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## <span class="censor">ITRM 2021 // Week 7 - Digital Ethnography</span>
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<img src="https://i.imgur.com/KH2FM61.png" width=70%>
Pablo Velasco & Ane Katrine Gammelby // Information Studies // [pablov.me](https://pablov.me)
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## Topics for the day:
* Digital Ethnography
* Flow logic and flow as method
* Ethics of doing ethnographic research in digital environments
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# <span style="color:hotpink">DIGITAL </span>ETHNOGRAPHY 101
* virtual ethnography
* connected (relational) ethnography
* ethnography of the everyday
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## Ethnography
Ties through cultural competence communication <!-- speak the language-->
<span class="refs">Malinowski, B. (1926). Crime and Custom in Savage Society.</span>
> an attitude or mindset that influences how researchers act in the practice of social inquiry
- "in collaboration" with people (or objects)
- not looking from above: but going through
- things that are hidden (not obvious) to the subjects (which won't be revealed in an interview)
- "in the making"
- not finished methods: methods evolve, and we as researchers have to adapt them
<span class="refs">Markham, A. (2018). Ethnography in the digital era: From fields to flow, descriptions to interventions</span>
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# Virtual ethnography (web 1.0)
- text as main form of communication
Hine
<span class="refs">Hine, C. (2000). Virtual Ethnography</span>
- people producing websites
- participants in online discussions
Hine methods:
- document analysis on websites or media coverage
- discourse analysis
- participation in online events
- interviews
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### Cyberspace
>Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
>Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
<span class="refs">Barlow, J. P. (1996). Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace</span>
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* immaterial (metaphysical) places
* virtual communities / virtual worlds
* a notion of persistence when the world is "offline" (Markham 2018)
<span class="censor">"The ethnographic gaze was focused on how individuals come together
via computer-mediated interaction and developed common rules, collective norms and values, as well as a sense of belonging"</span>
<span class="refs">Ardévol, E., & Gómez-Cruz, E. (2014). Digital Ethnography and Media Practices </span>
<iframe width="948" height="540" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DOv2sNUZgD8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<small>Second life trailer (2003)</small>
<!--Here comes everybody ()-->
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<img src="https://i.imgur.com/zunpQOy.png" width="80%">
<span class="refs">Meta. (2021, October 28). The Metaverse and How We’ll Build It Together—Connect 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvufun6xer8</span>
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# Connected ethnography (web 2.0)
Commonly used in Digital Anthropology, Digital Sociology, HCI and STS
* Blur or **integration between online / offline** ethnographic work
* Heterogeneous network of subjects and devices (**relational** ontologies, networks, etc)
* ***Field site*** as the locus where empirical work is conducted, less than a place or a community
* Strands of digital ethnographies:
<span class="refs">Coleman, E. G. (2010). Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media</span>
- Digital media and cultural politics: representation
- Digital media vernaculars
<span class="censor">"ethnographic lens to practices, subjects, modes of communication, and groups entirely dependent on digital technologies for their existence" (Coleman 2010, 492)</span>
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<img src="https://pablov.me/pres/media/coleman-hhws.jpg" width=35%>
<span class="refs">Coleman, G. (2015). Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous</span>
* weapons of the geek:<span class="censor"> What they all have in common is that their political tools (...) emerge from the concrete experience of their craft (Coleman 2015, 107)</span>
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# Internet in everyday practices and media ethnography
- Ethnography about living ***in*** media
- Ethnography ***for*** the internet
- adaptative approach
- "embedded, embodied, and everyday" (not as *cyberspace*)
<span class="refs">Hine, C. (2015). Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday</span>
- Sociology of infrastructure: the internet becomes an infrastructure to do other things
<span class="refs">Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences.</span>
<!--heidegger's hammer, a failing wifi-->
<span class="censor">[Ethnography as something that allows to] inhabit and capture the simultaneous centrality of *the digital* </span>
<span class="refs">Markham, A. (2018). Ethnography in the Digital Internet Era: From Fields to Flows, Descriptions to Interventions"</span>
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## Consider the notions of social shaping of technology and domestication:
<img src="https://moneyplatform.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Filters-on-TikTok.jpg" width="50%">
| <span class="refs">Hirsch, E., & Silverstone, R. (2003). Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces.</span> | <span class="refs">Baym, N. K. (2015). Personal connections in the digital age (2nd ed.)</span>
| -------- | --------
| 1. Tech integrated and adapted | 1. Surprising and strange
| 2. User environment changes | 2. Moral panic and opposition
| 3. Former adaptations change next generation of tech | 3. Normalisation
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# 5 principles for doing digital ethnography
<span class="refs">Pink, S., Horst, H. A., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (Eds.). (2016). Digital ethnography: Principles and practice.</span>
- **multiplicity**: multiple ways to engage (depending e.g. on places or infrastructure)
- **not centered in "the digital"**: media as part of something wider (environment, activities, experiences, relationships)
- **openness**: processual (open-ended, collaborative, not bounded, not a start-to-finish activity)
- **reflexivity**: considering and reflecting on their own knowledge production and ethics
- **unorthodox**: beyond, academia, disciplines, and standard written production
http://energyanddigitalliving.com/
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### <span style="color:hotpink">Activity: Digital case-based ethnographic discussion</span>
[MIRO board here](https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_llug8NM=/?invite_link_id=342749842172)
* The case should be "health-related" and can be related to the apps observed last session. We won't collect any data for this activity, but the data should exist.
#### Constructing the field site
* How is access to settings and research subjects to be obtained?
* How would you be present in the field?
* What kind of data can be gathered and through which specific means (scraping, interviews, observation, etc)?
* Where should the former means of research be conducted?
* What would be the advantages of a "flow" approach?
#### Dealing with ethics
* What ethical dilemmas does the "construction of the field site" involve?
* What would be your take on the notion of "contextual integrity" in your specific case?
* What would be your take on the notion of "distance principle" in your specific case?
* What other ethical considerations are to be considered for your specific case?
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