Computer-Mediated Anthropology

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CMA METHODOLOGY: VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHY

by Noah Porter, 2004

Theory and Virtual Community

 

In Michael Angrosino's theories classes, one of the points he really emphasized was that it impossible to do fieldwork without some prior theoretical framework; those who denied using theory simply did not recognize the theoretical framework they were using. To go to a certain place, to look for certain things, and what you choose to notice and record as noteworthy all implicate a theoretical framework of some kind. With this in mind, let's look at some theoretical frameworks that may be useful in guiding a virtual ethnography.

 

One simple way we might classify virtual communities is by examining two very basic variables about the communicative structure: directionality of communication and temporal flow of communication. We can construct a simple classification chart based on this:

 

	Synchronous	Asynchronous
One to One	IM	E-mail
One to Many	Internet Radio	Web page
Many to Many	IRC	Message Board

 

Temporal Flow of Communication

 

I once went to a presentation about using the Internet for educational purposes. In the presentation handout, there was a chart that broke down the forms of online communication into synchronous and asynchronous communication. This concept was also used by Jacobson (1999: 128-9). The difference was the expected timing of the responses, so that synchronous communication is the virtual equivalent of a face-to-face conversation, and asychronous communication is the virtual equivalent of writing a letter to someone. While I do think this distinction is useful for highlighting some differences in how these different venues of communication are typically used, I also think we should be careful not to reify this distinction because there are some real variations to be found. For instance, a friend recently wrote this entry to me in a blog when we were discussing what a good time to call was:

 

Gimme three minutes to shut down and get to the phone. Starting... now!

 

Clearly, her message was written with the assumption that I was currently at the computer. This seems to defy the premise of asynchronous communication. There have also been times when I have sent e-mails back and forth in nearly the same way as an instant messenger program. Interestingly enough, the last time I remember doing this, the person I was e-mailing told me she was going to sleep in the last message she wrote to me. This suggests that the conversation, once the timing had been modified from the typical assumption of asynchronous communication into synchronous communication, now required a different type of closure

 

On the other hand, it seems like synchronous communication can become asynchronous. One of the most obvious examples of this that I can think of is when people on AIM put on an away message. Another example that may fall under this category is when you are talking to someone who tells you that they are currently busy with something, so they may take a while to respond. (But, on the other hand, this disclaimer probably does not lead to the same time allowances as you would give to waiting for replies on message boards or e-mails.)

 

Yet another example of blurring the lines between synchronous and asychronous communication are highly popular message boards. One certain boards I have seen that fall into this category, the posts would appear so frequently that you'd have no reason to write out a lengthy post like you might on a small board devoted to (or at least accepting of) intellectual discussions. Why put in all the time and thought when your message will just be bumped off the screen in less time than it probably took you to write it, and you're unlikely to get any responses longer than a few sentences in length? These kinds of boards remind me more of chat rooms on IRC than how I typically conceive of message boards.

 

Directionality of Communication

 

Wilson and Peterson (2002) wrote: "Regardless of the particular media, interface, or application--which will continue to change in the coming years--general categories of communication will persist, including one person-to-one (as in sending an email message), one-to-many (as in publishing a Web page), and many-to-many (participating in a discussion forum). These categories of communication require us to pay attention to the nature of communicative practices and online interactions. "The communication technologies that make use of the Internet's infrastructure share some special characteristics. Thus, they offer special possibilities and constraints for communicative practices and social interaction and provide a context for emerging forms of communication" (p. 453).

 

The directionality of communication implicates issues of power. It begs us to ask: Who can speak to whom? Like the categories of synchronous and asynchronous, categories like one-to-one and one-to-many should not be reified, either. E-mail is usually a one-to-one system of communication, but it can be one-to-many (in the case of an e-mail newsletter) or even many-to-many (in the case of an e-mail list-service). This ambiguity resulting from multiple possible uses is not unique to the Internet, but can also be seen in earlier technologies such as the telephone:

 

Bell's original notion for the telephone, an idea promoted for a couple of years, was that it would become a mass medium. We might recognize Bell's idea today as something close to modem "cable radio." Telephones at a central source would transmit music, Sunday sermons, and important public speeches to a paying network of wired-up subscribers.

 

At the time, most people thought this notion made good sense. In fact, Bell's idea was workable. In Hungary, this philosophy of the telephone was successfully put into everyday practice. In Budapest, for decades, from 1893 until after World War I, there was a government-run information service called "Telefon Hirmondó." Hirmondó was a centralized source of news and entertainment and culture, including stock reports, plays, concerts, and novels read aloud. At certain hours of the day, the phone would ring, you bould plug in a loudspeaker for the use of the family, and Telefon Hirmondó would be on the air--or rather, on the phone. [Sterling 1992: 5]

 

Given this, the directionality of communication should be grounded in the ethonographic research of a virtual community's practice.

 

Sociocultural Variables of Online Communities

Baker and Watson (2003) give us these 12 variables for considering online communities:

1. Personal Need for Community. Does the person really desire to be in a particular community?

2. Availability of Information. Can a person learn something?

3. Community as Social Destination. Is the community a fun place to hang out?

4. Rigor of Discussion. Can a person participate through mere opinion or does everything require a citation?

5. Tolerance for Argument. Is the community one where argument is allowed, perhaps even valued, or one where argument is discouraged?

6. Acceptance. Is the community open to those with diverse points-of-view?

7. Duration. Does the community exist for more than a moment?

8. Facilitation. Is the community facilitated (moderated) in some fashion?

9. Entry Barriers. Is it hard to get into the community?

10. Anonymity. Do people know who you really are?

11. Locality. Does this community serve a physical, geographical, place?

12. Focus. Does this community focus on a particular topic?

Keep in mind their disclaimer: "The twelve variables we've selected are most likely not all that exist, just the ones we find most important in our thinking right now. These variables struck us as important ways in which communities are differentiated despite the type of software chosen to carry a given community." The anthropologist may wish to answer a specific question through the study of the virtual community, and these points of consideration would only be a starting point.

Examining the Save Farscape Virtual Community from Different Perspectives

The following is a paper I wrote for a social movements class that proposed a virtual ethnography of the Save Farcape virtual community from a social movements perspective:

The Save Farscape Movement: Emotional Sustenance in an Internet Fan Movement - (Rich Text format, Zipped) A paper which traces the history of the Save Farscape movement, drawing a connection between the emotionally unsatifying premature ending, the call for involvement by the show's producer, the large number of female viewers, and the show's content as being conducive to feminist empowerment. I review the literature, noting how emotions are treated in discussions of virtual communities, social movements, and science fiction fans. I then go on to propose a methodology involving systematic observation of their message forums. My research question is: "How was it that the fans of the show were able to persist in their efforts for over a year without growing disillusioned about their chances of success? Was the virtual community's culture constructed in such a way that not only provided the opportunity to share strategies in a systemic way, but also emotional support?"

While I was never able to carry out the study, if I did, I would undoubtedly be interested in messages such as this:

I've always thought this shirt would be great for Scapers: "Those who are different change the world. Those who are ordinary simply keep it that way."
It can be frustrating to feel like a forgotten piece of lint in the corner. By nature, we humans have a desire to feel like we matter in this world. Through our lives, many of us are told repeatedly that we don't matter, we can't change anything, and not to bother trying because, in the great scheme of things, we are nothing. If you're not with the majority, you can't accomplish anything. If the powers that be decide to do something, who are you to stand against them?
The world of television is a place where this feeling of being inconsequential is magnified. You might say, "It doesn't matter what I think because I'm only one person. I'm not a Nielsen viewer, therefore I don't matter. The executives can do whatever they want, and nothing I do will change that." Television is a pretty one-sided entity. They tell us what we're supposed to watch, when we're supposed to watch it, and oh yeah, buy this now for only $19.95. Meanwhile, we remain on the other side of our screens, unheard, unseen, unrecognized. We must not matter because, when one guy in Smalltown, Idaho goes on a date and misses our favorite show, it means thousands of us didn't watch. We can write our letters and scream in outrage over losing our show while unoriginal filth flourishes, but does it even matter? There are millions of data points that contradict anything we say.
But that's the thing . . . Data points. Millions of people sitting complacently in front of their televisions keeping the world the way it is because they don't know better, because they're happy letting others tell them what to do, because they are ordinary.
Scapers know better. Scapers aren't happy letting others tell them what to do. Scapers aren't ordinary. We've proven we can change things, and because of that, we matter. After the cancellation last year, both sides went back to the table to discuss options again -- after the decision had been made. We did that. There are people on this forum who wouldn't be here today if they hadn't seen a fan made commercial earlier this year. We did that. Right now, there's someone on an Airforce base who's dying to know whether or not D'Argo will live when he hadn't even heard of Farscape a month ago. We did that. Rumors of Farscape's return are abounding, and you can bet your butt that wouldn't be happening if we weren't here writing our letters, donating to our funds, and spreading the Scaper love. It's been over a year since the cancellation was announced and almost eight months since "To Be Continued . . ." However, Farscape is still in the media, the crew still has hope, and we're still here.
Our job is, by far, not over. Whether or not there is a big announcement in Burbank this weekend, we still need to continue our efforts. Farscape WILL return. There's no question about that. But we want it to return with a bang no one can ignore.
So . . . Are you going be different or ordinary? Are you going to change things, or simply keep them the way they are?
[Blackthorn, SaveFarscape.com forums]

In another paper I wrote entitled "Farscape: Gendered Viewer Interpretations in Virtual Community" (soon to be under review), I was looking at the forum with a different theoretical framework, and therefore tended to pay attention to different kinds of message. My abstract for this paper reads: "Scholarly analysis on the television show Farscape are compared with viewer analysis in the Save Farscape virtual community. Viewer engagement with the material is shown to have greater potential for sophistication and engagement than is implicitly assumed in the literature. Text-based analyses are shown to produce interesting possibilities for investigation, but are inadequate by themselves for understanding the relationship between audience, producer, and cultural product." Here is one of the messages I quoted in the paper:

when were they actually in a committed relationship to be on a "break" from?
the trilogy starts with John trying to get Aeryn to commit. the trilogy continues with the running theme of Aeryn pushing John away simply because she refuses to tell him that she feels anything for him because she can't deal with complicated emotions and their ramifications.
part of the motivation behind John's decision to marry Katralla, aside from the whole not wanting to be turned over to Scorpius part, is Aeryn's very mean, continuous rebuff of him. she marginalizes John's feelings to justify her own actions brought about by her own fear. she convinces herself that she's right, by telling him, several times, that his feelings for her have nothing to do with love and everything to do with hormones. she basically calls him a whore.
he keeps trying to appeal to her, to give him a reason to find a way out of this thing with Katralla, and she refuses any time it gets anywhere near a "relationship" reason. she keeps pulling the comrade/friend card on him. he knows that if he's turned over to Scorpius he'll be dead when Scorpius is through with him.
he's left with, almost killed twice, rebuffed by his soulmate, and told by his friends to give in to Katralla and her mother because there's no way out...
his options are to marry a woman, and in the process help to keep war from breaking out where millions could be slaughtered and as a result of said wedding be turned into a living statue for 80 years, *or*, be turned over to creepy guy that will eventually cause his death.
enter Jena...who starts off by saving his life. twice.
she's in place, doing a job, trying to prevent the slaughter of innocent millions. she asks for John's help. she offers help in return. she's someone who isn't "afraid" of him, in an Aeryn kind of way. they become allies even though Jena knows he's not Sebacean, because he's trying reach the same end goal that she is.
he's about to go make sure his friends are protected, reveal that he's not dead, again, thereby putting himself in direct threat of being assassinated, AGAIN...and, if he survives, he gets to be turned into a statue, again, for 80 years.
Jena treats him well, and with dignity, offers intimacy between two soldiers that could very well die when the sun comes up the next day, and his behavior is immoral?
interesting. [Waltersgirl, SaveFarscape.com forums]

If we were to look at the directionality of communication at SaveFarscape.com, several interesting features emerge. We can see that multiple types of communication are used on the site. One-to-many asynchronous communication is used for the announcements on the front page, one-to-one asynchronous communications are used for the private message system in the forums, and the forums themselves are many-to-many asynchronous communication. However, the forums also list who is browsing the forum at the time, even a list of what thread they happen to be looking at, which indicates a greater possibility for synchronous communication to occur. Were I interested in this, I would probably be interested in threads such as this one:

epx666: Anyone interested in starting up a Farscape themed mud with me? =D LPC Mud that is. =D
grinner: A Multi User Dungeon? I thought those were all shut down by the Universities that used to run them.
epx666: Nopers... They are more now than ever, with dsl and such being everywhere. Most just died off from lack of use, a few of the bigger ones including the one i played at hosted by Stanford are still alive and kicking... =D
witchdoctor: Sounds interesting. What's involved? Are you thinking a Farscape themed on-line RPG type of environment? i've done a lot of computer gaming (RPG and strategy mainly, with a few space sims), but it has been all single player. My on-line experience has been chiefly web surfing and participation in on-line boards line FMD, so I am not too sure what is involved with a persistant multi-user dungeon other than in theory.

By this point, it should not be difficult to image how utilizing Baker and Watson (2003)'s theoretical framework will produce different observations.

Conclusion

Back when I was an undergraduate, Dr. Susan Keefe (Appalachian State University) once gave an assignment to our class which involved going to a particular area of the local mall for half an hour and writing down our observations. After we had finished, we examined what other students had written and noticed how different fieldnotes could be; different people brought with them different experiences and interests, and observing at different times during the day gave different material to work with. (Perhaps one person saw a mother with her crying toddler while there, and another saw two teenage lovers kissing.)

As I have demonstrated, what experiences and interests the viewer brings with him or her to the study of a virtual community will also influence what is noticed and what is concluded.

With virtual ethnographies where there is an archive of the discussions, there would seem to be a homogeneity in what is viewed that would not be present in Dr. Keefe's assignment. After all, a text message written and saved a year ago will still be the same combination of characters today. However, there are several factors that mitigate this homogeneity. First, message forum texts are often dynamic; messages can be edited by their authors, or can be deleted by forum moderators if deemed inappropriate. Links that worked a year ago may no longer work. Second, "the rhythm and the pauses in the text interaction also contribute to the atmosphere in which the interaction takes place" (Schroeder 1998). Reading the message board archives would distance the researcher from sharing in the optimism and uncertainty that were a part of the lived experience of trying to save Farscape, or the unbridled joy the fans felt when it was finally announced that Farscape would be returning as a miniseries. Even in virtual ethnography, there is no substitute for "being there," even if "there" simply means sitting at your computer looking at the web site on a regular basis.

 

 

References Cited (combined)

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