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This is a book that I have read through in my previous attempts to approach the online-life of legends and ghost narratives. I found it really helpful to see how Kinsella approached the online community, and perhaps this might help some of you to read through some of his ideas. 

For those interesting in online communities, gaming or otherwise, you may find this article and the related book interesting.

This curated collection of online tools, tutorials and resources is designed to help nonprofits and ethnic and community news organizations navigate the often intimidating and ever-evolving new media landscape. Whether you're a beginner or a pro, you will find valuable information on the technologies and best practices you need to tell a community's stories in compelling ways; engage new audiences; optimize your website; and measure online impact.

ABSTRACT: Research on the digital and online environment poses several ethical questions that are new or, at least, newly pressing, especially in relation to youth. Established ethical practices require that research have integrity, quality, transparency, and impartiality. They also stipulate that risks to the researcher, institution, data, and participants should be anticipated and addressed. But difficulties arise when applying these to an environment in which the online and offline intersect in shifting ways. This paper discusses some real-life "digital dilemmas" to identify the emerging consensus among researchers. We note the 2012 guidelines by the Association of Internet Researchers, which advocates for ethical pluralism, for minimizing harm, and for the responsibility of the researcher where codes are insufficient. As a point of contrast, we evaluate Markham's (2012) radical argument for data fabrication as an ethical practice. In reflecting on how researchers of the digital media practices of youth resolve their dilemmas in practice, we take up Markham's challenge of identifying evolving practice, including researchers' workarounds, but we eschew her solution of fabrication. Instead, we support the emerging consensus that while rich data are increasingly available for collection, they should not always be fully used or even retained in order to protect human subjects in a digital world in which future possible uses of data exceed the control of the researcher who collected them.

Thanks for posting this, John. Considering the ethical concerns we all have expressed in class, I am sure this article will be helpful. I will be sure to put it on my reading list.

This article is of interest (http://mappingonlinepublics.net/2012/04/27/twitter-and-disaster-resilience-lessons-from-qldfloods-and-eqnz/) I would be interested in taking the map of twitter usage or during as disaster and the doing ethnographic follow up after the factor the see how this resource was used. This might build a better picture of how to use social media during disasters/similar problems.

How very interesting. Could be a really valuable read. I'm very curious how their method/methodology changes from other content analysis work in online spaces. If they take into account the unique context of blog comments (trolls, etc.).

I really like this piece! I'm not super familiar with DML as a field, but the author's attention to the world-making capabilities (and not even capabilities - it's built in or "politically preloaded") of research methods. The post provides a clear defense against those who would argue that research is just objectively recording the world. At the same time, it doesn't slip into a poststructuralist wormhole about meaning. There's an attention to politics here that 's fruitful [Ah! but politics in general.. What are this author's projects' politics? What departmental/ disciplinary political fights shape the ground on which DML research takes place?]

I haven't been able to find a free online copy of this yet. It looks very helpful. Has anyone else been able to secure one? The title reminds me of Patrica Lange's piece on YouTube and "publicly private" and "privately pubic" online spaces. Her application of the idea of "fractalized communities" has been very useful to my research on out-of-the-way online communities. Check that one out at http://uolibraries.worldcat.org/title/publicly-private-and-privately-public-social-networking-on-youtube/oclc/726935972&referer=brief_results

I have not been able to find one either, although I was able to find proof chapters of another two articles in the book.

Here is another option for a free online archiving resource that my friend's cousin started.

Editor's Note: While digital ethnography is an established field within ethnography, we don't often hear of ethnographers building digital tools to conduct their fieldwork. Wendy Hsu wants to change that. In the first of her three-part guest post series, she shows how ethnographers can use software, and even build their own software, to explore online communities. By drawing on examples from her own research on independent rock musicians, she shares with us how she moved from being an ethnographer of purely physical domains to an ethnographer who built software programs to gather more relevant qualitative data.

Watson, N. "Why We Argue About Virtual Community: a Case Study of the Phish.net Fan Community." Communication Abstracts. 21.5 (1998). Print. This is a fabulous article - old, but solid on the fights about online vs. offline communities. I read it in a Digital Culture class in 2008. I cite it all the time, and would love to go back in light of our discussions in class. This might go well in week seven when we talk about online communities.

Please do, Mara. I really want to read this. Or I can scan a copy in Knight Ref.

Here is a link to a pdf I made of my copy. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByPQDYtlq5NmUlhYLXlIRHlnVkE Let me know if you would like it shared in another format. Can't wait to discuss this one!

Found this via Brant's link to the EASA...on their "Documents" page, under "Working Papers". Link should start downloading the PDF.

Good short read (4p) because it presents arguments for and against Hine's belief in online-only research. Probably better than reading Hine's Virtual Ethnography itself; but the review of that work and the author's response in Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies also might be a good exchange to read because we'd get different perspectives but hear Hine speak for herself. Can there be a social space that's solely constituted on and through the internet? And is online-only research the only legitimate research approach to such spaces?

I'm taking this week's idea of "domains" a bit literally. Here's a quick blog post from Amit Agarwal (tech columnist for Wall Street Journal India). It links to several visualizations of internet activity. Some are physical: electricity; some are political (i.e. explicitly - all these maps are political!): censorship by country; some are social: use of SNS by country, the first edition of the xckd map of internet communities.* He offers these maps without much commentary. I'm interested in how these visual representations could help us think about the "where" of digital ethnography. My offline/physical context may be a coffee shop in Eugene, OR, am I also placed on these maps? What kinds of maps help you think about the "where" of the internet? * The second edition is worth looking at to think about the way time and technological development shapes our understanding of space.

Here's a link to the second version of the xckd map of internet communities. https://xkcd.com/802/ While not a "real" map, I often use it in presentations to explain the idea that online communities are particular and exist in relation to each other. I often pair it with the concept of "fractalized communities" found in Patrica Lange's work in youtube video bloggers. Both get at the specificity of online research; there isn't one internet that I can study - I can only tell you about my time in this particular community.

From the website: The Reciprocal Research Network (RRN) is a key component of the Museum of Anthropology's Renewal Project, "A Partnership of Peoples." In addition to the RRN, the Renewal Project comprises several complementary and innovative components, including a new Research Centre, Major Temporary Exhibition Gallery, and Community Suite. Together, they support collaborative, socially responsible, and interdisciplinary research across local, national, and international borders. The RRN is an online tool to facilitate reciprocal and collaborative research about cultural heritage from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. The RRN enables communities, cultural institutions and researchers to work together. Members can build their own projects, collaborate on shared projects, upload files, hold discussions, research museum projects, and create social networks. For both communities and museums, the RRN is groundbreaking in facilitating communication and fostering lasting relationships between originating communities and institutions around the world.

There is not much access to the site without an account, so I requested one. I am interested in looking at how this site functions (where there seem to be numerous projects being created with the materials) in contrast with the Danish Folklore Nexus I posted earlier. Both resources might offer insight in to how new projects are being created with already collected materials.

I finally got an account set up and was able to look around the webpage. The images are worth looking at in the very least, although it looks like you have to join sections to see what is going on with projects. You can also see "user submitted" information in a specific heading to see what information users have contributed to the objects.

What isPOPCORN? Popcorn makes video work like the web. We create tools and programs to help developers and authors create interactive pages that supplement video and audio with rich web content, allowing your creations to live and grow online

Sensate is an online, media-based journal for the creation, presentation, and critique of innovative projects in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Our aim is to build on the current groundswell of pioneering activities in the digital humanities, scholarly publishing, and innovative media practice to provide a forum for scholarly and artistic experiments not conducive to the printed page.