Virtual Ethnography

While implementing Dervin's Sense-Making methodology (her capitals) as a guide to how to devise and use questions, the overall method for inquiring into the use of the social network is that of a virtual ethnography.

This can be a labour-intensive approach and I'm not sure that I am actually implementing it fully. I am a member of the site, but also the administrator. I have been an observer of the site from inception, of course, but have not kept detailed notes throughout its development. As a background to the research, I can give a quite detailed account from memory, notes and site logs of how the site was set up, the information provided and the types of interactions as members established themselves. So there is some longitudinal detail there for the site as a whole.

The artefacts of the target group will also provide longitudinal detail, as the groups have used the site over a period of months. Their posts and other artefacts are dated, so are plot-able over time. (Wall posts can be frustrating though not difficult to follow, as only half a conversation is visible at once: the other person's wall needs to be read to get the full gist.)

From my observations of the site over time, I have formed some judgments of how the site has been used, both positive and negative. However, the use of private messaging is hidden from me, as well as the use of email and phone to contact other members, which would shed further light on the role of the site in connecting its members. In addition, the experience of a student, from early discovery to use (or rejection) of the affordances of the site, will only become apparent from their relation of that experience. It will be interesting to contrast my assumptions with those of the students.

It is uncertain whether the site constitutes a 'community' or 'culture' as is implied by the use of an ethnographic approach, though a virtual ethnography is an adaptation of the traditional ethnography. I think there are common attributes between users' understandings of how the site could or should be used. There certainly is a community, covered by tacit and explicit rules and understandings, within the school. The social network site may not in itself provide an independent community, but might be seen as an extension, where communication and interaction goes back and forth from the physical to the virtual, and identity is shaped or performed in both.

As with other ethnographies, both in person and virtual, the voice of the people in the community is important. I'll be conducting online discussions as well as in-person interviews, using open questions (see my post on the 'Schedule for online forums and interviews'), thereby gaining the ‘authority that comes from exposing the emergent analysis to challenge through interaction’ (Hine, 2000).

I'm just about to start asking for user involvement in online discussions, at the same time as asking target group members to permit me to use their online artefacts for the study. I've been delaying this move from some apprehension of how it is going to be received. I am not at all sure of students' attitudes to the site or if they will be willing to cooperate, though have no real reason to expect otherwise. The questions I've devised are very open. I wonder if the respondents will be confused as to what I'm asking. It is time to jump in.

Reference

Hine, C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography.  London: Sage.