dtc-oii ethnography online 2011
DESCRIPTION
Slides from the Oxford Internet Institute Doctoral Training Centre session on Ethnography, 24 November 2011TRANSCRIPT
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Ethnography on/of the Internet
OII 2011
Eric T. Meyer & Rebecca EynonOxford Internet Institute, www.oii.ox.ac.uk
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Overview
• Ethnographic tradition
• What’s new about the Internet?
• What topics work?
• Methods, old and new
• Data: what to collect, how to organize it, how to analyse it, how to report it
• Ethical considerations
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Bronislaw Malinowski with Trobriand Islanders in 1918.
Margaret Mead: Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)
NAPOLEON CHAGNON with the Yanomamo Indians he studied in the Brazilian Amazon ca 1960s-1990s
Source 1: http://www.theage.com.au/news/Reviews/Malinowski-odyssey-of-an-anthropologist/2005/06/02/1117568312895.htmlSource 2: http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/329 Source 3: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=anthropologys-darkest-hou
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Kula Ring
Source: https://webspace.yale.edu/anth500/projects/01_Curley/KulaHomePage.html
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Bronislaw Malinowski with Trobriand Islanders in 1918.
Margaret Mead: Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)
NAPOLEON CHAGNON with the Yanomamo Indians he studied in the Brazilian Amazon ca 1960s-1990s
Source 1: http://www.theage.com.au/news/Reviews/Malinowski-odyssey-of-an-anthropologist/2005/06/02/1117568312895.htmlSource 2: http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/329 Source 3: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=anthropologys-darkest-hou
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Innikka Equipped with the Amice of Brilliant Light from the Black TempleSource: Nardi (2010). My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft
Source of Gorean image: Bardzell & Odom (2008). The Experience of Embodied Space in Virtual Worlds: An Ethnography of a Second Life Community. space and culture 11(3): 239-259
Tom Boellstorff/Tom BukowskiCOMING OF AGE IN SECOND LIFE (2008)Image Source: http://www.spiritofthesenses.org/secondlifesalon.htm
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What’s new about the Internet?
What topics work?
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Online / offline
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Exercise
1. Choose a topic
2. Determine the boundaries
3. Imagine some theories
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Methods: Old and new
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Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jemshed/4123591152/ Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johanl/4375773612/
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Why use interviews?
Very common method in ethnographic research
Suitable for gathering in-depth information, opinions and exploring people’s thinking and motivation
Flexible
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When to go online?
+ve
Good fit with other parts of the research
Particularly good for certain topics
Reduces costs & increase convenience
-ve
May not give you the whole story
Requires a new skill set
Can be more difficult to analyze the data
Online (e.g. email, online chat rooms, instant messaging, skype, videoconferencing, virtual worlds)
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Sampling
Typically non-probability sampling Purposive Snowball Convenience
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Recruitment & preparing participants
Online & offline
Details of research What to expect (e.g. amount of time,
kinds of questions) Incentives Ethical considerations
Informed consent Agreeing levels of confidentiality & anonymity
Technical considerations
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Self disclosure and rapport
“..the goal of finding out about people through interviewing is best achieved where…the interviewer is prepared to invest his or her personal identity in the relationship”
Oakley, 1981:41
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Planning
Preparation of questions and devising an interview schedule
But online means you need to consider… Delivery / timing of questions
“Chunking” of schedule? Asynchronous or synchronous
Errors Asking sensitive questions
Importance of pilot & reflection
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Asynchronous or synchronous focus groups
Asynchronous More thoughtful, in-
depth responses Easier to moderate Addresses problems
of different time zones
More dropout ‘Polished’ responses
Synchronous Most similar to face
to face More spontaneous Less ‘polished’ Quicker Difficulties with
moderation (interruptions, question creation, group dynamics…)
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Preparing data for analysis
Make notes immediately after the session
The importance of listeningTranscripts versus detailed notes
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Online implications
Ability to modify text before it is sent Cannot be certain participants are who they
say they are Don’t know where the interviewees are
based / what they are doing at the same time Less in-depth responses (more to the point) More open / honest online? Reduced NVC
Can you compare both kinds of interviews in the context of the same study?
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Source: http://www.analytictech.com/borgatti/etk3.htm
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Source: Jacob Nielsen (1995). Card Sorting to Discover the Users' Model of the Information Space. http://www.useit.com/papers/sun/cardsort.html
Card sorts / pile sorts
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Source: Horowitz, D.M. (2007). Applying Cultural Consensus Analysis To Marketing. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Florida State University, Department of Marketing
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Triad Tests
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Source: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bstraigh/AN240/Lecture7.htm
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Source: http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/axfight/complin.html
Lineages related to Timothy Asch / Napoleon Chagnon film The Axe Fight
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Source: http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/hogan/graphics/
Bernie Hogan: Group Structure in Facebook
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Family
Local Friends
Three co-worker groups Friends
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DataWhat to collect, how to organize it, how to analyse it, how to report it
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Analysis and writing up
Be clear about your approach (reliability / dependability)
Are the results credible to the group you studied? (internal validity / credibility)
How do these findings relate to other work on the topic? (external validity / transferability)
Use quotes carefully examples and to give a voice to participants
Be explicit about your own role and bias, & the influence of the context of the research Alternative viewpoints & negative instances
(objectivity / confirmability)
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Ethics: What is new?
Ethical governance in traditional research settings Is the human subjects model always appropriate?
Challenges in devising a code of practice in aglobal context
Disciplinary boundaries
Sensitivity to context
A balancing act Protected but not burdened
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Gathering data directly
Protection of harm online More difficult to assess, depends on the nature of the method Strategies (make it clear participants can leave, prior rapport
with participant, establishing netiquette)
Ensuring anonymity and confidentiality Perceived anonymity of the Internet To be considered at all stages of the research
Informed consent Distance between researcher & participant, challenges
anonymity strategies, verifying ability to give informed consent Strategies (email discussion, readability of documents, use of
quizzes, recruitment strategy and verifying identity)
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Analyzing interaction
The online social setting: formally public, but respect the conventions for the privacy of the space? Be sensitive to context
Disclose researcher identity? Online possibilities are different from offline (ID
tag) ‘Invasion’ of researchers
Respect social milieu Connect with people offline?
Weigh burden on research participant
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Data capture
Tools for capture are more powerful than for capturing offline interactions
Anonymous data about populations, but surveillance?
Reproducing and anonymizing captured interactions, but possible identification by search?
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Ethics Summary
The ethics of internet research are becoming ‘professionalized’ via AoIR
Yet many novel issues continue to be raised across academic disciplines intertwined with broader social changes
(e.g., official data, commercial interests etc)
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Further references Ess, C. (2006) ‘Ethics and the Use of the Internet in Social Science
Research’. In: Adam Joinson, Katelyn McKenna, Tom Postmes and Ulf-Dietrich Reips (eds) Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp 487-503.
Madge, C. (2007) Developing a geographers' agenda for online research ethics. Progress in Human Geography 31(5): 654–674
Pittenger, D. (2003) Internet Research: An Opportunity to Revisit Classic Ethical Problems in Behavioural Research, Ethics and Behaviour, 13(1): 45-60
Schroeder, R. (2007) ‘An Overview of Ethical and Social Issues in Shared Virtual Environments’, Futures: The Journal of Forecasting, Planning and Policy, 39 (6): 704-717
Stern, S. (2003) ‘Encountering distressing information online research: a consideration of legal and ethical responsibilities’, New Media and Society, 5(2): 249-266
Varnhagen, C., Gushta, M., Daniels, J., Peters, T., Parmar, N., Law, D., Hirsch, R., Takach, B., and Johnson, T. (2005) ‘How informed is online consent?’ Ethics and Behaviour, (15)1: 37-48
Zimmer, M. (2010) ‘‘But the data is already public’’: on the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics and Information Technology, 12(4), 313-325
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Information Ethnographers of interest (list courtesy of David Hakken, Indiana University, available at : http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/courses/descriptions/I651.doc)
John Anderson, anthropology, Catholic University (Arab informatics)
Steve Barley, management, Stanford (Researching engineers in Silicon Valley)
Genevieve Bell, anthropologist, Intel (Cross-cultural study of technology, especially Asia)
Tom Boellstorff, UC Irvine (Anthropology)
Pablo Boczkowski, MIT (Sloan School of Management)
Gabriella Coleman, anthropology, University of Chicago (Open Source and the Cultural Imaginary)
Andy Crabtree, Sociology, University of Nottingham, UK (organizations, systems development; rapid ethnographic assessment)
Joe Dumit, anthropology, (Director of STS program, UC-Davis)
Jan English-Lueck, Anthropology, San Jose State (Silicon Valley Project)
Joan Fujimura (Sociology, University of Wisconsin)
Keith Hampton, MIT (Department of Urban Studies and Planning)
Penny Harvey, anthropologist, University of Manchester (UK) (Museum informatics)
Stephen Helmreich, History of Consciousness, MIT (Artificial Life, Bio-informatics)
Adrienne Jenik, UCSD, (Computer and Media Arts)
Lori Kendall, SUNY Purchase (Sociology)
Jean Lave, Education and anthropology, University of California at Berkeley
Gustavo Mesch, University of Haifa (Sociology and Anthropology)
Bonnie Nardi, (Informatics, UC-Irvine)
Carsten Oesterlund, Information Studies, Syracuse University (health informatics)
Wanda Orlikowski, management, MIT (organizational informatics)
Bryan Pfaffenberger, anthropology in the School of Engineering, University of Virginia (technology)
Sandeep Sahay, Informatics, University of Oslo (development informatics)
Susan Leigh Star, Sociology, University of Santa Clara (Classification; science informatics)
Lucy Suchman, anthropology/ethnomethodology, University of Lancaster (UK)
Sharon Traweek, UCLA (science informatics)
Sherry Turkle, MIT (Sociology)
Nina Wakeford University of Surrey (Sociology and INCITE)
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Practical exercise: planning a virtual ethnography
In small groups plan how you would go about doing a virtual ethnography for one of the topics/communities you selected earlier.
• Think about:– constructing the study– gathering and managing the data– the methods you would use– analysing the data – issues when analysing the data – ethical considerations
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Eric T. [email protected]
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=120
Rebecca [email protected]
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=21