Digital Ethnography

ORDINARY MIRACLES: THE PHOTO LEAGUE'S NEW YORK is a feature-length documentary film which tells the story of the rise and politically motivated fall of the Photo League, (1936-1951) which for fifteen years served as the center of the documentary movement in American photography at a time when the camera was held to be, in James Agee's words, "the central instrument of our time."

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Great place to look up book, journals, articles and grey literature. Open Folklore is a scholarly resource devoted to increasing the number of useful resources, published and unpublished, available in open access form for folklore studies and the communities with which folklorists partner.

This is the site of the photographer from the BBC News piece on "A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia." His own account is completely different from the BBC article. He is not, as BBC portrayed him, an ethnographer who stumbled onto a cultural shift in gendered activities-he is a storyteller who went looking for an unusual story, and made it happen. "I had gone looking for my eagle huntress. . .I was amazed by her comfort and ease as she began handling the grand eagle for the first time in her life." I have the same question I asked on the bookmark for the BBC article; why was it important to the BBC to represent this story as ethnography?

Agreed - and even without the quotes, a casual observer could tell that these images are posed. However, I think portraiture-as-documentary photography raises some intriguing methodological questions/concerns. Considering the original piece was published through a (well-respected) international media organization, my guess is that some interesting conversations occurred during editorial meetings regarding the nature of Svidensky's work. Maybe this example points to the blurring lines between traditional news photography and pictures made for ethnographic purposes?

Quite possibly. And if that is the case, it is certainly evident in the two contrasting articles we have here. But I also wonder if we're not watching a paradigm shift to the photo-essay style that Svidensky is making use of. With the rising popularity of sites like Buzzfeed, I wonder if--in order to bring more interest to his work--he's utilizing that same style in hopes of being more "readable" for the masses. What will be interesting, though, is if we see a similar shift to the photo-essay from the sites that push traditional news photography.

The example of a web forum turning their "newbie" section into essentially an "unconverted" section very interesting example of how communities separate "us" and "them." I don't know how broadly we can apply that example, though. Vegans are an easy target as a community that identifies largely in opposition to an "other," since most definitions of veganism lay out what vegans *don't* do, eg use animal products. I'd be interested to see if other communities with, for lack of better phrasing, more "positive" or additive identifications, similarly segregate "others" on their sites. Then of course the question becomes, what do the "others" get out of being segregated on a community's site? Do they have their own subcommunity?

I do believe that it was religious scholar Robert Ellwood that said that a group most identifies in what they are not. So I do think that they create their own subcommunity, because they are identifying with the fact that they are the "other" and that they are not the "us." To give a real life example (but not a digital one, sorry) Dianic Paganism was created in response to second-wave feminism, they did not allow men into their circles. In response, you see this rise of men-only circles.

I covered Madison's girls rock camp in 2010. Good times: http://host.madison.com/entertainment/music/at-girls-rock-camp-these-young-rockers-have-the-chance/article_ad142db0-79ab-11df-82b8-001cc4c03286.html

Thank you for sharing this! This is right up my alley in alignment with my research. This article is really helpful to compare other forms and locations where collective identity is shaped through culture and music and where social change can occur. "But perhaps Rock Camp for Girls is managing to challenge the status quo from a very early stage by getting young girls involved in positive creative activities and helping to build confidence and self-worth. Understanding the social networks of feminist music worlds can help minimise stress and improve the collaborative activist experience benefiting the local participants and a wider transnational audience by sharing lessons learned by organisers, participants and performers within a wider music based community." -https://diigo.com/01s7f5

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.

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.

Analysis of 2.6 million tweets shows Twitter is adept at correcting misinformation - particularly if the claim is that a tiger is on the loose in Primrose Hill This Guardian piece is an interesting way to think of scraping Twitter to show how mis-information moves across time in periods of crisis. I was living in London during this time period, and it was really amazing how influential social media was in shaping people's perceptions of the riots.

Twitter maybe correcting misinformation when it comes to riot rumors but its doing nothing to stop storytelling. https://twitter.com/1014retold Buzzfeed compared it to a re-life Game of Thrones http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/this-live-tweeted-medieval-irish-war-is-the-real-game-of-thr

This is an interesting article I stumbled across the other day. It's discussion of changes in technology, methodology, and data and their influence on framing the popularity of music, particularly in regards to race, is really interesting.

This is another site that can be utilized to differentiate your data from other presentations you might see. Periscopic is a company run out of Portland, and is quickly gaining momentum as a destination for researchers to use to depict their data in a more appealing way than traditional 2-D graphs. This site is different than visual.ly because it is much more focused around scientific research like multi-variable studies, and even more longitudinal research requiring a more expansive visualization. Essentially this is a more professional level research visualization tool, whereas visual.ly is more focused on presentations in creative settings.

This site is a popular destination for anyone seeking to add a more creative visual aspect to research and/or presentations. Although it uses a wide array of kinetic typography, it is a great way to visually portray field data in a way that attracts a wider audience.

A very simple and useful mapping tool.

I know some of you are familiar with this site - some helpful video tutorials on a number of useful software programs, including Final Cut Pro and Photoshop.

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

I investigated the Google Earth "tour" feature I demonstrated today a bit further. When an email is sent of the "tour" to someone, the email contains a KMZ file that will open in Google Earth. Unfortunately the email receiver will either need to have Google Earth installed on their computer or install Google Earth to open the KMZ file you sent them. You can also choose to send a static image of your view in Google Earth as a JPG.

Here is one of the articles I mentioned in class today. It was written by Keith Hampton and Berry Wellman is called "Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb.

Thanks!

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.