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John Fenn

Methods for Shaping Society | DMLcentral - 1 views

dmlcentral.net/...methods-shaping-society

methods digital read this week9

shared by John Fenn on 08 May 12 - No Cached
  • Research methods are routinely understood as objective techniques for getting to know the world. Yet they may be more influential and socially significant than this, particularly as more digital methods are being developed and deployed. So what, too, do digital methods do?
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 21 May 12
       
      post focused on 'digital media and learning' field, but how might these questions apply to "ethnography"?
  • However, underpinning the technicality of methods is the assumption that they are able to capture and represent the world just as it is. Methods are understood rather like a photographic device that can capture, freeze-frame and reproduce a facsimile of reality. As researchers, we can say we've done a good job if our methods have been up to the job of capturing a picture of an objective reality as it really is—or at least pretty accurately so.
  • But much the same can be said of anthropological ethnographers returning from fieldwork. Their fieldnotes, photographs, dictaphone recordings, transcripts and video data are much like the neuroscientist's CAT and PET scans. They represent a reality—a human brain, a culture, whatever—that has been recorded and made presentable enough for interpretation. But are research methods really so objective? Or do they do other things?
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • It is that our research methods may in some important ways fabricate the very things we want to observe.
  • Methods are not neutral or innocent tools but necessarily construct, shape, configure, frame and make up the social worlds they study—methods help create society.
  • in 18th and 19th century map-making and census-taking, as well as popular contemporary methods such as sample surveys and focus groups, and the emergence of new digital methods in the 21st century.
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 21 May 12
       
      implication/application for this line of inquiry re: digital ethnography (across the many manifestations we've encountered thus far...)? Also, how do methods of "analysis" figure in to this conversation?
    • Mara Williams
      Mara Williams on 29 May 12
       
      One way into this may be to carry out the author's exercise on the subject of the focus group (social, able to make choices, able to be influenced, likes sandwiches) on the subject of digital research. The piles of ideological baggage from the offline world are still in place - but what changes online? I'm really struggling with this one - maybe it's the water I'm swimming in - but I'm finding it difficult to describe (with any degree of texture) my online activity as separate from offline life.
  • Such details demonstrate the importance of recognizing the social life of methods. These are not neutral tools but politically charged instruments.
  • Methods are also social, however, because they in turn help to shape that social world—or, as it's put in the social life of methods program, methodologically speaking “what you see is what you get.”
  • Important questions are raised for research in digital media and learning by these insights. Newer forms of digital methods are now being developed and deployed that will enable researchers to make data on learning in new kinds of ways.
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 21 May 12
       
      To the point of questions/applicability around 'digital ethnography'...
  • open source social analytics are all beginning to change the ways in which learning can be tracked, recorded, visualized, patterned, documented and presented
  • Is this a big deal? If methods allow us to know more, then doesn't that mean we can intervene more effectively to improve learning? Isn't making new social worlds an admirable aim? Maybe so
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 21 May 12
       
      the ethical dilema...and not necessarily a 'new' one when it comes to ethnographic work; but what changes with the "digital"?
  • Perhaps the key point to be made about many such digital methods is that they generate transactional data without the awareness or intervention of research subjects—we are being aggregated as research data based on our transactions online without even thinking about it.
  • Digital media and learning research traces learning processes as they occur in new digital and networked spaces where they are inseparable from transactional data.
  • Yet one risk, as we have seen, is that the rise of digital methods has begun to emphasize transactional data over human participation in research
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 21 May 12
       
      Is this where "ethnographic" attention or impulse can fit?
    • Mara Williams
      Mara Williams on 29 May 12
       
      That seems to be the argument - though it could be clearer. Transactional material != social and human activity. Perhaps an integrated approach that combines the transactional traces with stories from "actual" humans.
  • Mara Williams on 29 May 12
     
    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?]
John Fenn

Rhizome | The Art of Fieldwork - 4 views

rhizome.org/...artist-ethnographer

ethnography art mimetic inquiry post read this week8 interpretation methods

shared by John Fenn on 10 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • The role of “artist in residence” on a scientific expedition is a malleable one, without clearly defined parameters, thus Ga decided that her project would be to become the ship’s archivist, attempting to capture the various facets of life aboard the Tara
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 10 Apr 12
       
      An ethnographic flavor emerges here...esp. the "facets of life" element.
  • Ga is one of a number of younger contemporary artists whose work is tied to a kind of artistic fieldwork, investigating aspects of their lives and interests by merging the apparent objectivity of documentary forms and anthropological research with a plainly subjective, flexible approach, drawing on multiple methodologies and discourses.
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 10 Apr 12
       
      use of "apparent" and "plainly" modifiers here stand out to me as rhetorical valuation of practices (anthropology vs. art)
  • her work as “performative investigations,”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • ry, and animation, the project equally reflects Jordenö’s concern with the implications of her anthropological approach and her own shifting relationship to the subjects of her inquiry:
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 10 Apr 12
       
      something ethnographers in the anthropological tradition have been doing for some time...though mainly in print.
  • For a younger generation of artists, for whom the use of technology is natural and the Internet an inextricable part of information gathering, the ability to adopt these various strategies and roles is greatly enhanced by the accessibility of information: in an Internet age, the barriers to research begin to collapse.
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 10 Apr 12
       
      what happens with this sentence if we swap in "ethnographers" for "artists"?
  • Savanna Bradley on 30 Apr 12
     
    An admittedly vague response: http://roundtable.kein.org/files/roundtable/Foster.pdf see page 305, "...a kind of ethnographer-envy consumes artists..."
  • Savanna Bradley on 30 Apr 12
     
    This is also kind of interesting: http://www.lindalai-floatingsite.com/content/video/data/unpublished/Excitable-Speech_Cinderella/index.html ; the person putting together this site has a number of 'ethnographic' videos, which she accompanies with a section entitled "Concept/artist statement", suggesting the ethnographer as an artist...
Rosalynn Rothstein

The Occupation of Ethereal Locations: Indications of Mobile Data - 2 views

Abstract: "This theoretical investigation explores how ethereal locations have become increasingly inhabitable through mobile telephony. Residue of the occupation of these ethereal places is found ...

started by Rosalynn Rothstein on 24 Apr 12 1 follow-up, last by Rosalynn Rothstein on 24 Apr 12
John Fenn

Sensory Ethnography Lab :: Harvard University - 4 views

sel.fas.harvard.edu

tools media research week8

shared by John Fenn on 21 May 12 - No Cached
  • John Fenn on 21 May 12
     
    The Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at Harvard is a unique collaboration between the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Visual & Environmental Studies (VES). Harnessing perspectives drawn from the human sciences, the arts, and the humanities, the aim of SEL is to support innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography, with original nonfiction media practices that explore the bodily praxis and affective fabric of human existence. As such, it encourages attention to the many dimensions of social experience and subjectivity that may only with difficulty be rendered with words alone. SEL provides an academic and institutional context for the development of work which is itself constitutively visual or acoustic - that is conducted through audiovisual media rather than purely verbal sign systems - and which may thus complement the human sciences' and humanities' traditionally exclusive reliance on the written word. The instruction offered through SEL is thus distinct from other graduate visual anthropology programs in the United States in that it is practice-based, and promotes experimentation with culturally-inflected, nonfiction image-making.
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Mara Williams on 22 May 12
     
    First thought - awesome! What interesting work! Second thought - can we talk about the line between journalism and ethnography? I'm not sure how useful that distinction is, or how much I'm willing to fight about it. I'm excited by work that blurs the lines between art/ journalism/ ethnography. I would like to have a defense ready against folks who insist on discrete categories.
  • Savanna Bradley on 22 May 12
     
    Harvard seems to have a lot going on for it... In context for what we /do/ with digital ethnography materials, I wish that more of the projects that are featured were actually available for, at the very least, preview (at odds with the program's description of conduction through audiovisual media...). I wish I knew more about Zeega (and the apparent connection based on large logo presence on the projects page), even if it is only in alpha... http://zeega.org/about.php
  • Ed Parker on 22 May 12
     
    The projects at SEL provide a rich landscape for sensory/experiential exploration. This type of work really opens the mind to new perspectives and detail that is often exploited or skewed through popular media - like maintstream cinema or video games. Being a huge fan of the film "Where Eagles Dare" and the old SkyTram at Disneyland, I really enjoyed the Greunrekorder - Swiss Mountain Transport Systems sound recordings. I wonder if anyone has conducted similar research on the Portland Aerial Tram. Many of the trailers were exquisite, too. "Sweetgrass" looks to be an amazing documentary.
John Fenn

What is a research platform? Mapping methods, mobilities and subjectivities - 3 views

mcs.sagepub.com/...302

research methods platform read this article media week3

shared by John Fenn on 10 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • his article provides an account of the question of method as it relates to collective modes of research organised,
  • John Fenn on 10 Apr 14
     
    ABSTRACT: This article provides an account of the question of method as it relates to collective modes of research organised, conceived and produced through the interplay between digital technologies of communication and offline strategies of investigation. It does so by exploring the orchestration of research platforms, which are mediating devices that constitute the production of knowledge across a range of geocultural settings. In the context of a project entitled Transit Labour: Circuits, Regions, Borders, the article maintains that research methods must contend with the ideological, technological and economic instruments that condition knowledge production at the current conjuncture. The platform, we argue, operates as a medium through which research, labour, subjectivity and knowledge are shaped in ways specific to hardware settings, software dynamics and the materialities of labour and life.
flrdorothy

BBC News - A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...magazine-26969150

photojournalism Digital ethnography Photography anthropology

shared by flrdorothy on 18 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • flrdorothy on 18 Apr 14
     
    Great example of using digital tools to conduct ethnography. Notice that not only does the photographer/travel writer show his pictures to the source community on his laptop, but he's staged a photo of that. The documentarist's relationship with his subjects becomes part of the story selected by the BBC writer for our consumption. I've been trying to puzzle out why that is. Does today's BBC readership want or expect reassurance of ethical cultural fieldwork? Does that picture demystify our exotic "13-year-old eagle huntress," or does it reinforce a contrast between the modern and the traditional in Mongolia? I'd be very interested in your thoughts.
  • emknott on 23 Apr 14
     
    I think--looking at both articles--that it reinforces the "us" and "them" quality of the work. The idea that the US has that says, "Duh, girls can totally do that too" against the extraordinary existence of a huntress. --I was briefly skimming over the comments in other article and noticed this gem... "I raised my son and daughter on a ranch in Wyoming, USA, and I remember once when a Mongolian diplomat came to their "sister country" Wyoming to visit. I took my 9 year old daughter and he talked to her through a translator about horse races and archery. She was enthralled, since she'd been riding horses nearly since she was old enough to walk. Your story of the eagle hunters, and the young girl and her father, is very powerful." ...which I think illustrates the point. The way this girl's mother talks about "horse races and archery" like they are a totally foreign concept added the fact that she felt the need to add the bit about talking through a translator.
John Fenn

MIT Press Journals - International Journal of Learning and Media - Abstract - 5 views

www.mitpressjournals.org/...IJLM_a_00096

ethics research mit learning media youth journals methods

shared by John Fenn on 07 May 14 - No Cached
  • John Fenn on 07 May 14
     
    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.
  • David Martin on 08 May 14
     
    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.
Savanna Bradley

Blogging Anthropology: Savage Minds, Zero Anthropology, and AAA Blogs - Price - 2010 - ... - 5 views

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...pdf

digital ethnography anthropology pdf week9 read this tools

shared by Savanna Bradley on 09 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Savanna Bradley on 09 Apr 12
     
    ABSTRACT In this review essay, the academic merits of three anthropological blogs ("Savage Minds," "Zero Anthropology" [formerly "Open Anthropology"], and the official blog of the American Anthropological Association) are considered.
  • ...4 more comments...
  • John Fenn on 16 Apr 12
     
    I'd suggest we take a closer look at this article toward the end of the term (specifically week 9), as we consider the multiple opportunities for "publishing" in the digital era; blogs have begun to end up as research tools in a number of ways, and this article will push us toward larger debates about academic communication/publishing that are raging all around...
  • Kelly Heckman on 16 Apr 12
     
    I know the owner of Savage Minds if we want to talk with him. Please let me know.
  • Mara Williams on 29 May 12
     
    Blogging affords a saoln-like place of exploration - sure. I was underwhelmed by this piece - but the context is probably helpful. The piece is a review. In that it is treating blogging seriously by performing a review in a respectable journal, I appreciate it. However, I want to poke at the edge what tools are acceptable - blogs seem respectable here. That's great, and very professional. But when I want a tool that will help me think through something, I'd rather use something that is less polished. Also a way to engage non-anthropologists - but are academic blogs engaging? Some are - I'm interested in how to create a non-boring academic blog. The end of the review gets at this problem - the author hopes the official AAA blog will use the format to spark debate and create interesting writing; but the status of it as an official blog makes that difficult. The front page is here http://blog.aaanet.org/ I would be interested in what folks think of it in light of this piece.
  • Maya Muñoz-Tobón on 29 May 12
     
    It is interesting how this article brings in the important aspect of collaboration and peer reviews, when analyzing and ethnographic work. The participation of readers and contributors in these blogs range from professional anthropologist to just interested readers, which causes an unbalance on what traditionally has been a seen as peer review work. The multi-directional and multilevel dialogue on these blogs create that malleability of the boundaries of the uses, effects and design of the ethnographic work. This act of participatory input from "multiple voices" makes the presentation of the ethnographic/anthropological work as another "subject" to be studied and analyze, it becomes an auto-reflection of the methodological design of the ethnographic work itself. Presenting the ethnographic work in a blogging format brings more levels of analyzing the data and the interpretation of this data.
  • Mara Williams on 29 May 12
     
    Here's a working academic blog, mostly on the writing process. https://lauraportwoodstacer.wordpress.com/
  • Rosalynn Rothstein on 30 May 12
     
    I appreciate the working academic blog. I might be interested in seeing two or three similar sites that are in dialogue with other another. Either people working on the same project or researchers in a similar field engaged in similar topics. This serves an obviously helpful role in garnering interested in your project.
Mara Williams

Social Networks and Archival Context Project (SNAC) - 4 views

I'm finding the learning curve a bit high on this one. The radial graph maps connections between collections/collectors/institutions - but is there any way to expand the graph - for example, I cli...

ethnography tools archives collections

started by nathan_georgitis on 22 May 12 1 follow-up, last by Mara Williams on 29 May 12
John Fenn

A defense of private-sector ethnography | Technology, Society, Change - 1 views

www.samladner.com/-of-private-sector-ethnography

ethnography research methods society change

shared by John Fenn on 13 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • John Fenn on 13 Feb 14
     
    Sam Ladner writes on (and practices) ethnography in non-academic settings...eg. "private sector ethnography." While there is not much "digital" in her post here (a transcript of a plenary talk) with regards to overt subject matter, much of what she says intersects with how this course approaches the intersection of "digital" and "ethnography".
John Fenn

Visualising the future of work: myth, media and mobilities - 1 views

mcs.sagepub.com/...351

shared by John Fenn on 10 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Microsoft’s Future Vision, Googleplex, Apple’s ‘spaceship’ campus: predictions of the imminent demise of the office workplace coincide with a proliferation of media images of the ‘office of the futu
    • John Fenn
      John Fenn on 10 Apr 14
       
      important sentence
  • Kyle McDaniel on 13 Apr 14
     
    This was a really fascinating piece. I have given some thought as to how the digital world can/will transform the workplace but this is the first scholarly piece on the subject. I am curious to see how these changes will affect face-face (i.e., office) interaction and communication practices in the future.
azmorrison

Qualitative Research Apps Focusing on Mobile and Digital Ethnography - 1 views

www.nova.edu/apps.html

shared by azmorrison on 04 May 14 - No Cached
  • azmorrison on 04 May 14
     
    There are 112 apps on this extensive list of qualitative research apps for mobile devices. They range from interview assistance, to specific research methods, to building basic communication bridges across multiple parties. This list is interesting and should be investigated by anyone looking to research their subjects via mobile access/pathways.
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