Group items tagged

Explore this place! This is a searchable collection of links to tools to help researchers conceive a project, collect data, organize and analyze it (including sections on mapping and data visualization), write, and publish. It is organized into intuitive categories based on what you want to do. Within each category, you can order the results by cost, platform, etc. This would be a great place to find tools for the toolplay workshops.

From their description of the project "Bamboo DiRT is the tool-centric node in what its developers hope will be a growing ecosystem of specialized directories that can achieve sustainability by combining topical focus with seamless data exchange where appropriate." I could see how this resource would be helpful if you were thinking about how far you needed to go with the data you have collected.

This tool seems pretty simple. It is a audio voice recorder that lets you annotate an event. But apparently, you can use it on your smartphone and it time stamps the recording. http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/rehearsalassist/wiki

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.

Berry Wellman has ben doing research on communities, social networks, and the internet for a long time. His work may be of interest to some of you all who are interested in how online resources affect the composition of off-line networks and communities. You can find his CV and a link to his personal website here if you like. 

danah boyd is a scholar whose work examines technology, society, and policy. She has produced a lot of great research on the ways in which young people engage in new media. I've recently become aware that she offers a free download of her new book "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" on her personal website. I encourage all of you to give it a read if you have time. 

So this is an interesting extension to the Electronic Evergreen. This website was create in the late 90s to commemorate the company town of Valsetz, OR that was leveled in 1984. The graphics alone are a time capsule. The interesting thing is that even thought the last face to face reunion was in 2006 (as far as I can tell) the most recent blog post was December of 2013. Also, there are very recent posts in the forum section. The website is so poorly designed that it's hard to navigate, but there is a lot of fascinating information here and it is a prime example of a real life community being displaced into cyber space.

There was a documentary made about it as well. It's trailer can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/Y1jO5bmmBkM

The Wayback Machine! This is a great tool for retrieving old copies of web sites or completely defunct/ missing websites. It has been helpful for me to delve into everyday digital content (calendars, announcements, etc.) that wasn't archived clearly. It also gave me access to abandoned sites years after the community had moved on.

And, depending on the site, can be a sort of auto-ethnographic document or snapshot...great for comparing design changes and/or significant shifts that might occur when a community changes (rather than moves on). Sort of an archaeology, I suppose.

The website contains the following statement under the heading "Intellectual Property and Ethical Issues": "Ethical considerations are handled primarily by individual depositors, based on (a) their arrangements with their primary consultants regarding consent and permission and (b) their concern for materials they do not wish to make public. While guidelines for ethical ethnographic research behavior have been around for many years, the methods of gathering permissions for recordings have varied widely in the decades since video technology has been employed as part of fieldwork" This seems to bring to light the concerns being presented when dealing with materials recorded over a large time period, where ethical considerations chanced considerably. This might be a good project to talk about when we are discussing the ethics of digitization.

Interesting use of web... see dishwasher study? and 'Ask Melinda' section

Too bad... how about this video on Consumer Insights Through Online Ethnography - a dishwasher study instead? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95fwpVSTgDM

Or, this person's quote-ably "ethnographic" recount of using a washing machine for the first time in college... http://davista4.wordpress.com/sequence-1/

[Synopsis] This book is a critical and ethnographic study of camgirls: women who broadcast themselves over the web for the general public while trying to cultivate a measure of celebrity in the process. The book's over-arching question is, "What does it mean for feminists to speak about the personal as political in a networked society that encourages women to 'represent' through confession, celebrity, and sexual display, but punishes too much visibility with conservative censure and backlash?" The narrative follows that of the camgirl phenomenon, beginning with the earliest experiments in personal homecamming and ending with the newest forms of identity and community being articulated through social networking sites like Live Journal, YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. It is grounded in interviews, performance analysis of events transpiring between camgirls and their viewers, and the author's own experiences as an ersatz camgirl while conducting the research.

This study (and its author) is mentioned in this week's reading 'Digital Ethnography : An Examination of the Use of New Technologies for Social Research' by Dhiraj Murthy. Dissertation Remarks and Synopsis (from Theresa Senft's website) http://www.terrisenft.net/diss/synopsis.php#remarks

From the website: "The Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) is a section of the American Anthropological Association. We promote the study of visual representation and media. Both research methods and teaching strategies fall within the scope of the society. SVA members are involved in all aspects of production, dissemination, and analysis of visual forms. Works in film, video, photography, and computer-based multimedia explore signification, perception, and communication-in-context, as well as a multitude of other anthropological and ethnographic themes.The Society encourages the use of media, including still photography, film, video and non-camera generated images, in the recording of ethnographic, archaeological and other anthropological genres. Members examine how aspects of culture can be pictorially/visually interpreted and expressed, and how images can be understood as artifacts of culture.

From website: "This portal is a gateway to the cultural materials of Plateau peoples that are held in Washington State University's Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC), the Museum of Anthropology and by national donors. The collections represented here have been chosen and curated by tribal consultants working in cooperation with University and Museum staff." The About section has a good description of the curation process. In summary, the digital collection allows annotation and content submission by registered tribal members and organizations; also allows visitors and guests to leave text, audio, and video comments on content. The Tribal Links section for each category connects the historical content to contemporary cultures. Content controls allow participants to flag content as sensitive; presumably there is non-public content that is somehow managed. Here is a record that has some annotation by tribal organization: http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/display.php?tid=2&cid=4&fid=147&pgst=0 Metadata seems to include geospatial metadata that allows mapping of buildings, etc. From what I understand, the software used to support this collection is based on an Australian project with similar approach. Unfortunately, not much on the site about the software tools. I will try to locate and add the Australian project and related documentation. Is this digital ethnography? It seems to approach it; but limited markup by tribal members and organizations gives limited view of offline implications of online data.

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.

Here is a link to San Francisco's center for digital storytelling. The website has a digital storytelling cookbook, a basic guide to digital storytelling including interview techniques and basics of final cut express. The following is out of the "overloaded memory bank" section of the cookbook: "construction system to assist us in this process. Images, videos, sounds, and other representations of events from our life can help us to reconstruct more complete memories and therefore expand the repertoire of story that we can put to use." What are the implications for memory, and storytelling, if it is being framed in the context of a more formal recorded digital story.

and here is the link (http://www.storycenter.org/). There are several videos on the site that might be interesting to check out as well.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project provides a great deal of nationally representative data on Internet and new media usage in the United States. It may be a valuable site for those seeking survey data to analyze and incorporate into their research

I too have found this website to be very helpful. Here are a few more links from Pew providing evidence of the growing use of the internet and for the fading of the "digital divide." http://www.pewresearch.org/millennials/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2009/09/01/the-internet-and-civic-engagement/

If you are interested, this is the website for the SketchUp software.

So I was wrong, as I often am, there is an updated site and the next Vasetz Reunion is June27-29. Sorry, this story has fascinated me since I was a reporter out there.