This week has been spent in the pursuit of two things:
- A subject for my ethnography
- Suitable tools to document my ethnographic subject
One of these pursuits has been decidedly easier than the other. As for choosing a subject, I find myself sticking on the essence of what it means to be a community, one of the core requirements for an ethnography. To study signal as opposed to noise, collaboration as opposed to some sort of happenstance. I keep coming again and again to the Bell’s Community and Cyberculture, specifically the discussion of the differences between authentic community and subculture.
Does the technology merely give us a silicon-induced illusion of community? The ‘aura’ ofcybertechnology – which we’ll pick up on again later – might in fact be the cement that binds these communities together, just as earlier ‘communications communities’ were seen to form around the telegraph, the radio and the television (Stone CR) (102).
- YouTube comments revolving around a specific topic or series of videos- good, but very loose sense of community here. Would this qualify as community?
- Flickr photogroups-stronger sense of cohesion here, less of a subculture, more of an open, authentic form of interaction.
- Elearning Africa- a conference (physical event) that spawned quite a sturdy digital network that spawns multiple social media platforms (which I feel is a good sign of community-less technologically dependent or specific
Tools to tell this ethnographic tale, I feel, will be the easier part of the equation. I am experimenting with the following channels, all of which have interaction (specifically for the Elearning Africa crowd) from these communities:
- YouTube
- Blogs
- Audioboo (or some podcasting alternative)
I am an active participant in the Elearning Africa community so it will be important to establish both the participant and observer roles for this ethnographic study. More from the field.