Comments on: Ethnography and Ubiquitous Digital Research

By: Larry Irons

Larry Irons — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:27:29 +0000

HI Alicia, Thanks for taking the time to comment on the post. I tend to look at ethnography as an approach to studying sociocultural practices, whether online or in situ. I agree that quantitative analysis is often useful in refining and focusing qualitative inquiry. I think it works the other way around for quantitative techniques as well, i.e. survey development using in-depth interviews to develop survey items. Ethnographers of work practices often use social network analysis techniques to locate brokers in the social networks of organizations. Such people make excellent collaborators (informants) for ethnographies of the workplace. Larry

By: aliciadudek

aliciadudek — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:42:22 +0000

Digital Ethnography is surely the right term. I am completing a Masters in Design Ethnography and for my thesis project we have been conducting a very focused study of the gamers of a specific persistent browser based game. In the course of this project we have created a few different ways of conducting digital ethnography, from email interviewing techniques to group chats. Its been a rough road figuring out how to transmute something so intricate and personal as face to face in depth ethnographic interviews to the digital realm. Some of our success has stemmed from a fusion of quantitative and qualitative methods. We created visualizations of the participants game play log data and then interviewed them along with the artifacts to tell the story. Many of these interviews were over chat and we did obtain significant detail about game play that could never have been achieved with out the quantitative information.
Quantitative data can provide the shortcut into the depth needed for juicy ethnographic work, and the qualitative stories illuminate the meaning of the quant.
If you’s like to take a look, the project blog:( http://patternsofplay.wordpress.com/ )

By: Larry Irons

Larry Irons — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:44:52 +0000

Right you are on that Amanda. The correction is made. Don’t know how I messed up on that one given my love of Bob Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna” lyrics.

Thanks,

Larry

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:39:14 +0000

Uh. That’s Johanna brewer and Paul Dourish. I don’t think she’d love being mistaken for a dude

By: Larry Irons

Larry Irons — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:49:46 +0000

That is a very interesting virtual ethnography Damien. Thanks for the pointer.

By: Damien DeBarra

Damien DeBarra — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:01:08 +0000

You may find this of interest: a virtual ethnography from a recent course in the MsC in e-learning from Uni. Edinburgh: http://blather.net/blather/2009/11/blather_rinse_repeat_an_ethnography_of_conspiracy_911_world_trade_centre.html