, we highlight confessional and impressionist tale-telling approaches. While all three approaches offer advantages for addressing the emic-etic balance, they also all involve sacrifices. Thus, we urge researchers to give deeper consideration to text-work choices in management accounting ethnographies.
The COVID-19 complications have again put the scale and scope of digital communication methodology and classroom instruction in a divide. Unfortunately, norm-referenced assessments have not produced the desired results since there is a huge gap between learning and assessment. Blended learning and alternative assessment provide greater access to redirect learners for better learning outcomes. The chapter seeks to explore the challenges of digital ethnography with reference to blended learning practices.
Résumé
L’objectif de cette recherche est d’analyser les pratiques des acteurs qui participent à la production de nouvelles locales dans l’écosystème médiatique bruxellois afin de questionner le concept de « journalisme participatif ». Pour ce faire, l’étude adopte un regard original sur les processus de production de nouvelles sur internet considérant ceux-ci non comme le résultat d’une pratique professionnelle, mais bien d’une pratique sociale qui inclut non seulement les journalistes professionnels, mais aussi des blogueurs, politiciens, activistes, lanceurs d’alerte, ou citoyens. Après avoir fourni un panorama des différents producteurs de nouvelles répertoriés, la théorie de l’acteur-réseau (ANT) et le modèle ADD (accès-dialogue délibération) sont utilisés pour analyser deux cas particuliers (deux controverses) afin d’appréhender comment la configuration du réseau formé par les acteurs interagissant au cours du temps génère certains types de pratiques participatives. La partie empirique de la thèse comprend donc de la veille en ligne afin de détecter les sites proposant des nouvelles sur Bruxelles en ligne (N=295), la détection de controverses (N=2) au moyen des contenus produits par ces producteurs et l’analyse de celles-ci via une analyse de nouvelles produites (N=388), des entretiens semi-directifs (N=23), de l’observation en ligne et une approche ethnographique avec de l’observation participante pour un des cas. De cette façon, la thèse a pour but d’enrichir les débats en sociologie du journalisme de trois façons : (1) en adoptant une approche écosystémique peu usitée dans la discipline, (2) en reproblématisant les concepts de « participation » et de « journalisme participatif », et (3) en fournissant des données empiriques sur le contexte local bruxellois, jusqu’ici peu exploré.
La catégorisation des sites produisant des nouvelles en ligne basée sur des similitudes formelles a permis d’établir trois types de producteurs distincts : les producteurs épisodiques, les producteurs thématiques et les producteurs intensifs. L’analyse formelle de ceux-ci montre bien qu’il existe peu de dispositifs participatifs en ligne, ce qui contredit une partie de la littérature existante sur la question. En effet, la grande majorité des sites analysés se limitent à offrir un accès à la communauté de pratiques constitutive de ceux-ci via une page de contact, ou un dialogue autour des problèmes publics via la possibilité de commenter une nouvelle soit directement sur le site, soit sur les réseaux sociaux. Un petit nombre de sites offrent toutefois un accès à la production de nouvelles en permettant de soumettre des idées voire des nouvelles complètes.
L’analyse des controverses montre qu’il existe bien entendu une diversité d’acteurs produisant de l’information locale et ils sont fortement connectés en ligne. Tous ces acteurs participent à l’écosystème local bien qu’à des niveaux différents, pour gagner l’attention du grand public. Toutefois, les médias que l’on peut qualifier d’« historiques » et leurs journalistes professionnels restent les producteurs d’information principaux au quotidien, ils occupent une place hégémonique dans l’écosystème médiatique bruxellois. Les personnalités politiques font appel aux médias « historiques » via des communiqués et conférences de presse, ainsi qu’à d’autres producteurs de nouvelles en ligne et aux réseaux sociaux. Les activistes ont des pratiques similaires qu’ils combinent à l’organisation d’évènements publics. Les citoyens participent également à cet écosystème, mais de manière plus indirecte, en circulant les contenus ou en étant invité à participer par des personnalités (politiciens ou activistes) via des évènements, des pétitions, et d’autres happenings. La combinaison de l’usage de l’ANT et du modèle ADD permet une approche analytique des acteurs en présence dans un écosystème tout en donnant au chercheur la possibilité de penser son influence sur les acteurs-réseaux étudiés et sa place au sein de ceux-ci.
Summary
The objective of this research is to analyze the practices of actors participating in the production of local news in Brussels’ media ecosystem to question the concept of “participatory journalism”. To do this, the study takes a novel perspective to look at online news production processes considering them not as the result of a professional practice, but of social practice that not only includes professional journalists, but also bloggers, politicians, activists, whistleblowers, or citizens. After having provided an overview of the existing news websites, actor-network theory is used to analyze two cases (or controversies) in order to understand the configuration of the networks formed by the actors interacting over the time. The empirical part of the thesis therefore includes online monitoring to detect content producers (N=295) and controversies (N=2), and the analysis of these through a review of news items produced (N=388), semi-structured interviews (N=23) and online and offline ethnography, with participant observation in one of the cases. This way, the thesis aims to enrich the debates in the sociology of journalism in three ways: (1) by adopting an ecosystemic approach rarely used in the discipline, (2) by reproblematizing the concepts of “participation” and “participatory journalism”, and (3) empirical data on the local Brussels context, little explored here.
The online monitoring phase enabled a categorization of the websites producing online news based on formal similarities of three distinct types of producers: episodic producers, thematic producers, and intensive producers. The formal analysis of these shows that there are few participatory mechanisms online, which contradicts some of the existing literature on the issue. Indeed, most of the websites analyzed are limited to offering access to the community of practice via a contact page or allow people to react to public issues directly by commenting on the website, or on social networks. A small number of sites, however, offer access to news production by allowing you to submit ideas or even complete news items.
The analysis of controversies shows that there is a diversity of players involved in online local news production which are strongly connected online. However, “legacy” media and professional journalists remain the main producers of information daily; they occupy a hegemonic place in the Brussels’ media ecosystem. All these actors participate in the local ecosystem, although at different levels, to gain the attention of the public. Politicians appeal to “legacy” media through press releases and conferences, as well as other online news producers and social media. Activists have similar practices which they combine with the organization of public events. Citizens also participate in this ecosystem, but in a more indirect way, by circulating content or being invited to participate by public figures (politicians or activists) via events, petitions, and other happenings.
The combination of the use of the ANT and the ADD model allows for an analytical approach of the actors involved in an ecosystem while giving the researcher the opportunity to think about his position in the actors-networks studied as well as his influence on them.
The chapter will instruct readers into the fundamentals of online social research, filling a vital, instructional gap in the literature. After a summary of the theoretical path towards digital ethnography and a description of the discipline's overall strengths, the chapter will begin a practical breakdown of the research planning and execution processes. This will follow the following steps: preparation and entrée, sample design, quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection, and ethical considerations. All the above will be informed by the researcher's own experience and will be geared towards under- or post-grad anthropology and ethnography students with some experience with online spaces.
This thesis will explore language and literacy practices in social networking sites (SNSs) that both draw on and expand beyond traditional principles of composition. Particularly, it will examine how adolescent participants are engaging with SNSs in ways that extend their learning and life opportunities beyond what is typically accessible in their rural province of Chiang Rai. Despite considerable research on language and literacy, there remains a limited body of research focused on adolescent literacy in Thailand and in rural contexts, such as Chiang Rai. There is also limited research in this area that provides a combined framework to account for the social, cultural, multimodal and linguistic repertoires of adolescents as materialised in their SNS practices. This thesis will draw from sociolinguistic and sociocultural theories of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and intertextuality to analyse adolescent participants’ linguistic and multimodal texts and how they shape and are shaped by a range of discourses in SNSs. However, both of these theories cannot provide a systematic account of adolescent participants’ multimodal texts in depth. Therefore, this thesis will also draw from multimodality as an analytical framework to account for participants’ multimodal texts (e.g., images, colours and layout). As key findings will demonstrate, the complexity of participants’ language and literacy practices in SNSs involves the blending of not only different languages and modes but also cultural resources (e.g., textual conventions and genres) – or what I refer to as linguistic, multimodal and cultural code-meshing practices. This study will set out a critical perspective on how such practices on SNSs are shaped by Chiang Rai adolescents to make new kinds of meanings, negotiate identities and relationships, and establish belongingness within both local and transnational SNS communities. Evidence from empirical data collected will include surveys and online observations.
This paper focuses on the figure of the flâneur and sets out to explore how the practice of flânerie might offer social researchers a different way of engaging with digital worlds. It is articulated around two main interests: the relationship of the flâneur to digital worlds and the theoretical and methodological implications of envisioning the practice of flânerie as a way of engaging with digital worlds. This paper contends that flânerie could inform and creatively enrich our practices as social researchers in two ways: enabling us to approach differently the exploration of digital worlds and leading us to investigate phenomena that might have remained concealed through more conventional methodologies. Flânerie, we argue, offers the possibility of a more open and explorative approach to digital research. Our paper outlines implications of positioning flânerie as a methodological practice and reflects on potential of flânerie in the exploration of digital worlds.
This chapter contributes to the current methodological debate on digital, internet-based studies in social research. Based upon an introductive analysis of the research's perspectives, trajectories, and stages that have brought the online social spaces into social research, the chapter focuses on the advantages of combining quanti-quali approaches for approaching online complexity. In particular, the authors offer a deep discussion concerning the value, the methodological, and ethical challenges of netnography and social network analysis (SNA) methods for inquiring online social research by proposing a possible emerging methodological framework guiding further empirical studies.
Anthropologists are accountable in unique ways to “the people we study” in “the field.” Yet today “the field” is more likely to be some transnational process linking multiple actors, sites, and agendas rather than a bounded physical space. To whom, then, are we accountable in a world of blurred boundaries and of intersecting and often contradictory oppressions based on gender, class, ethnicity, nationality, and sexuality? Are we equally accountable to everyone we encounter in “the field?” If not, are there some ethical or political principles that we can use to help us determine to whom we are most accountable and how? In this essay I explore these questions through an interrogation of my own work on the cultural politics of “indigenous” development among Maasai in Tanzania.
Recent writing on the subject of ethnography has sought to examine the field not only as a place where research is carried out, but also as a methodological construction. While this writing emphasizes the extent to which people's experiences of community and culture can no longer be necessarily understood in relation to geographically based locations, it often continues to assert the "legacy of the field" (Clifford, 1997, p. 88) and its accompanying expectations and practices. In this article, I draw on my experience of doing ethnographic research in the textual community of 'zines in order to challenge the assumption that ethnographic fieldwork is necessarily dependent on physical displacement, and face-to-face encounters with our research participants. Specific attention is paid to the epistemological and ethical issues that emerge when one chooses to carry out research in textual communities. Intentionally foregrounding the parallels between the textual community of 'zines and the virtual communities associated with the Internet, this article also raises important questions for ethnographers carrying out research in networked environments.
Key Words: social theory and ethnography, science institutions, film and cyberspace, reconstruction after social trauma n Abstract Anthropologies of late modernity (also called postmodernity, postindustrial society, knowledge society, or information society) provide a number of stimulating challenges for all levels of social, cultural, and psycho-logical theory, as well as for ethnographic and other genres of anthropological writing. Three key overlapping arenas of attention are the centrality of science and technology; decolonization, postcolonialism, and the reconstruction of so-cieties after social trauma; and the role of the new electronic and visual media. The most important challenges of contemporary ethnographic practice include more than merely (a) the techniques of multilocale or multisited ethnography for strategically accessing different points in broadly spread processes, (b) the techniques of multivocal or multiaudience-addressed texts for mapping and ac-knowledging with greater precision the situatedness of knowledge, (c) the re-working of traditional notions of comparative work for a world that is increas-ingly aware of difference, and (d) acknowledging that anthropological repre-sentations are interventions within a stream of representations, mediations, and unequally inflected discourses competing for hegemonic control. Of equal im-portance are the challenges of juxtaposing, complementing, or supplementing other genres of writing, working with historians, literary theorists, media critics, novelists, investigative or in-depth journalists, writers of insider accounts (e.g. autobiographers, scientists writing for the public), photographers and film mak-ers, and others.
Science as Practice and Culture explores one of the newest and most controversial developments within the rapidly changing field of science studies: the move toward studying scientific practiceâthe work of doing scienceâand the associated move toward studying scientific culture, understood as the field of resources that practice operates in and on. Andrew Pickering has invited leading historians, philosophers, sociologists, and anthropologists of science to prepare original essays for this volume. The essays range over the physical and biological sciences and mathematics, and are divided into two parts. In part I, the contributors map out a coherent set of perspectives on scientific practice and culture, and relate their analyses to central topics in the philosophy of science such as realism, relativism, and incommensurability. The essays in part II seek to delineate the study of science as practice in arguments across its borders with the sociology of scientific knowledge, social epistemology, and reflexive ethnography.
Introduction: Mapping Embodied Deviance N Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla Gender, Race and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of OHottentotO Women in Europe, 1815ETH1817 N Anne Fausto-Sterling Framed: The Deaf in the Harem N Nicholas Mirzoeff Colonizing and Transforming the Criminal Tribesman: The Salvation Army in British India N Rachel Tolen This Norm Which Is Not One: Reading the Female Body in LombrosoOs Anthropology N David G. Horn Anxious Slippages between OUsO and OThemO: A Brief History of the Scientific Search for Homosexual Bodies N Jennifer Terry The Destruction of OLives Not Worth LivingO NRobert N. Proctor Domesticity in the Federal Indian Schools: The Power of Authority Over Mind and Body N K. Tsianina Lomawaima Nymphomania: The Historical Construction of Female Sexuality N Carol Groneman Theatres of Madness N Susan Jahoda The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture N Jacqueline Urla and Alan Swedlund Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sexual Addiction N Janice Irvine Between Innocence and Safety: Epidemiologic and Popular Constructions of Young PeopleOs Need for Safe Sex N Cindy Patton The Hen That CanOt Lay an Egg (OBu Xia Dan De Mu JiO): Concepts of Female Infertility in Modern China N Lisa Handwerker The Media-fed Gene: Stories of Gender and Race N Dorothy Nelkin and M. Susan Lindee Notes on Contributors Index
The article discusses the habit of scholars for writing Web logs or blogs. Blogging offers the opportunity to interact with diverse audiences both inside and outside academe and the freedom to adopt a persona more playful than those generally available to people with Ph.D.s. It is reported that the development of the blog lowers the cost of publishing almost to a vanishing point.
This article asks methodological questions about studying infrastructure with some of the tools and perspectives of ethnography. infrastructure is both relational and ecological-it means different things to different groups and it is part of the balance of action tools, and the built environment, inseparable from them. It also is frequently mundane to the point of boredom, involving things such as plugs, standards, and bureaucratic forms. Some of the difficulties of studying infrastructure are how to scale up from traditional ethnographic sites, how to manage large quantities of data such as those produced by transaction logs and how to understand the interplay of online and offline behavior: Some of the tricks of the trade involved in meeting these challenges include studying the design of infrastructure, understanding the paradoxes of infrastructure as both transparent and opaque, including invisible work in the ecological analysis, and pinpointing the epistemological status of indictors.
This paper reconsiders the issue of access to a field of study as a problem that fieldworkers have to solve before they start data generation. Access problems, instead of being seen as a troublesome period for the fieldworker, are turned into an issue of constructing the research site and an object of study. By means of example from fieldwork carried out in two general practices, this paper argues that gaining access must be seen as a process of negotiation in which researchers deal with resistances made by the object of study. Drawing on recent insights from the fields of Social Anthropology and Studies of Science and Technology (STS) the paper agues that negotiations for access form one way in which the researcher and an object of study - in this case general practitioners and their electronic patient records - are 'made available' to each other. Fieldwork methods are apt as entry point for 'making available' an object of study, because they allow for negotiations in the field that enable the researcher to change pre-set ideas and research questions.
� Abstract Information and communication,technologies,based,on the Internet have,enabled,the emergence,of new,sorts of communities,and,communicative practices—phenomena worthy,of the attention of anthropological,researchers. De- spite early assessments,of the revolutionary nature of the Internet and the enormous transformations it would bring about, the changes have been less dramatic and more embedded,in existing practices and power,relations of everyday,life. This review ex- plores researchers’ questions, approaches, and insights within anthropology and some relevant related fields, and it seeks to identify promising new directions for study. The general conclusion is that the technologies comprising the Internet, and all the text and media that exist within it, are in themselves cultural products. Anthropology is thus well suited to the further investigation of these new, and not so new, phenomena.
This article describes an electronic lesbian bar, the Lesbian Cafe (LC), which was created as a computer bulletin board system (BBS) on a major on-line computer service. Little has been written on BBS, but literature on a senior citizen BBS and on computer dating has shown that there are advantages to meeting people and interacting via the computer. The primary purposes of examining the LC were to discover how a community could be created and sustained through interaction restricted to the computer and to determine what functions were served by it. Daily “activities” at the LC were observed by computer, and patrons were interviewed privately and in groups via electronic mail, via telephone, and in person. Results show that the appearance of the LC is affected both by the appearance of real-world bars and by the computer as a communication medium. This study also found that four types of patrons—regulars, “newbies,”“lurkers,” and “bashers”—collectively form this lesbian cyberspace community. These findings challenge the traditional notion of community by demonstrating that a community can be created in a different kind of space.
Significant changes in the nature of social life are being brought about by computer, information, and biological technologies, to the extent that-some argue-a new cultural order, ''cyberculture,'' is coming into being. This paper presents an overview of the types of anthropological analyses that are being conducted in the area of new technologies and suggests additional steps for the articulation of an anthropology of cyberculture. it builds upon science, technology, and society studies in various fields and on critical studies of modernity. The implications of technoscience for both anthropological theory and ethnographic research are explored.
This article, based on a collaborative research project on genetic knowledge production, examines the relations between on- and off-line field sites related to three heritable diseases: epidermolysis bullosa, chondrodysplasia, and Marfan syndrome. Field sites include the Web sites, listservs, and chat rooms run by lay health advocacy groups and biomedical professionals as well laboratories, clinics, and support groups meetings. The analysis uses the notion of location work, and the concept of the node that links different elements in a network, in describing a relational approach to multisited ethnography. The article presents three case studies that examine shifting locations between online and face-to-face relations, hyperlinks as a metaphor for interactive knowledge production, and the process of negotiating a networked ethics.
One popular framework for analysing web pages has been to think of them as identity performances on the part of the author. This framework opens up possibilities for analysis of the ways in which identity performances are composed. The personal web pages to which this perspective is most immediately applicable, are, however, now only a small proportion of the overall amount of information available on the World Wide Web. It would be possible, by extension, to analyse institutional web pages as performances of the institutional identity. It is the contention of this paper that to do so is to miss out on some important aspects of web page design: namely that the production of a web page involves understandings not only of the audience for the page but also of the capacities of the technology. In addition, web page production has to become a socially meaningful act for the individual web page developer and the institution concerned. It is, therefore, argued that the analysis of web pages can usefully learn from media studies and the sociology of technology in this respect. An interview-based study of the developers of web pages for the service departments of a UK university is described. The ideas of audience which the authors use are far from homogeneous: they include an institutional of ine audience for the page, a pre-existing imagined audience, developers themselves as audience, and the technology of the browser as a stand-in audience. The audience and the capacities of the technology are developed in context through the practices of designers.
The venues in which we carry out our fieldwork increasingly intertwine real and virtual activities as participants move materials and interactions online. This change in the nature of the field sites we observe requires an enhancement or even rethinking of traditional methodologies for studying work. This article draws on two studies—one in a distributed corporation and one of an online master's degree program—to outline some of the questions these settings raised and ways in which the ethnographers addressed them in the field. Technology-mediated settings require us to rethink concepts of presence and colocation, just as those we study must rethink them in the course of their own day-to-day interactions.
Many scholars anticipate that online interaction will have a long-term effect on the evolution of language, but little linguistic research yet addresses this question directly. In sociolinguistics, social network relations are recognized as the principal vehicle of language change. In this paper, I develop a social network approach to online language variation and change through qualitative and quantitative analysis of logfiles of Internet Relay Chat interaction. The analysis reveals a highly structured relationship between participants’ social positions on a channel and the linguistic variants they use. The emerging sociolinguistic relationship is more complex than what is predicted by current sociolinguistic theory for offline interaction, suggesting that sociolinguistic investigation of online interaction, where more detailed and fine-grained information about social contacts can be obtained, may offer unique contributions to the study of language variation and change.
This study explores the use of freely available search engines to locate mediated interaction on the World Wide Web. We use the concepts of mediated interaction and quasi-interaction as developed by Thompson (Thompson, 1995) and Slevin (Slevin, 2000). We conclude that the publicly available search engines lack stability of results, that their behavior is not transparent, and that they do not present the results in a way that is suitable for the creation of data sets. The study confirms that the Internet and the World Wide Web can mainly be characterized as instantiations of mediated quasi-interaction rather than of mediated interaction. Internet researchers might consider not only to try to develop better search software, but also tools that can archive publicly available mediated interaction in real time at a large scale. Even with improved tools, however, we should not expect that the Internet will give us anything like “total data” about social life. The use of information and discussion on the Internet in off-line contexts cannot be deduced from the Internet itself. To answer these questions, Internet research must be combined with off-line interviews, observation and surveys.
The study of social worlds built by people on computer networks challenges the classical dimensions of sociological research. CMC scholars are prompted to exploit the possibilities offered by new, powerful, and flexible analytic tools for inexpensively collecting, organizing, and exploring digital data. Such tools could be used within a Weberian perspective, to aid in systematic examination of logs and messages taken from the actual life of a virtual community. A proposal can then be made for a longitudinal strategy of research which systematically compares specific aspects of virtual communities over different periods of time and different socio-geographical contexts. The article summarizes a case study on an Italian computer conference, and concludes with a short outline of the new graphical CMC environments and their consequences for the rise of a multimedia cyber-anthropology.
Changes in the topography of the Web can be expressed in at least four ways: (1) more sites on more servers in more places, (2) more pages and objects added to existing sites and pages, (3) changes in traffic, and (4) modifications to existing text, graphic, and other Web objects. This article does not address the first three factors (more sites, more pages, more traffic) in the growth of the Web. It focuses instead on changes to an existing set of Web documents. The article documents changes to an aging set of Web pages, first identified and collected in December 1996 and followed weekly thereafter. Results are reported through February 2001. The article addresses two related phenomena: (1) the life cycle of Web objects, and (2) changes to Web objects. These data reaffirm that the half-life of a Web page is approximately 2years. There is variation among Web pages by top-level domain and by page type (navigation, content). Web page content appears to stabilize over time; aging pages change less often than once they did.
This article asks methodological questions about studying infrastructure with some of the tools and perspectives of ethnography. Infrastructure is both relational and ecologicaltextemdashit means different things to different groups and it is part of the balance of action, tools, and the built environment, inseparable from them. It also is frequently mundane to the point of boredom, involving things such as plugs, standards, and bureaucratic forms. Some of the difficulties of studying infrastructure are how to scale up from traditional ethnographic sites, how to manage large quantities of data such as those produced by transaction logs, and how to understand the interplay of online and offline behavior. Some of the tricks of the trade involved in meeting these challenges include studying the design of infrastructure, understanding the paradoxes of infrastructure as both transparent and opaque, including invisible work in the ecological analysis, and pinpointing the epistemological status of indictors.
How do we come to trust our knowledge of the world? What are the means by which we distinguish true from false accounts? Why do we credit one observational statement over another? In A Social History of Truth, Shapin engages these universal questions through an elegant recreation of a crucial period in the history of early modern science: the social world of gentlemen-philosophers in seventeenth-century England. Steven Shapin paints a vivid picture of the relations between gentlemanly culture and scientific practice. He argues that problems of credibility in science were practically solved through the codes and conventions of genteel conduct: trust, civility, honor, and integrity. These codes formed, and arguably still form, an important basis for securing reliable knowledge about the natural world. Shapin uses detailed historical narrative to argue about the establishment of factual knowledge both in science and in everyday practice. Accounts of the mores and manners of gentlemen-philosophers are used to illustrate Shapin's broad claim that trust is imperative for constituting every kind of knowledge. Knowledge-making is always a collective enterprise: people have to know whom to trust in order to know something about the natural world.
"I want to get at the blown glass of the early cloud chambers and the oozing noodles of wet nuclear emulsion; to the resounding crack of a high-voltage spark arcing across a high-tension chamber and leaving the lab stinking of ozone; to the silent, darkened room, with row after row of scanners sliding trackballs across projected bubble-chamber images. Pictures and pulsesâI want to know where they came from, how pictures and counts got to be the bottom-line data of physics." (from the preface) Image and Logic is the most detailed engagement to date with the impact of modern technology on what it means to "do" physics and to be a physicist. At the beginning of this century, physics was usually done by a lone researcher who put together experimental apparatus on a benchtop. Now experiments frequently are larger than a city block, and experimental physicists live very different lives: programming computers, working with industry, coordinating vast teams of scientists and engineers, and playing politics. Peter L. Galison probes the material culture of experimental microphysics to reveal how the ever-increasing scale and complexity of apparatus have distanced physicists from the very science that drew them into experimenting, and have fragmented microphysics into different technical traditions much as apparatus have fragmented atoms to get at the fundamental building blocks of matter. At the same time, the necessity for teamwork in operating multimillion-dollar machines has created dynamic "trading zones," where instrument makers, theorists, and experimentalists meet, share knowledge, and coordinate the extraordinarily diverse pieces of the culture of modern microphysics: work, machines, evidence, and argument.
Scientific objectivity is neither monolithic nor immutable: our current usage is compounded of several meanings - metaphysical, methodological and moral - and each meaning has a distinct history, as well as a history of fusion within what now counts as a single concept of 'objectivity'. The rise of aperspectival history in nineteenth-century science is one strand of this plaited history of objectivity, as embodied in scientific ideals and practices. It is conceptually and historically distinct from the ontological aspect of objectivity that pursues the ultimate structure of reality, and from the mechanical aspect of objectivity that forbids interpretation in reporting and picturing scientific results. Whereas ontological objectivity is about the fit between theory and the world, and mechanical objectivity is about suppressing the universal human propensity to judge and aestheticize, aperspectival objectivity is about eliminating individual (or occasionally group) idiosyncracies. It emerged first in the moral and aesthetic philosophy of the late eighteenth century and spread to the natural sciences only in the mid-nineteenth century, as a result of a reorganization of scientific life that multiplied professional contacts at every level, from the international commission to the well-staffed laboratory.