February 2009 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-L] virtual ethnography
by Pearse Stokes 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

This debate is really getting going now! As far as virtual ethnography is concerned (and I think even our discussion here falls into some of these traps) there are some problems with it as it is generally performed. This first is just as Rhiannon illustrated "there is a tendency for internet researchers to play fast and loose with the term "ethnography." Interviewing on-line participants or "observing" on-line interaction is often just plain old qualitative research (which is perfectly legitimate) and the latter on its own might be discourse analysis. Part of what makes work ethnographic is the presentation of the data. I expect "thick descriptions" and substantial verbatim comments covering a range of participant experience, not a few illustrative snippets." Perhaps this stems from people conducting ethnography without 'proper training' or a wider cultural shift towards shorter, more journalistic articles (I'm certainly guilty of this) and reports for business consumption (also guilty). Furthermore within this discussion we talk about the 'virtual field'. My understanding of good ethnography is that is should be reflexive and holistic. Meaning we should perform a method (of research, of participation, of 'writing the culture') that is best suited to the particular field site. The 'virtual' is not a field site any more than 'the real' is. And so virtual ethnographers often fall into that same dichotomous relationship anthropologists of old did (and anthropologists since have worked so hard to shift) ... that is the 'anthropological gaze' upon the 'other'. Each research project should be approached with an awareness that the 'site' does not necessarily conform to our expectations in terms of where it begins and ends. In my recent research I have been writing about the 'Pro-Anorexia' phenomena. This started with some 'virtual ethnography' but I knew it would be more like cyber-anthropology once I started to really get down to it. A great deal of the report is identifying 'where' 'Pro-Ana' is, because just like all 'virtual' phenomena it transcends the 'virtual'. I'm sure everyone who is involved in this discussion will agree - as they are sitting in the REAL world, thinking and physically typing. So to research the 'virtual' is to assume a shape of your field site. It would be like Malinowski going to one Island in the Trobriands and deciding that was his only site or research - he would miss out on the whole Kula Ring!! As Laetitia said " we coul interpret this as a bit elitist." and Laetitia is right, but isn't this the place for such elitist discussion? ;) If you would like to read my report its here: cyberanthropology.wordpress.com Thanks for this great debate!! Pearse

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Ensuring Anonymity when online - long
by John white, Ph.D. 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

All, A researcher has asked an interesting question: > I am in the process of embarking on my own internet-based study that > assesses internet child pornography related behaviors. I have > run into several challenges with regard to the anonymity of > data, as such data may be particularly interesting to law > enforcement. I am writing to call on your expertise in working > to resolve this issue. Given that you assessed illegal activities, > how did you prevent against the possibility of law enforcement > seizing data and connecting it to individuals via IP addresses My reply: > If I read your note correctly, you are most concerned about IP matches > against a source computer. The simplest way to defeat this would be > to identify multiple proxy servers that 'wash' this information away. > > In essence, you encourage participants to utilize one of the many > free servers that have been established on the internet. You > can also make arrangements with your own University to have the IP > logs scrubbed on a regular basis (or even turned off). Frankly, you > can set up almost any computer to act a server with these logs set > to 'off'. You cannot block the ip logs on intervening 'hops' in > the data stream, but using a proxy server for entry, and your own > server that doesn't keep originating IPs complicates any tracing of > the source computer. > > Wikipedia has an entry on proxy servers that is written in English: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server > > There is also a website that appears to rank proxy servers: > http://www.topfreeproxy.com/ > > There is also a program, administered through NIH that allows a > researcher to obtain a government document declaring the project of > such interest to public health that none of the collected information > can be used by law enforcement, regardless of how much they would > like to obtain it. Dr. Duncan is more aware of this particular > procedure than I am and could best answer any questions should > you seek this classification. > > You can also arrange to have the survey hosted on a web site in the > EU, which has a better history of enforcing privacy laws over the > past decade. Additionally, identifying proxy servers overseas, may add > a further layer of security. > > Lastly, you can obtain a security certificate and arrange for the > data transmission to be secure using 128 bit encryption. That way > the data stream is as secure as possible. The technical personnel > at your University can help create a secure webpage for you. > > There may be other security holes in your protocol I'm not aware of, > but I can think of some procedures that will work in your favor: > > 1) Lots of studies on the internet. The fact it is so large makes > it harder to stumble across your site. > 2) Block search engine access so you don't show up in Goggle/Yahoo, > etc. They use bots (autonomous programs) that search and check for > permission to search a page. > 3) Don't link from other pages. Create a stand alone survey where > you have to type in a unique address to get the page. Now, what other suggestions can be made as I am certain this will occur again in my own research and others? JW -- ====================================================================== John B. White, Ph.D. | john.white(a)wku.edu Dept. of Public Health - WKU | Office: 270.745.5867 College Heights Blvd. | Fax: 270.745.4437 Bowling Green, KY 42101-3576 | http://www.wku.edu/~john.white ======================================================================

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qual data analysis software for Mac?
by Andrea Forte 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

Hi all, does anyone have any experience with qualitative data analysis packages (think NVivo or Atlas.ti) for Mac? Everything I know of seems to be for PC only... any suggestions would be appreciated. :) Thanks! Andrea : Andrea Forte : PhD Candidate, Human-Centered Computing : Georgia Institute of Technology : http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~aforte

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virtual ethnography
by laetitia le chatton 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

Hello, Regarding the discussion, I may precise now that I am looking for an ethnography which could help me to understand the architecture resulting from people conversations.That is, I cannot postulate any " networks of interactions" (network model is not virgin but has a long tradition in military, economical fields!). If it exists, it might be an aspect of my findings but it cannot be part of the method for sure. Rhiannon recalled that an ethnography is not a-normative by nature. Yes but I went to that discipline after post-structuralist overal reevalution while ethnographers were wondering about their own practices... Besides Alexa Färber in http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/index.php?res=conf&idconf=355 suggests to split in two the fieldnotes with both the informers observations and the state of research practices. We may therefore add to the "visual part" a "graph part" where we aknowledge this latter use?? I still think that maps may help us to understand this architecture of signs and marks let by the community.... Regards, Laetitia I add to this mail the reading list that has been exchanged till now. Christensen, N.B. (2003) /Inuit in Cyberspace: Embedding Offline Identities Online/. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Correll, S. (1995) The Ethnography of an Electronic Bar. /Journal of Contemporary Ethnography/,/ /24 (3), p.270-299. Hine, C. (2000) /Virtual Ethnography/. London: Sage. Jones, Steve (1998)(ed.) /Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net/, ed. S.G. Jones. London: Sage. Mann, C. and Stewart, F. (eds.) (2000) /Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online/. London: Sage. Markham, A.N. (2003) The Internet as Research Context. In / Qualitative Research Practice/, eds. C. Seale, J.F. Gubrium, G. Gobo and D. Silverman. London: Sage. Miller, D. and Slater, D. (eds.) (2000) /The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach/. Oxford: Berg. Schaap, F. (2002) /The Words That Took Us There: Ethnography In A Virtual Reality/. Amsterdam: Askant. For interviewing, I would start with this comprehensive volume, if your library has it: Gubrium, Jaber, & Holstein, James (2001). Handbook of Interview Research. London: Sage. Creswell, John (2008). Research Design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. London: Sage. Cresswell, John (2006). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among five methods. London: Sage. Wittel, A. (2000). Ethnography on the Move: From Field to Net to Internet. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, 1 (1). Retrieved 08 May 2003 from http://qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-00/1-00wittel-e.htm Burton, L., & Goldsmith, D. (2002). The Medium is the Message: using online focus groups to study online learning. Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium, New Britain, CT, USA, http://www.ctdlc.org/Evaluation/mediumpaper.pdf . Rezabek, R. J. (2000). Online focus groups: Electronic discussions for research. Forum Qualitative: Qualitative Social Research [Online Journal], 1(1), http://qualitative-research.net/fqs. More recently Virtual Ethnography or Netnography or webnography, are performed primarily in the commercial arena, with Puri's Web of Insight as a sort of handbook (available here: http://lk.nielsen.com/documents/WebofInsightsPaperMay07.pdf) http://inthegameworkshop.blogspot.com/ Emerson, Fretz and Shaw (1995). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (a how-to text) Hammersley and Atkinson (1995). Ethnography. London: Routledge. (both a concept and a practical methods text) Robben and Sluka (eds) (2007). Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. (a great collection of ethnographies, as well as essays about the the problems of ethnographic fieldwork) Anne Beaulieu, "Mediating ethnography: objectivity and the makings of ethnographies on the internet," Social Epistemology 18 (2004): 139-164. Burrell, Jenna. Forthcoming. The Fieldsite as Heterogeneous Network. Field Methods. Leander, Kevin M. and Kelly M. McKim, "Tracing the Everyday 'Sitings' of Adolescents on the Internet: a strategic adaptation of ethnography across online and offline spaces," Education, Communication & Information 3, no. 2 (2003): 211-240. Star, Susan Leigh. 1999. The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist 43, no. 3: 377. <http://www.socialnetresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/ess-chap31_inte… >

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Re: [Air-L] virtual ethnography
by Pearse Stokes 03 Feb '09

03 Feb '09

Hi, Just to respond to a couple of points - "sorry but i don't see how "webnography" as laid out by Puri has anything to do with ethnography; nor does it sit in the same arena as Hine's virtual ethnograhy. Puri's text sits in the realm of market research--the goal (to sell more product) comes before the observation. it's hardly social science. -robert" I agree completely Robert, Puri's "webnography" is most definitely a market research endeavour, but since it is so prolific, and since so many ethnographers may be employed in this arena, I would imagine an awareness of Puri's work would be a good part of a syllabus. "About the "graphy" part of "virtual ethnography", i can't agree with your statement of impossibility." I don't think the 'graphy' part of 'virtual ethnography' is impossible (I don't think I said that did I?) but it's very rare that good virtual ethnography is performed in its complete sense. I don't think it is a very robust method in terms of validity and generalisablity. I hope that clears up my stance on virtual ethnography. Also, if people have any good examples I'd love to read them! Pearse

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RA in Communication and Development
by William Dutton 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

Research Assistant in Communication and Development Grade 6: Salary £25,623 - £30,594 p.a. (pro rata) We are a leading international research and policy institute looking for a Research Assistant (RA) to work with a new project team. The project will create and employ an electronic collaboration platform to support an international network of individuals in discussing innovations in regional development and co-producing public events and documents that support regional development goals. Work will be based at the Oxford Internet Institute, but it will involve collaboration with an international team, including project team members in Spain and Canada. The RA will help design and manage the project, facilitate communication within an international team, and conduct research on the design and implications of the collaborative network to be developed. The RA must therefore be bi-lingual in oral and written Spanish and English at a high level. The team will include expertise in information and communication technologies, but interest in, and experience with, Web-based collaboration tools would be desirable. The project will involve action research, but is likely to include in- depth interviews, focus groups, questionnaires and case studies. A background in social research methods, such as case studies, ethnography or other qualitative or quantitative research methods, such as webmetrics, would be highly desirable. Based in the heart of Oxford, this position is available immediately for 12 months in the first instance, with the possibility of renewal thereafter. Applicants wishing to work part-time will also be considered. How to apply: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/newpositions.cfm Further information, including details of how to apply, may be obtained from Nicola McVay, Administrative Officer, Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS, UK. Tel: +44(0) 1865 212330; email: recruit(a)oii.ox.ac.uk The closing date for applications is 12.00 GMT on Thursday 19 February 2009. Interviews are currently planned for Monday 2 March.

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Re: [Air-L] virtual ethnography
by Pearse Stokes 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

Hi, I just thought I'd add the following. Firstly, I'm not sure Miller & Slatter perform any kind of 'virtual ethnography' in the strict sense in 'The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach' and generally I think it's massively dated. The key text from the 90s would be Hine's Virtual Ethnography and Hakken's Cyborgs@Cyberspace. I consider Hine's to be way ahead of its time in terms of the other books that were emerging at the time and actually still pretty current. My problem with Virtual Ethnography is that it commits the cardinal sin of bad ethnography; It takes a preconceived notion and attempts to graft that method onto a new research site. Also, I believe the dichotomy of virtual and real is a false one. Furthermore, it retains the anthropological stance of the researcher, and 'the other'. It places the web firmly 'in there' (inside the box or across a 'network of networks') and I argue that it most definitely does not exist in there and that the term virtual is nothing more than a convenience. More recently Virtual Ethnography or Netnography or webnography, are performed primarily in the commercial arena, with Puri's Web of Insight as a sort of handbook (available here: http://lk.nielsen.com/documents/WebofInsightsPaperMay07.pdf) Further, if you consult recent articles that claim to perform virtual 'ethnography' generally they perform 'participant observation' without actually 'writing the culture' (the 'graphy' in ethnography). An example would be boyd's 'Why Youth (heart) Social Networking sites' ... an extended period of 'deep And for the most part virtual ethnography is just interviews and qualitative analysis. Which isn't ethnography. I think cyber anthropology is a better direction than virtual ethnography. Anyway, thats just my feed back, Good luck! Message: 1 Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:25:51 -0600 From: scott(a)scottmacleod.com Subject: Re: [Air-L] virtual ethnography To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org, mathias.fuchs(a)creativegames.org.uk Message-ID: <S362488AbZA2XZv/20090129232551Z+60567(a)ams10.chi.affinity.com> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1" Here's a MIT OCW "Ethnography" course - http://tinyurl.com/dg32zg (also http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Science--Technology--and-Society/STS-360Ethnograph ySpring2003/Calendar/index.htm) - but not on virtual ethnography. In a related vein, I'm looking for a "Virtual Ethnography" syllabus from MIT, Cal, Stanford, Cambridge, Ivy League schools, the Sorbonne, University of Munich, University of Chicago, etc. Are there any syllabi out there that you know of on "Virtual Ethnography" vis-a-vis MIT's above? Scott scottmacleod.com

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Call For Submissions -- special issue of SI journal
by Mark D. Johns 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

Symbolic Interaction, a peer-reviewed journal published quarterly by the University of California Press, invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to the application of symbolic interactionism to internet research. Erving Goffman's concept of "the presentation of self" has become foundational to much scholarly understanding of online identity in chat, email, game environments, blogs, and social networks. Yet other aspects of the rich tradition of symbolic interaction -- including other concepts developed by Goffman -- have been largely ignored by internet researchers. For this special issue, we welcome a broad range of approaches to studying computer-mediated interactions between individuals and within communities online, that utilize other lines of thought by Goffman, or the works of George H. Mead, Charles Cooley, Herbert Blumer, James Carey, Carl Couch, Norman Denzin or other theorists in the interactionist tradition. Definitions of the social situation, negotiation of meanings, social processes, framing, and other interactionist principles are possible theoretical foundations. Qualitative studies will be privileged in the evaluation of submissions, as well as those reflecting recent theoretical developments in symbolic interaction theory. Topics may include online communities, virtual environments, games, social networking sites and any other forms of computer-mediated communication. Papers that are supplemented by online materials are encouraged, and space will be made available on the journal’s website (http://is.gd/gQ4Z) for authors to place links, examples, illustrations, or further discussion of the published texts. Please send submissions electronically to mjohns(a)luther.edu Deadline for submissions is August 1, 2009.

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Research on multiple CMC environments
by Murray Turoff 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

This study from 1981 is worth reviewing for comparing four or five different forms of CMC including electronic mail. RR#16 Studies of computer mediated communications systems : a synthesis of the findings n.d. Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Elaine B. Kerr http://library.njit.edu/archives/cccc-materials/ This study resulted from an NSF sponsored workshop on Computer Mediated Communications. Those who contributed to the material besides teh authors were: There were 15 persons that contributed besides the authors. Thel study of many different early groups using EIES is RR#15 The impact of a computerized conferencing system on scientific research communities Jan. 1981 Starr Roxanne Hiltz Note that many of these groups had tailored communication structures for their particular application and as a result many of these were studies of different CMC systems such as the following three: TOPICS, a standards setting system with unanmus voting and anonymity to move a standard forward by 40 participants, a review of 5000 research reports on hepatitis research by a group of 12 researchers to determine resulting information for practitioners. Roxanne published a separate book on these studies. A few related papers Hiltz, S. R., & Turoff, Murray, (1981), The Evolution of User Behavior in a Computerized Conferencing System, Communications of the ACM, Volume 24, Number 11, November. Turoff, Murray and Hiltz, S. R., (1982), The Electronic Journal: A Progress Report, invited paper presented to the Association of American Publishers, New York, September 1979; published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 33, 4 (July), 195-202. Turoff, Murray and Hiltz, S. R., (1982), Computer Support for Group versus Individual Decisions. IEEE Transactions on Communications, Special Issue on Office Automation, Com-30, 1 (January): 82-90. (There were lots of experiments by us and others o different communication structures to support decision analysis. Some complete experiments in reports at the njit library site. Turoff, Murray, (1990), Computer Mediated Communication Requirements for Group Support, Journal of Organizational Computing, Volume 1, Number 1. (this was an attempt to summarize all the different design choices for designing different CMC systems. There is more in recent literature such as the fact that the software engineers in IEEE (Systems man and cybernetics) have at last recognized the concept of building human roles into the CMC software for different applications. There was also some of the same concept of role software in some of the early hypertext systems. Message: 2 Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:29:34 +1100 (EST) From: Christopher Lueg <christopher.lueg(a)utas.edu.au> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Research on multiple CMC environments To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org, alice.marwick(a)nyu.edu Message-ID: <alpine.LRH.1.00.0901291027580.3929(a)leven.comp.utas.edu.au> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed On Wed, 28 Jan 2009, Alice E. Marwick wrote: > I'm looking for research on the interaction of different types of CMC - > e.g. how chat, email, IM, social networking, virtual worlds, blogging, > SMS, mobile etc. are used together as part of a communication > environment by users. Most studies I've found concentrate on a single > aspect; I'm looking for work on the use of two or more types of CMC by > the same users.

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'Human error' halts Google search
by Robert Ackland 01 Feb '09

01 Feb '09

From The Australian newspaper (online): "PEOPLE using the internet search page Google were stunned to see erroneous messages reporting that every site turned up in their results might be harmful." http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24991997-12377,00.html I don't know how widespread this problem was (possibly only affected Australia?) but I was one of the people affected by this. I wouldn't say that I was stunned. It was more a sense of frustration that my late-night attempt to get linux running properly on my brand-new laptop was made even more painful by my having to cut-and-paste URLs to pages containing potential solutions into another tab, because Google (and StopBadware.org) had erroneously identified the site as potentially hosting malware. It was also a sense of concern that my life is increasingly so contingent on the Google search infrastructure (without the help of those online forums, the new laptop was essentially an expensive paperweight). OK, I acknowledge that I could have used another search engine. Also, at least I could still search, even if it was made more inconvenient. I also acknowledge that the problem was fixed within an hour. But I think it is somewhat troubling that the increasingly important service of online search can be compromised (even just for an hour) by a research project. This might be a bit of a stretch, but what if water or electricity services were inadvertently cut or restricted because of a research project focusing on "consumer complaints". -- ------------------------------------- Dr Robert Ackland Fellow and Masters Coordinator Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute The Australian National University e-mail: robert.ackland(a)anu.edu.au homepage: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/robert.php project: http://voson.anu.edu.au ph./fax: +61 2 6125 0312/+61 2 6125 2992 mail: Coombs Building, 9 Canberra, ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA Information about the Master of Social Research (Social Science of the Internet specialisation): http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/msr.php -------------------------------------

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