Summary: Week 5

Week five already and I am deep into the groundwork for the digital ethnographic study.  I began this week by getting a good understanding of the practices involved in ethnographic research (lifestream 18.10.2011, #2, #3, #4 and #5).  I noted with interest how ethnographic research has found its way out of academia and into the field of Internet marketing (lifestream 18.10.2011 #6) which prompted me to start thinking about the nature of communities, their rules (18.10.2011 #7) and how the bounds of group membership are actually defined (lifestream 19.10.2011 #4).  The Bell text from this weeks reading helped to clarify that somewhat.  I was introduced to the concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (lifestream 20.10.2011 #4) and commented on a similar topic in the Holyrood Park discussion forum.  After considering these ideas, my first impulse was to focus my study on an online Star Wars gaming community of several hundred active members.  However this target community would be difficult to examine given the casual nature of membership and the ability for players that die to respawn with new identities.  The fantasy element also presented a problem when I considered the definition of ethnography as participation given by Hammersley and Atkinson, quoted in Hine in the core readings for this week, that “the researcher does not just observe at close quarters, but interacts with the researched to ask questions and gain the insights into life that comes from doing as well as seeing” (Hine, 2000).  Instead I settled on an newly launched social network named Diaspora which espouses choice, freedom and member ownership of data.

The Hine reading, as well as my personal study for the week got me thinking about the concept of arrival stories within ethnographic research and so I began considering what represents an arrival (and here) within a cyber-community.  In the online community with a prescribed signup process, membership is a highly defined concept, i.e. if you have an account you are by definition a member.  Group membership therefore is insufficient to define ones connection within an online community.  Perhaps the missing element is the idea of reputation within the group, or a general acceptance that the new member is willing to work within the established community guidelines and participate in a productive way.  If this is true then the “arrival” is the creation of connections within the group rather than mere membership.

I’m really looking forward to getting involved with Diaspora and developing these ideas further.