Re-Entering Earths Orbit...

Just wanted to share some final thoughts on my term paper and the course in general. As you all know, if you've been reading my blog, I was one of the few class members that chose to analyse a book-length ethnography instead of conducting my own online research. Although I still think that was the right idea because it really did shed a lot of light on the ethnographic process, it is too bad I didn't get a chance to conduct research of my own.

Originally, my intentions were to conduct my research within the Facebook community because I was really intrigued by the size and scope of the network. Perhaps the largest virtual community in the world, it might of been interesting to study how and why it grew so fast, how social interactions differ or relate to those in the physical world, and also– much like Christensen did with Inuit in Cyberspace– to try and understand how individuals negotiate their self-identity in this particular media rich environment.

Another intriguing area to look at, within the Facebook framework, may have been to consider Ferdinand Tonnies ideas about communal living. In writing about Inuit in Cyberspace, I briefly spoke about Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft and how the social theories applied to the context of the ethnography I was analysing. As I laid out the implications of these theories, relative to Inuit in Cyberspace, I couldn't help but think about how these concepts apply to the Facebook community.

If I had to begin my research today, I would explore whether the Facebook community was one which displayed aspects of Gemeinschaft or Gesellschaft. It would be interesting to speak to various members and see how they valued the relationships fostered online, do these relationships nurture feelings of inclusion and loyalty seen in Gemeinschaft or is Gesellschaft inevitable because of the sheer size of the network. Also, does the number of friends
in an individuals 'Friend List' affect the way one is involved within the social landscape? Perhaps, as Friends Lists grow Gesellschaft replaces the sense of Gemeinschaft felt by the user. If so, is their a magic number, a sort of symbolic threshold that, when crossed, begins to disconnect the individual from the community. This sort of disconnect occurs in the physical world as villages and towns transform into cities, it would be interesting to see if the Facebook community is a sort of microcosm of this type of transition.

Having said that, I don't think I would of been capable of bringing up these questions–or go about systematically researching them through ethnography for that matter– had I not put Inuit in Cyberspace under the microscope. For that exact reason, I am glad I chose to analyse the book.

To all, good luck in the future!
Spil Vass

Hmmm, meaning of culture raises some questions...

Well I'm now in the stretch run of running my paper... As I cover the outline I laid out with information from class discussions applied to Christensen's work, a pretty big issue has come up for me which I never really put much stock in and just might be worth mentioning as I critique the ethnography. I wish Christensen had spent a little more time on defining his critirea for online information being culture capital. He speaks about culture online, but may have been well-served to actually consider the depth of cultural flags not just the scope. I can't help but thinking more time should of been spent seperating the cultural markers he speaks about into categories of impct. Having not done that, a simple gif image of a pair of seal skin gloves can be considers as culturally significant in asserting Inuit culture as anything else considered...

Also raises questions of authenticity as to what is real Inuit culture online and what is just displayed to identify themselves by presenting symbols that foreigners stereotype to those communities...

Thoughts on Snowrunners last post

I was just reading some of the post by other class members and kind of related them in terms of how they fit into Christensens belief of cyberspace as an extension of 'real-space'. Actually, Snowrunner posted an interesting note last Friday that spoke about old institutions and industry giants are shaping cyberspace and defining it's direction. 

I relate that article to my last post, in that, as offline institutions assert themselves even more, the perception of a totally separate 'online' space becomes less and less relevant. A lot of the institutions are instrumental in creating offline barriers and constraints. Their presence online enforces the continuum that exists offline and and acts to create a consistency between virtual and real space...

Hmmm, Im curious to know if Christensen made any mention of this sort of institutional control as a reason for cultural embedding in Inuit webpages. I didn't pick up on anything of the sort, but perhaps that's due to the fact that I wasn't really looking...

Cyberspace as non-space

As I sit here writing the term paper, I've realized how important it is to focus on the environment of cyberspace as a location for fieldwork. I know that sounds obvious as this entire semester has been about doing that, but in the case of my research I think that there is a great deal to learn by critically looking at the considerations of Christensen as he writes the ethnography. He spends a bit of time early on talking about how early cyberspace researchers saw  the environment as a non-space without boundaries yet his research led him to believe that, for Inuit users, it is regarded as another place to be 'who they are' just like any other environment they may frequent offline... I'm actually looking for literature that may back up or enforce this point of view...

I'll let you know how she goes!!

Culture vs. Technology

I think it's pretty interesting to consider a point Christensen makes early on in his ethnography. The author states that we've somehow created a dichonomy between culture and technology, almost as if the creation or growth of one inevitably spells disaster for the other. I think he's bang on in stating that this struggle is perceived rather than actual. As he continues to introduce the landscape of his research, he talks about how his observations demonstrated that highly traditional inuit cultures are adopting internet technologies to actually reinforce their culture rather than have it be marginalized. It got me thinking about one of the readings from early on in the course that dealt with the real versus the virtual and the concept of virtuality. 

Culture, for all intents and purposes is just information and the interpreting of said information, so I guess its no surprise that what Christensen speaks about is not really that far out there since the internet is just a means of sharing and transferring information. Sure the medium adds and shapes the message to some degree, as it does the messenger—however, the message, for the most part, is parlayed in virtual space as it would be in real space. I'm not sure if that makes sense, or if I'm explaining it properly, but it just may be worth exploring a little bit when looking at the content of ethnography...

Thoughts before liftoff on my research paper

Well, I'm sitting down to begin the research paper due next week and want to jot down a few thoughts before I begin laying out my research paper outline.

I finished reading Inuit in Cyberspace a second time this past week with a more critical eye than the first time. When I first read the book, I tried viewing it strictly as a reader interested in the subject matter. I was only concerned with subject matter that the author, Neil Blair Christensen, researched and reported. The second time I read through the text, I tried to be aware of the methodologies and ethniographic techniques the researcher employed to conuct his research. I just want to note that even the second read-through was kept pretty light though; I didn't take any notes or highlight anything that may be important when writing my report. I felt that that may slow me down and may cloud my vision when trying to observe any points that may be noteworthy. Instead, I plan to read through the text a third time with a much more critical intent. Having read the ethnography twice already, I have a general idea of what I am looking for and when. It is now simply a matter of documenting the exact examples that may illustrate the points I will be making in my final paper.

What I'm thinking of doing, and this may work itself out in the next day or two, is recapping the ethnography, Inuit in Cyberspace, in a chapter by chapter basis and summing up my observations or critiques in ethnographic terms. In other words, I may explain the observations and insights Christensen presents in the chapter and then go ahead and look at how his reseach was conducted and these conclusions were drawn.

Well, like I said I'm going to take the next day or two to analytically go through the text and collect examples and instances where the ethnographic process is particularly evident, highlighted, or flawed. I'll let you know how it goes...

PS: I just wanted to thank you all for those great oral presentations in class. Your research, observations, and presentations are particularly important to helping me write my research paper because they allow me to draw on a larger pool of real-world research examples when comparing Inuit in cyberspace to other ethnographies. Thanks again!

Plan B... and that's final!

Well, it's been quite a while since my last post! I've been pretty active with my research since I last wrote here, but am completely guilty of not keeping you, my fellow Soci/Anth 498'ers, up to date with my research, insights, and findings. I promise to make it up to you all in the next few days. I've kept physical notes (pen & paper–yup, they still exist!!) throughout the process of my research and hope to post them here in the next few days either by transcribing them or simply scanning the notes, uploading them to my server, and posting the links.

After I last wrote, I kept spinning my wheels unsuccessfully trying to figure out a topic for my research. As noted earlier, I knew the research would be conducted in Facebook, it was just a matter of establishing an area of focus and determining the research question I chose to pursue. I had a real hard time narrowing down the topic and also formulating a plan to conduct my research.

It became apparent to me that the issues I was facing were founded in the nature of the research itself rather than the subject matter. I was not familiar enough with the process of conducting an ethnography to feel completely comfortable with pursuing that avenue. Perhaps it is because of my sociology background, or perhaps because, simply through chance or bad luck, I have never really covered the process and methodologies practiced in ethnographical research throughout my undergraduate studies. We touched on this type of qualitative research briefly during the Soci 310 research methods course, but really did not go into very much detail about the proper methods of conducting an ethnography. I've watched Tiger Woods win the Masters on television, it doesn't mean I'm ready to pack my golf back and head to Augusta for a round of 18! Instead I decided to explore the second option of research available for this course–reviewing a published ethnography in the field of cyberspace research.

The more I thought about this option, the obvious benefits became more and more clear to me. The advantages were two-fold. First I can gain insight into ethnographic research and the methodology employed to conduct the research. By keeping a keen eye open for the procedure employed by the author, I could learn more about the process as well as become aware of the advantages and, conversely, shortcomings of this research method and its' application by the author. The second advantage of reviewing an already published ethnography is that I can learn more about the subject matter of the ethnography, cyberspace sociology, without having to worry if the methods employed in my own research are being conducted properly. 

After speaking with Dr. Forte last month, and receiving the green-light on reviewing an ethnography, I narrowed the four choices available down to the ethnography Inuit in Cyberspace: Embedding Offline Identities by Neil Blair Christensen. Various factors came into play that led me to choose this ethnography over the others. I will get into the selection process during my next blog post, as well as share some of the intial thoughts, questions, and comments as I read through this thoroughly entertaing and inciteful ethnography.

Spinning my wheels

Just wanted to leave a short note updating the status of my research. 

I'm having a hard time getting this project started. I still haven't decided the locale of my research. I thought it might be a good idea to explore a social networking domain that I had never previously visited for the purpose of my research. I figured the fact that I had no previous knowledge of the environment would allow me to form clearer ideas and assumptions about my observations without any (or as much) pre-conceived biases or judgements. 

Earlier this afternoon, I decided to give Twitter a shot. I've been hearing a lot about Twitter recently in the media after being initially made aware of it during the American presidential election campaigns last fall.  I registered a new account and did a little exploring and site-seeing. Right away, it became clear to me that there were various research question that can be considered from observing that community. Why are members  so involved? Why do members find it important to 'Tweet' their thoughts with the rest of the community? How do members choose what thoughts to 'Tweet' and what thoughts to filter out? Is the short length of the Tweets detrimental or helpful to parlaying a message? Are the interactions 'deep' or are they kept on a more superficial level because of the brevity of the Tweets? Are the Tweets intertwined interactions or simply discreet packets of information/knowledge/facts that can either be added to or left to float out there? Actually, Twitter got me thinking a lot about how our society (on and off-line) treats information in the 21st century; We need our info in real-time, short, and to the point.

Having said all that about Twitter and having mentioned some of the interesting questions that arise from the social networking taking place within that community, I think the fact that I had never used the site before might pose too great an obstacle for this course research. There's a learning curve using Twitter that might take too long to master for this course. I'm afraid too much time and energy will have to be spent learning how to navigate this site and becoming completely comfortable within the environment. 

Since this course only runs until April, I think it will be wiser to focus my attention within an environment that I am already comfortable with without having to worry about mastering the technology/terminology/practices of the observed online community. I have held a Facebook account for nearly two years and am completely comfortable with that environment, so perhaps I will be well served to conduct my research within that social networking site. As I stated earlier in this post, it would be ideal to observe a community I am not acquainted with in order to be able to view it with a fresh perspective, but unfortunately in this case, the technological impediments would be too cumbersome to overcome within the alloted time frame of my research.

I'll be back with some thoughts on Facebook in a bit!

Lift Off!

Alright, so I finally got this Blog up and running. That was easy enough!

To all my classmates visiting this blog over the next couple of months, I look forward to sharing my thoughts and insights with you as I conduct my research into the online community. I think this course will be quite challenging because I come from a sociology background and this course seems more geared to anthropology students.

I'll check back in soon to let you all know how my initial research is coming along!