Month: March 2015

In the past I would hear about coding in class or the doc room and only have a vague notion about what  that really meant. I certainly did not understand how it was performed. Often I would think about another type of coding, the computer programming type, which involves plenty of organizational skills, heaps of documentation writing, and an ability to perform tedious tasks. After the class activity, class discussion and the week’s readings, I can see how I was only partially correct. Unlike most computer programming books, the two chapters by Charmaz are engaging and imbued the process with enthusiasm. Coding research data does require organizational skills. The identified topics and concepts from the text need to be sorted and resorted into “buckets.” There is also a level of organization required to keep the data, notes, and memos in order. Coding data does involve heaps of documentation writing. I am definitely a convert to the copious memo writing method. This method keeps someone from making decisions on what is important from preconceived ideas rather than allowing the data to show one the concepts and themes organically. This process of looking at each item and delaying a decision, if it is not obvious what it means, is useful to me. It forces me to consider each piece of information on its own terms. It also keeps me from skipping over something that I would not deem as important at the time. This last point is something that I need to be mindful about. The class activity pointed out somethings I missed from the data that my partner or the whole class did identify. Finally there is my preconceived notion that it is tedious. I found this not to be true. The process reminds me of card sorting method. Identify the elements and then start sorting the information into buckets in information architecture is analogous to writing memos, sorting them into concepts, and then sorting those concepts into themes. I enjoyed the short exercise we had in class and believe that I would feel the same way after a several hours of coding data.

I like grounded theory as a methodology since we didn’t have to plan out every detail of our study beforehand (yes because I’m lazy…).  This is often a challenge in exploratory field research where researchers are not aware of all peculiarities of the setting we are about to conduct a study in. When using grounded theory, it is “officially” part of the research methodology that questions are refined over time, that not all interviewees are pre-determined, and that the resulting theme is unknown beforehand. Similarly, we were able to change direction during the study when we found interesting themes to follow-up on. This is something that frequently happens in qualitative research, but grounded theory makes it explicit.

Going into the grounded theory study and the coding practice, I was concerned that after all the open coding, there would be no “core category” that emerged from the data, but in fact, it seems a bit like magic the way that sufficient coding would eventually lead to a clear perception of category or conceptual label. Although we group only went through probably 5 posts, I can say that we did encounter some core categories that came out pretty clear.For example, we group found students are quite concern about cost and they also seemed pretty close to each other and behave as a community. I think this is one of the benefits from the “explicit” nature of grounded theory. During the open coding, the use of grounded theory helps us ignore pre-conceptions of how and why certain incident occur. Going through the posts on a line by line basis forces us to think about every aspect of the data collected and allows us to consider everything the subjects encounter. Grounded theory coding process also forces us to focus on concepts that become part of the theory because they are present in the data more than once. This makes it easier for us to focus on themes that are relevant in the study context rather than themes that only matter to us (the researchers).

Another thing I was thinking about but not sure is, the role of research questions when using grounded theory as methodology. We usually have questions going into a study, but these questions could be refined, changed, and altered throughout the study. This could present a challenge when reporting the research questions for a study. To be thorough, we would have to report the initial questions along with their iterations over the course of the study. However, research papers usually aim at the dissemination of research results rather than a discussion of the research process itself. So should we only report the final set of questions?

I was excited to see and read the article on coding, as I will need that particular skill during my dissertation work (as I’m sure many of us will).  Actually doing the coding was less exciting, and more on the tedious side.  However, I think some of that has to do with it not being my own research.  I definitely learned that I need either a good amount of control over my data from the beginning, or a very strong interest in whatever I’m coding.

I think I will definitely be a proponent of the Kazmer method of starting with the word by word coding and then moving more to the bigger units as I go along.  I can see where it would be beneficial.  I also appreciated the memoing when first looking at data to code, as it made me think about how I wanted to approach the information.  Working with Information Worlds Theory, I will have a codebook, but I think it will help if I first read through and memo without the codebook in front of me to get some initial ideas, and then go back and look at those memos with codebook in hand.

In short, reading about and then practicing coding gave me some very good ideas for my own data analysis, as well as my data collection.  A resounding theme throughout this class has been to be very detailed and thorough, and this was yet another lesson in why that is important.

Method Statement: Case Study

A case study is unique in that it can be thought of both as a method, and as a research design, depending on the school of thought to which one subscribes.  Though it is named here as the former, the following explanation is constructed such that it is treated, essentially, as the latter.  The author understands that a case study consists of multiple methods, but that those methods vary depending on the particular case.  As such, each case study must be carefully designed with several considerations in mind.  Before discussing those considerations, it is helpful to examine the definition of “case study.”

Case Study: A Working Definition

To begin with, case study methodology is inherently constructivist.  In a constructivist approach to any phenomenon, reality is seen as being socially constructed, and relative to an individual’s lived social experience (Baxter and Jack, 2008).  Because a case study “investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the ‘case’) in depth and within its real-world context,” the background and experiences of the case’s key players are an integral part of the case (Yin, 2014, pp. 16-17; Gillham, 2000).  In other words, it is impossible to separate an individual from his or her socially constructed reality.

Second, a case study takes as its subject a small entity which is thought to be representative of a larger group of entities.  The entity can be studied at a certain point in time, or longitudinally over a specified amount of time, but always in that entity’s natural setting (Gerring, 2004; Eisenhardt, 1989; Lee, 1989).

Third, a case study uses several sources and methods to obtain data about the phenomenon under review (Yin, 2014).  In fact, the researcher may not be fully aware of what defines the particular case under study until all sources and methods have been thoroughly examined, and the data triangulated (Ragin and Becker, 1992).   As Masoner (1988) points out, “the uniqueness of a case study lies not so much in the methods employed (although these are important) as in the questions asked and their relationship to the end product” (p. 15).

Finally, a case study is flexible.  A case study can (1) be adapted to multiple disciplinary and philosophical perspectives; (2) be used to test or build theory; (3) include either qualitative or quantitative data, or both; and (4) accommodate more than one sampling method (Masoner, 1988).  Further, a case study can be used to examine current, observable phenomena or to reconstruct a particular historical case (George and Bennett, 2005).

It is clear from the above, that the case study is a complex research method.  However, Feagin, Orum, and Sjoberg (1991) provide a good working definition of the case study that demonstrates this complexity while still being succinct: “A case study is here defined as an in-depth, multifaceted investigation, using qualitative research methods, of a single social phenomenon.  The study is conducted in great detail and often relies on the use of several data sources” (p. 2).

Planning and Designing a Case Study

Now that a working definition has been established, considerations for planning and designing a case study should be explored.  It is important to know when to use a case study, as opposed to another type of method or design.  To this end, Yin (2014) provides some specific guidelines for when a case study might be the optimal design:  a case study is advantageous when “a ‘how’ or ‘why’ question is being asked about a contemporary set of events, over which a researcher has little or no control” (p. 14).  Yin recommends conducting a thorough literature review on the proposed research topic in order to determine what is not yet known about the topic, and to formulate a research question.  Once the question has been formalized, the guidelines above can be used in order to determine whether or not a case study is feasible.

Assuming that a case study is determined to be optimal, the researcher must then carefully design his or her study.  This involves careful consideration of five key components: “(1) a case study’s questions; (2) its propositions, if any; (3) its unit(s) of analysis; (4) the logic linking the data to the propositions; and (5) the criteria for interpreting the findings” (Yin, 2014, p. 29).  With these components in place, the ideal type and category of case study for the proposed research should begin to emerge.

Types and Categories of Case Studies

There are two main types of case studies: single-case and multiple-case.  Each of these can then also be either holistic or embedded.  A single-case holistic study would look at a single case and a single unit of analysis.  A single-case embedded study would examine a single case, but have multiple units of analysis.  Similarly, a multiple-case holistic study would look at multiple cases, but only a single unit of analysis for each case.  A multiple-case embedded study would examine multiple cases and multiple units of analysis.  In multiple-case studies, the units of analysis would be the same across sites, or cases.  Single-case studies are appropriate when the case is either “critical, unusual, common, revelatory, or longitudinal” (Yin, 2014, p. 51).  Multiple-case designs are appropriate when the researcher wants to show replication, or make a more compelling case in addressing the research questions (Yin, 2014).

 

Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2008). Qualitative case study methodology: Study design and implementation for novice researchers. The qualitative report, 13(4), 544-559.

This article presents an easy to follow summary of qualitative case study methodology.  The authors break it down into components similar to Yin’s classic book on the subject.  This is a condensed version and general overview.

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. The Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550. doi:10.2307/258557

Eisenhardt’s paper focuses on the process of inducting theory from a case study and follows the process from research question to closure.  The article covers problem definition, construct validation, within-case analysis, and replication logic.  The process is described as iterative, and a process for evaluating such research is set forth.

Feagin, J. R., Orum, A. M., & Sjoberg, G. (1991). A Case for the case study. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

This book is a collection of essays about case study.  It focuses on the nature of the case study, the approach, methodological issues, and the application of case study research in social research.

George, A. L., & Bennett, A. (2005). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

This book discusses case studies and their relationship to theory development.  However, it also covers how to design and carry out a case study, as well as several methods of interpreting results.

Gerring, J. (2004). What is a case study and what is it good for? The American Political Science Review, 98(2), 341–354.

Here, Gerring presents a review of what a case study is and what it is not.  He discusses the method’s strengths and weaknesses, and compares single- and cross-unit research designs.

Gillham, B. (2000). Case study research methods. London ; New York: Continuum.

This is another general book on case study methods and research.  It gives a basic overview of case studies and the methods involved therein.

Masoner, M. (1988). An audit of the case study method. New York: Praeger.

Masoner’s book is essentially a critique of case study methodology which includes historical perspectives and anecdotal evidence to support its use.

Ragin, C. C., & Becker, H. S. (Eds.). (1992). What is a case?: exploring the foundations of social inquiry. Cambridge university press.

In this book, the authors seek to make a case for what actually is/should be considered a case.  They discuss what cases are and do, and they analyze research experiences in search of a good definition of “case.”

Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research : design and methods (Fifth edition.). Los Angeles: SAGE.

This is Yin’s classic book on case study research.  Case study methodology is dissected and explained in detail.

Applying Qualitative Content Analysis to Study Online Communities

In this update, basic ideas about qualitative content analysis are reviewed and a bibliographic list is provided related to application of qualitative content analysis in online community studies.

Introduction of Qualitative Content Analysis

• Concept
  • Content analysis is a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use (Krippendorff, 2012, p. 24). In other words, it is a method to understand the manifest and latent content of the texts, images, moving images, or other meaningful materials by categorizing, evaluating, or tabulating symbols in materials. The aim is to figure out meanings or probable effect behind the texts.
  • From communication perspective, Weber (1990, p. 9) pinpointed that valid inferences from text includes senders of messages, audience of messages, and message itself.
• Qualitative Content Analysis
  • The literature yields both quantitative and qualitative approaches of content analysis.
  • Quantitative approach, first brought up by Lasswell (1938, 1943, & 1952), focused on word frequency, space measurements, time counts (for video or television time) and keyword frequency. After reducing data into numbers and frequencies, statistical analysis will be applied to describe the phenomenon or test some hypotheses. The assumption is that words and phrases mentioned most are those reflecting important concerns in every communication.
  • By overcoming the rigorous nature and superficial analysis of quantitative content analysis (Kracauer, 1952), qualitative content analysis focuses on informal content and comprehensive understanding of a text (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).
  • The nature of qualitative content analysis is to cope with interpretation problem of textual matters, which is rooted in hermeneutics (Janzuihof, 2013). According to Schleiermacher (1998), interpretation is the art of individuality. Each text is determined by individual historical context and its author. Content dependency makes each single “word” in hermeneutics has no permanent meaning, since factors of context cannot be fully understood. Therefore, full objective understanding can therefore never be achieved.
  • According to Krippendorff (2012, p. 32), qualitative content analysis has following characteristics:
    • Requires close reading of relatively small amounts of textual matter
    • Interpretation of given texts into new narratives, which are accepted within particular scholar communities
    • The systematic interpretation is required, and analysts should acknowledge that their own socially and culturally understandings constitutively participate in the interpretation.
  • Finding themes or systematic categories are the central task of qualitative content analysis (Krippendorff, 1980, p.76).
  • Mayring (2000) provided four basic rules about qualitative content analysis:
    • Fit the materials into a model of communication: analysts should be aware which aspect they’d like to focus on the inferences: to aspects of communicator (their feelings, experiences or opinions), situation of text production, to the social-cultural background, text itself, or the effect of the message.
    • Step by step rule: a systematic procedure should be followed to devise the material into content analytical units.
    • Category is the center of analysis, the aspects of text interpretation will be put into categories by following research questions, which is carefully founded and revised within the process of analysis
    • Reliability and validity concern: reliability will be maintained by comparing with other studies and inter-coder reliability. Validity will be guaranteed by trained project team members.
    • Three Approaches of Qualitative Content Analysis
      • Inductive and deductive (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004; Mayring, 2000)
        • Inductive approach starts from category criterion definition, which derives from theoretical background and research question. Following the derived criterion, texts will be worked through and categories will be tentatively step-by-step achieved. Feedback loop will be applied to revise and evaluate derived categories and their reliability.
        • Deductive approach starts from theoretical assumptions of categories from theories, and work through the texts to see if they fit the derived theoretical categories.
      • Conventional, directed, or summative (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).
        • The three approaches differ in their ways to extract coding schemes and final coding categories
        • In conventional content analysis, researchers avoid using categories in previous theories or studies. Instead, they allow categories flow totally from the text. It requires researchers to emerge themselves into the data until insights come out.
        • Directed content analysis is based on previous research or theory, which is regarded as deductive approach in Marying’s classification
        • Summative approach is to understand contextual use of words or content frequencies. This approach usually starts from counting words or interested contents, and then interprets the context of those words (why they happen in certain ways), or evaluate quality of the content.
      • Discourse analysis, rhetorical analysis, ethnographic content analysis, and conversation analysis (Krippendorff, 2012)
        • Discourse analysis tends to focus on how particular phenomena are presented through texts. For example, how movies and TV shows manifest the stereotypical image of librarians.
        • Rhetorical analysis focuses on how message are delivered and with what effects. Structural elements, tropes, styles of argumentation, speech acts, and the like are researchers’ focus in analysis. Efforts to study negotiations to see what works and what doesn’t work is one example of this.
        • Ethnographic content analysis is an approach to encourage analysis emerged from the text. It doesn’t only work with categories and their narrative descriptions, but also deals with situations, settings, styles, images, meanings, and nuances presumed to be recognizable by the participants
        • Conversation analysis tends to analyze transcripts as records of conversational moves toward a collaborative construction of conversations.
      • Procedures of Qualitative Content Analysis
        • Zhang and Wildemuth (2009) proposed 8 steps of qualitative content analysis in library and information science from a particularly inductive approach with a focus of finding out themes and categories:
          • Prepare the data, for instance, transcribing interviews to analyzed data
          • Define the unit of analysis. Usually, individual themes rather than a sentence or paragraph is a unit for analysis.
          • Develop categories and a coding scheme, both inductive and deductive approaches can be applied. Constant comparative method will be applied in the inductive approach.
          • Test the coding scheme on a sample of text
          • Code all the text.
          • Assess coding consistency: usually, inter-coder consistency will be assessed.
          • Draw conclusions from the coded data
          • Report methods and findings

Booth – Project Update 2

My second update is simply “MTS” (more of the same): I have added another 12 entries to my annotated bibliography. Given formatting and other issues people have had in posting their previous update(s), I’m attempting to insert the actual file if you care to look it over.  The attachment is the full bib – The new entries are in bold.

In any case – as with last time – I’ll just recap and give the reader’s digest. As mentioned, I did find a number of additional journal articles on my chosen topic, focus groups. The highlights: I found one article that compares on-line and off-line focus groups in terms of depth and breadth of content as well as efficiency. I also found an article discussing the use of focus groups in a post-intervention situation to get a consensus of participants as to whether they feel the results of the intervention are sustainable. Finally, I found a couple of pieces discussing the analysis of the data collected from focus groups which, according to the authors at least :>), had been a fairly little-treated issue (I can certain confirm that the majority of articles I’ve pulled have had to do more with planning and running focus groups rather than on “what goes next”). These should all be interesting additions to my literature collection on this topic, and will hopefully enrich my final project: a lit. review on focus groups.

This annotated bibliography containing 30 articles regarding Social Networking Platform Usage in Intra-organizational Communication served as Part 1 of my project updates 2. I deleted and added some new articles from my draft of project updates 1. In this annotated bibliography I mainly focused on identifying research questions and research methods of each article. Most articles employed qualitative research methods, including interviews (structured, unstructured, semi-structured), qualitative content analysis, participant observation, and focused groups. Semi-structured interviews and qualitative content analysis of log or post turned out to be the major research methods in this field.

Traditional social technologies (CMC) in organizational communication

1. Cho, H. K., Trier, M., & Kim, E. (2005). The use of instant messaging in working relationship development: A case study. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 10(4).

This study combined quantitative surveys collected from 137 employees of a Korean organization, structured interviews with 13 employees of two work teams, and content analysis of employees’ IM transcripts to examine how the employees of a Korean tire manufacturing company used IM to maintain their working relationships with coworkers within and across various organizational boundaries.

2. Herbsleb, J. D., Atkins, D. L., Boyer, D. G., Handel, M., & Finholt, T. A. (2002, April). Introducing instant messaging and chat in the workplace. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 171-178). ACM.

This study reported findings of introducing an instant messaging and group chat application into geographically distributed workgroups based on participant observation. The perception of the tool’s utility depend both on users’ views of the importance of informal communication, and their perceptions of the nature of cross-site communication issues. A number of other issues including privacy concerns, individual versus group training, and focusing on teams or individuals have also been discussed in this study.

3. Hinds, P., & Kiesler, S. (1995). Communication across boundaries: Work, structure, and use of communication technologies in a large organization. Organization Science, 6(4), 373-393.

This is a case study of communication within the headquarters of one large organization in which communication partners have equal access to all three technologies: telephone, email, and voice mail. From logs of communication over two days and post-diary interviews, the authors examined vertical and lateral communication inside and outside the chain of command and department, and the use of telephone, email, and voice mail for this communication.

4. Isaacs, E., Walendowski, A., Whittaker, S., Schiano, D. J., & Kamm, C. (2002, November). The character, functions, and styles of instant messaging in the workplace. In Proceedings of the 2002 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 11-20). ACM.

This study logged thousands of workplace IM conversations on a prototype instant messenger application called Hubbub and evaluated the conversational characteristics and functions. Contrary to prior research, they found that the primary use of workplace IM was for complex work discussions. They also identified two distinct styles of IM use: working together and coordinating. Those who work together use IM for a range of collaborative activities, while those who coordinate have short, single-purpose conversations, often to schedule interactions in another medium.

5. Leonardi, P. M., & Bailey, D. E. (2008). Transformational technologies and the creation of new work practices: Making implicit knowledge explicit in task-based offshoring. MIS quarterly, 32(2), 411-436.

To study the knowledge transfer problems in offshored and distributed work, the authors choose a firm that sent engineering tasks from home sites in Mexico and U.S. to an offshore site in India as studying site, and investigated how employees contend with problems that arise from the use of transformational technologies across time and space. This study combined observation (total 10.5 months), semi-structured interviews, survey, and project-tracking log analysis. Five practices to transfer occupational knowledge to the offshore site have been identified: fining requirements, monitoring progress, fixing returns, routing tasks strategically, and filtering quality.

6. Nardi, B. A., Whittaker, S., & Bradner, E. (2000, December). Interaction and outeraction: instant messaging in action. In Proceedings of the 2000 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 79-88). ACM.

This study discussed findings from an ethnographic study of instant messaging (IM) in the workplace and its implications for media theory. Research data is from interviews and observations supplemented with logs of IM sessions. The authors documented the flexibility and expressivity of IM for various informal communication tasks, and described the unexpected use of IM for outeraction processes that are distinct from but essential for information exchange.

7. Quan-Haase, A., Cothrel, J., & Wellman, B. (2005). Instant messaging for collaboration: A case study of a high-tech firm. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 10(4).

This study used survey and semi-structured interview to examine uses of instant messaging (IM) in a high-tech firm to illustrate how knowledge workers use this new work tool to collaborate with co-workers. Questionnaire and interview data show that while IM leads to higher connectivity and new forms of collaboration, it also creates distance: employees use the mediated environment as a shield, distancing themselves from superiors.

8. Skovholt, K., & Svennevig, J. (2006). Email copies in workplace interaction. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 12(1), 42-65.

This study combined content analysis of email collection and unstructured interviews to examine how employees in a distributed work group use email copies in networks of collaboration. The results shown copying in recipients serves to share knowledge of ongoing projects and to build up a common information pool and is used to facilitate multi-party interaction and to build personal identity and alliances. Copies to third parties are also be used for reasons of social control, for instance in order to gain compliance or to put pressure on the addressee to conform to social norms of conduct.

Social media and knowledge sharing in organizations

1. Archambault, A., & Grudin, J. (2012, May). A longitudinal study of facebook, linkedin, & twitter use. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2741-2750). ACM.

This study combined four annual surveys and follow-up interviews at Microsoft during 2008 to 2011 to investigate the usage practice and perceived usefulness of certain social networking applications, with a focus on organizational communication and information gathering. Most survey participants confirmed the benefits of social networking sites reported in former studies: for fun, for personal socializing and networking, for networking with external professional contact, for internal networking within the company. Interviews also suggested an increasing number of participants confirming the effectiveness of social networking applications in building and strengthening weak ties with colleagues and getting quick answers. However, interviews also revealed sources of skepticism about the internal use of social networking application—especially among the executive group and young overseas employees.

2. Brzozowski, M. J. (2009, May). WaterCooler: exploring an organization through enterprise social media. In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work (pp. 219-228). ACM.

This paper presented how WatherCooler, a tools that aggregates shared internal social media and cross-references was adopted in a large global enterprise based on observation. Despite the lack of complete social networking affordances, Such tool can still change users’ perceptions of their workplace, make them feel more connected to each other and the company, and redistributed users’ attention outside their own business groups.

3. Davison, R. M., Ou, C. X., Martinsons, M. G., Zhao, A. Y., & Du, R. (2014). The communicative ecology of Web 2.0 at work: Social networking in the workspace. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(10), 2035-2047.

The broader research question this study tried to explored is understanding where, how, and why Chinese organizations use Web 2.0 application (Microblogging, IM, Wikis), using unstructured interviews. The theoretical framework they proposed (W2OC model) was theoretically based on the communicative ecology framework and embedded with five propositions in which the authors described how Web 2.0 technologies facilitate horizontal and vertical communication processes in organizations, moderated by client media preferences and managerial support as well as the consequent outcomes of this communication. However the narrow dataset may lead to less universal value of this model and quantitative data is need to validate the high-level propositions.

4. DiMicco, J. M., & Millen, D. R. (2007, November). Identity management: multiple presentations of self in facebook. In Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM conference on Supporting group work (pp. 383-386). ACM.

This study aimed at developing a framework to understand how users manage self-presentation while maintaining social relationships in heterogeneous network, using a combination of Facebook profile page analysis and interviews of employees at IBM. Different identity managing patterns were identified based on subjects’ behavioral types, which were determined by the variability presented on their profile pages.

5. DiMicco, J., Millen, D. R., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., & Muller, M. (2008, November). Motivations for social networking at work. In Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 711-720). ACM.

This study addressed the research questions about how professionals insides of a company use an internal social networking site. In particular they focused on how using a social networking site inside of a company differs in terms of social connections and also in terms of different user motivations. Based on qualitative interviews and content analysis of usage logs of Beehive (a social network site behind IBM’s firewall), the authors ound unlike the Facebook usage by professionals, in which professionals mainly use Facebook to connect with their social friends outside of work, they use Beehive to connect with the weak ties—those they would like to know better- instead of keeping up with the colleagues they know well. Compared to general social networking site like Facebook, where users are more willing to keep up with friends and not for “social browsing”, they argued the reason of why employees are willing to meeting new people in Beehive is the existing common ground. This study also investigated the motivations for connecting and sharing using Beehive and how different content type supported different types of goals.

6. Efimova, L., & Grudin, J. (2007, January). Crossing boundaries: A case study of employee blogging. In proceedings of the 2007 Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 86-86). IEEE.

This study focused on weblog authorship and the blogger’s view of the readership. Using Microsoft as the study site, the authors proposed and discussed several research questions including the evolution of perceptions and policies regarding weblog; when, where, and how employees blogging; the motivations of manipulating work-related blogs; benefits and potential negative impacts to employees as well as the companies when producing work-related information available internally and externally. Content analysis of employee weblogs, weblog email distribution lists, weblog guidelines and policies, participant observation of weblog issues discussion, and semi-structured interviews of 38 people in this organization have been used to study people’s perceptions and reflections on weblog as a new communication medium.

7. Ehrlich, K., & Shami, N. S. (2010, May). Microblogging Inside and Outside the Workplace. In proceedings of the 4th International AAAI Conferences on Weblogs and Social Media (pp. 42-49). AAAI.

This paper also aims at understanding the benefits of using microblogging in workplace and users’ microblogging behaviors in an organization setting. using a combination of semi-structured interview and content analysis. The novelty of this paper is it analyzed and compared the use and perceived value of microblogging of same group of users with external and internal tools simultaneously. It can be expected that post content, user’s motivation, and perceived benefit will be different when targeting to internal audience (employees and colleagues) and external audience (friends, family, and strangers).

8. Günther, O., Krasnova, H., Riehle, D., & Schöndienst, V. (2009). Modeling microblogging adoption in the enterprise. In Proceedings of the 15th Americas Conference on Information Systems.

Based on the results of four focus group sessions, the authors identified constructs to play an important role in the microblogging adoption decision, including privacy concerns, communication benefits, perceptions regarding signal-to-noise ratio, as well codification effort. Integrating these factors with common views on technology acceptance, they then formulate a model to predict the adoption of a microblogging system in the workspace.

9. Holtzblatt, L. J., Damianos, L. E., & Weiss, D. (2010, April). Factors impeding Wiki use in the enterprise: a case study. In CHI’10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4661-4676). ACM.

This study explored factors that impacted the use of wikis as a tool to support the dissemination of knowledge within an enterprise, using semi-structured interview. The authors concluded the reluctance to share specific information was due to a perceived extra cost, the nature of the information, the desire to share only “finished” content, and sensitivities to the openness of the sharing environment.

10. Huh, J., Jones, L., Erickson, T., Kellogg, W. A., Bellamy, R. K., & Thomas, J. C. (2007, April). BlogCentral: the role of internal blogs at work. In CHI’07 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 2447-2452). ACM.

This paper focused on examining how BlogCentral (IBM’s internal blogging system) facilitating organizational knowledge management and how bloggers viewed their goals and targeted audiences. The reported findings were drawn from semi-structured interviews of BlogCentral users and follow-up content analyses of each informant’s blog based on interview comments. From their observations of blog usage, the authors discussed several patterns bloggers utilizing to facilitate information gathering, knowledge sharing, and common ground building: blogs can be used as a platform to seek for assistance from readers (collaborative knowledge producing), to attract readers and build rapport (common ground building), to enhance social interaction (facilitating transfer of tacit knowledge) ,and to aggregate information on the web (external knowledge gathering).Based on the observation they identified four dimensions that corporate blogging can be used to support work: it can work as a medium for a variety of employees to collaborate and  give reciprocal feedback; as a place to share expertise and acquire tacit knowledge; as a place to share personal stories and opinions that help people to know more about one another, which may increase the chances of social interaction and collaboration; as a repository to aggregate information from external sources by writers who are experts in an area.

11. Jackson, A., Yates, J., & Orlikowski, W. (2007, January). Corporate Blogging: Building community through persistent digital talk. In proceedings of the 2007 Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 80-80). IEEE.

This study provided an extensive exploratory study of the nature and benefits of corporate blogging based on usage statistics, interviews, and a user survey. In contrast to Efinova and Grudin, this paper focused on an internal blogging site, examining its perceived and actual benefits for users in a large, distributed organization. In order to examine if the perceived and experienced benefits of corporate blogging varied among usage level, they used both posting and commenting activities as criteria to stratify blog users into three equal-sized groups (heavy, medium, and low users). Three general types of benefits have been identified via survey: informational, social, and other. Although the perceived and experienced informational and social benefits differed three user groups, the perceived work-related benefits did relate to usage level, and none of these groups experienced high community-related benefits. The authors also identify two corporate-specific benefits: broad-based (how users understand what happens in the organization, and then gain broader knowledge of the organization) and focused (gain a more focused and specific view of what is currently valued in the organization).

12. Java, A., Song, X., Finin, T., & Tseng, B. (2007, August). Why we twitter: understanding microblogging usage and communities. In Proceedings of the 9th WebKDD and 1st SNA-KDD 2007 workshop on Web mining and social network analysis (pp. 56-65). ACM.

This paper mainly focused on the topological and geographical structure of Twitter’s social network and the user intentions in microblogging. Four main user intentions on twitter have been identified via content analysis of twitter messages: Daily chatter, facilitating conversations, sharing information, and reporting news. A single user may have different intentions or serve as different roles (information sources, friend, and information seeker) in different communities (clusters).

13. Nardi, B. A., Schiano, D. J., & Gumbrecht, M. (2004, November). Blogging as social activity, or, would you let 900 million people read your diary? In Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 222-231). ACM.

This study, based on ethnographic interviews with bloggers and text analysis of blog posts, analyzed why and how create and use blogs, and argued blogs, as a form of communicative activity in which bloggers and audience interact through writing and reading, are more like radio rather than diaries. The two key findings of this paper are:  blog is 1) a large arena of social activities; 2) a broadcast medium of limited interactivity.

14. Seebach, C. (2012, January). Searching for Answers–Knowledge Exchange through Social Media in Organizations. In 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Science (HICSS) (pp. 3908-3917). IEEE.

This study contributed to knowledge management literature by exploring how microblogging facilitates knowledge sharing in an organizational context. Based on content analysis of enterprise microblogging messages, this study mainly addressed two research questions: 1) what kind of knowledge users seek and request microblogging, and 2) how users contribute knowledge. The author viewed interactions between knowledge seekers and contributors through the lens of social capital theory and analyzed how tie strength could influence the quality of knowledge exchange (this is the primary theoretical contribution of this work). The results shown factual, opinion, recommendation, and rhetorical questions were delivered via microblogging with the highest frequency. While the major of recommendation and social connection questions were not directed to a specific question, when asking for specific knowledge resources, users mostly turned to people they already know.

15. Skeels, M. M., & Grudin, J. (2009, May). When social networks cross boundaries: a case study of workplace use of facebook and linkedin. In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work (pp. 95-104). ACM.

This study combined survey and unstrctured interview to examine users’ attitudes towards and usage patterns of social networking applications in Microsoft. A much clearer picture of LinkedIn use emerged from the data analysis, which indicating high level of positive attitude and perceived usefulness, especially from young professionals. Facebook usage shown a more complex pattern, especially when the use extending to work colleagues. The authors concluded the purposes of using Facebook in the workplace were reconnecting, maintaining awareness and keeping in touch, and building social capital, which did enable more efficient interaction by strengthening the weak ties among colleagues.

16. Steinfield, C., DiMicco, J. M., Ellison, N. B., &, C. (2009, June). Bowling online: social networking and social capital within the organization. In Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Communities and technologies (pp. 245-254). ACM.

This paper explored the relationship between various dimensions of organizational social capital and the use of an internal social network site (SNS) using surveys. The results suggested that bonding relationships, sense of corporate citizenship, interest in connecting globally, and access to new people and expertise are all associated with greater intensity of use of the social network site.

17. Riemer, K., & Richter, A. (2010). Tweet inside: Microblogging in a corporate context. In Proceedings of 23rd Bled eConference.

The main purpose of this paper is to explore Enterprise Microblogging (EMB) usage practices, and compared the communication pattern with the results reported from similar studies on Public Microblogging (PMB) in Twitter. Content analysis of posts identified 18 individual genres and 6 top-level genres which represented distinct types of interaction: Provide updates, Coordinate others, Share information, Ask question, Discuss & clarify, and Record information. The genres identified indicated EMB has been appropriated mainly for two team practices: 1) create and maintain team awareness; 2) coordinate team and report task progress. The authors specifically mentioned other team practices such as discussions and in-depth collaborations were not frequent. Compared to the communication genre in PMB, in which users are more concern about self, in a corporate context, users provided information with the needs of others in mind. The authors argued a shared context and expectations reciprocity contribute to such difference based on followed-up interview. Microblogging as a practice is highly context dependent. Use of microblogging in a corporate context is formed by the needs of task and by the shared group context. It can be expected the use of EMB can be rather different within another organizational context.

18. Turner, T., Qvarfordt, P., Biehl, J. T., Golovchinsky, G., & Back, M. (2010, April). Exploring the workplace communication ecology. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 841-850). ACM.

This study combined two annual surveys and interviews to build understanding of why particular communication tools are selected and how the tools are used in the workplace. Three major research questions were discussed in this study: 1) usage trends in communication practices in the workplace, 2) how different groups of people adopt new technology, 3) the strengths and weaknesses of technologies in use. The results suggested people’s choices of and interactions with communication technology are governed by their communication ecologies, which support a diverse set of tools to meet user needs. The introduction of new tools did not impact significantly the use of previously adopted technologies, rather, new technologies are being used alongside older ones.

19. Yardi, S., Golder, S. A., & Brzozowski, M. J. (2009, April). Blogging at work and the corporate attention economy. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 2071-2080). ACM.

This study examined a large internal corporate blogging community using log files and interviews and found that employees expected to receive attention when they contributed to blogs, but these expectations often went unmet. The interviews suggested that two factors are most influential on internal corporate blogging behavior: whether or not a blogger perceives others are reading their post, and management support for blogging.

20. Zhang, J., Qu, Y., Cody, J., & Wu, Y. (2010, April). A case study of micro-blogging in the enterprise: use, value, and related issues. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 123-132). ACM.

This paper claimed to be the first detailed case study which systematically examined how microblogging, as a new communication medium, has been adopted and used in the workplace. The authors used data from Yammer, a corporate version of Twitter which is restricted to employees of an enterprise.  The classification of genres of message indicated users are more interested in sharing non-personal news or new findings, especially external technology news. Conversation seeking message is also a big portion in sample data, which suggested Yammer was also used as an intranet forum. The portion of personal-related message is relatively low and the majority of these messages are still about the person’s work rather than personal activities outside work.  The survey which aimed at investigating users’ perceptions of Yammer’s value reported Yammer helped support informal communication, increase awareness, and establish potential relationships, but was not so efficient in broadcasting company internal news and industry news. Both content analysis and survey indicated microblogging use on a corporate intranet was different from Twitter use on the Internet.

21. Zhao, D., & Rosson, M. B. (2009, May). How and why people Twitter: The role that micro-blogging plays in informal communication at work. In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work (pp. 243-252). ACM.

The main contribution of this work is articulating why people use Twitter and defining behaviors that help explain why some organizational uses of Twitter are more successful than others. To frame their work, the authors defined two benefits of informal communication: relational benefits, including person perception, common ground building, and connectness, and personal benefits. The research method was phone interviews with 11 people from a large IT company. Through these interviews the authors found three ways in which the interviewee’s thoughts about Twitter: frequent life updates, real-time information, and people-based RSS feeds. They also identified problems with Twitter according to interviewees: security, integration and Filtering and grouping.

22. Zhao, D., Rosson, M. B., Matthews, T., & Moran, T. (2011, May). Microblogging’s impact on collaboration awareness: A field study of microblogging within and between project teams. In 2011 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS) (pp. 31-39). IEEE.

The goal of this study was to analyze whether and how project team members use microblogging as a communication channel for sharing project information, and how this would affect project awareness, which is a key challenge in collaborative processes. The text analysis of project team posts identified 6 categories: project task status, information and idea sharing, other work status, questions, and work availability. The interviews revealed microblogging can impact co-workers’ collaboration awareness and building cross-project awareness outside of the team by enabling conversation, information, and feedback got exchanged as work in progress.

 

 

 

The following annotated bibliography contains 20 articles related to ethnographic research of online communities. It is by no means a definitive list. Instead it should be viewed as a snapshot of one persons journey through the literature.

Adams, S. S. (2009). What games have to offer: Information behavior and meaning-making in virtual play spaces. Library Trends, 57(4), 676-693.

This ethnographic study examines the information behaviors of players in an online gaming environment. The goal is to identify information seeking and meaning-making in virtual play spaces that can be transferred to promoting effective information seeking in the library. The author uses everyday life information seeking (ELIS) and the dramaturgical perspective theories. Applying these two theories provides a focus of two units of analysis. ELIS focuses on an individuals information behavior and dramaturgical focuses on the interacting group as the unit.

Bainbridge, W. S. (2007). The scientific research potential of virtual worlds. Science, 317(5837), 472-476. doi:10.1126/science.1146930

As the title of the article suggests, the author discusses the potential of virtual worlds for research. Two online environments are used as examples for discussion: World of Warcraft (WoW) and Second Life. The author identifies that the design of the online environment has an affect on the types of activities that can be performed in it. For example WoW stores the graphical information on a players computer thus there is not an element of building or creating objects that can be seen in Second Life. The author notes that ethnographic and interview methods are suitable for both environments while other methods tend to be more successful in only one of the environments. A substantial potion of the article focuses on potential topics that are suitable to study in virtual environments and virtual laboratory experiments.

Burford, S., & Park, S. (2014). The impact of mobile tablet devices on human information behaviour. Journal of Documentation, 70(4), 622-639. doi:10.1108/JD-09-2012-0123

This netnographic study focuses on information behaviors that are influenced by mobile tablet devices. Although the authors state that this is an ethnographic study, mixed methods are also used. Quantitative surveys and qualitative journals are used to gain insight into the thoughts of the users. The population is of 35 young adult iPad users. The mobility of the portable device encouraged short, fleeting, and distracted information behaviors. Information behavior theories and frameworks written by Wilson, as well as Sonnenwald and Iiovonen, are reviewed. The authors state that mobile devices present challenges to the traditional “static representations of technologies” in information behavior theories since the context of the information behaviors are expanded due to mobility.

Escobar, A., Hess, D., Licha, I., Sibley, W., Strathern, M., & Sutz, J. (1994). Welcome to cyberia: Notes on the anthropology of cyberculture [and comments and reply]. Current Anthropology, 35(3), 211-231. doi:10.1086/204266

This article is an overview of the types of anthropological analyses that are being used in the study of “cyberculture”. There are several questions posed about ethnographic domains. What new social constructs are being created due to technology? How are individuals socialized by continual exposure to these virtual spaces? How does an individuals experience differ due to race, gender, class, geographical location, and physical ability? The authors identify five domains: production and use of new technology, virtual communities, popular culture of science and technology, computer-mediated communication, and the political economy of cyberculture.

Halilovich, H. (2014). Reclaiming erased lives: Archives, records and memories in post-war Bosnia and the Bosnian diaspora. Archival Science, 14(3), 231-247. doi:10.1007/s10502-014-9227-z

This article is a traditional and virtual ethnographic study of Bosnian people. The author investigates the use of technology, such as biomedical, communication, and information, to reconstruct the lives of individuals whose identities have been lost due to genocide and war in Bosnia. The virtual ethnography focuses on the community of Žepa Online. It is used as a resource for individual and communal projects in Žepa and for individuals who immigrated around the world. Žepa Online has also become a cultural archive for its community members. This provides a cyber village for Bosnian refugees to reconstruct communal identity that was destroyed by ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Hine, C. (2007). Connective ethnography for the exploration of e-science. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(2), 618-634.

This study focuses on a sub-discipline of biology called systematics which is the classification and naming of organisms, and the relationship between organisms. Over the period of 3 years, the computer-mediated communication of scientists was studied. The author explored online forums and websites, and how these online communications are connected and mutually inform each other. The unit of analyses are the initiative, which is an individual or group of scientists involved with a project, and the institutions that house initiatives. The study found that outsiders are oriented to initiatives rather than the host institutions. The author discusses the use of visualization tools in e-science ethnographic studies such as TouchGraph Google.

Im, E., & Chee, W. (2006). An online forum as a qualitative research method: Practical issues. Nursing Research, 55(4), 267-273. doi:10.1097/00006199-200607000-00007

This article discusses the issues encounter with an online cancer patient forum while conducting qualitative research. The method for collecting information for this meta-study is memos written by researchers. Content analysis was used to identify issues from the collected memos. The online forum’s issues are retention. participants’ forgetfulness, difficulties in unstandardized computer and Internet jargon, and hacking attempts. These issues have an influence on a study’s credibility, dependability, confirmibility, transferability, and confidentiality. The authors state that it is important to consider the characteristics of the population to determine if an online forum is a suitable platform for research. Cancer patients in the study had a tendency to forget usernames and passwords. Also, many of the participants would not visit the forum regularly. Researchers should determine how nonverbal cues such as emoticons should be recorded in order to not lose data.

Ko, H. (2012). Why are A-list bloggers continuously popular? Online Information Review, 36(3), 401-419. doi:10.1108/14684521211241422

This study’s population is users of a Taiwanese social network website called Wretch who have a high popularity rating. The purpose of the study is to find reasons why popular bloggers become popular and what benefits these bloggers gain from notoriety. Three methods are used to collect data: ethnography, social network analysis, and text analysis. Although the author does not explicitly state a reason for using mixed methods, half of the findings are a result of using an ethnographic method. Ethnographic analysis found the use of quotations by bloggers which helps establish reputation, and that popular bloggers do not have a core audience, rather they continuously are gaining new followers.

Kozinets, R. V. (2002). The field behind the screen: Using netnography for marketing research in online communities. Journal of Marketing Research, 39(1), 61-72. doi:10.1509/jmkr.39.1.61.18935

This article discusses the roots of netnography, and the procedures used in netnography. Netnography comes from the discipline of marketing research. Two preparatory steps for conducting research are formulating a research question, and identify a suitable population. Data collection involves the direct copy of the computer-mediated communications, and the researcher’s notes on the interactions that occur in the community. A strategy for classifying interactions is to identify if they are primarily social or informational, and as on-topic or off-topic. The author briefly discusses netnography’s use of grounded theory. The article ends with an example of an online coffee community.

Kuei Huang, Y., & I. Yang, W. (2014). Using networked narratives to understand internet book reviews in online communities. The Electronic Library, 32(1), 17-30. doi:10.1108/EL-05-2012-0053

The focus of this research study is to investigate word-of-mouth communication behavior and interaction between four book bloggers and their community of readers. Since the authors are from a business school they identify the method as netnography. The authors state that this method lends itself to identifying natural occurring behavior that might not surface during focus groups and interviews. There are several findings that have a sentiment or emotional context. For example readers believe a blogger to be more trustworthy if the blogger maintains positive and friendly interactions. Due to the business orientation the article ends with suggestions on how publishers can enlist bloggers to promote their books.

Lee, C. P., & Trace, C. B. (2009). The role of information in a community of hobbyist collectors. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(3), 621-637.

This multi-mode study focuses on the information behaviors of an online rubber duck community. The methods used are ethnography and interviews. The authors state that the personal involvement of one of the researchers in the community became invaluable for conducting the study. The researchers identified four elements of collector typology: interactions with non-duck collectors, interactions with fellow collectors, object rarity, and level of interest in the hobby. This typology was used as a lens to focus a discussion about the members of the community and their information behaviors. The authors provide discription of the community that enables the reader to understand the study and the community being researched.

Meylakhs, P., Rykov, Y., Koltsova, O., & Koltsov, S. (2014). An AIDS-denialist online community on a russian social networking service: Patterns of interactions with newcomers and rhetorical strategies of persuasion. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(11), e261. doi:10.2196/jmir.3338

The authors of this 9 month netnography study belong to the discipline of economics. The population is an online community of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-denialists. The objective is to discover reasons for newcomers to seek this group, patterns of interaction with newcomers, and rhetorical strategies used for persuasion. Grounded theory was used to analyze the downloaded community discussions. It was determined that not all denialists are irrational in their beliefs. Some denialists have sufficient grounds and life experiences that provide reasonable grounds to suspect the medical establishments views. This rationalized views are informed by some odd and inexplicable practices performed in the Russian medical community.

Nancarrow, C., Pallister, J., & Brace, I. (2001). A new research medium, new research populations and seven deadly sins for internet researchers. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 4(3), 136-149. doi:10.1108/13522750110393044

This article provides a discussion of qualitative internet research ethics, issues, and concerns from the business marketing perspective. Interestingly there is a belief that marketing researchers are the principle users of the Internet for primary research. The authors dispel this notion by mentioning that other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, health, and cultural studies also use the Internet as a primary source. The seven sins are excess and consequent respondent burn out, exposure and client/research agency embarrassment, omission, privacy invasion, off-loading costs, negligence, and complacency.

Paris, C. M., & Germann Molz, J. (2015). The social affordances of flashpacking: Exploring the mobility nexus of travel and communication. Mobilities, 10(2), 173-192. doi:10.1080/17450101.2013.848605

This ethnographic study focuses on the social behaviors of backpackers that stay connected with others via mobile technology. Backpacking use to be an information sparse en devour. This has changed with the introduction of mobile technology and the ability to gain information quickly, hence the new term flashpacker. The authors identify several aspects created by technology adoption: virtual mooring, following, collaborating, and (dis)connecting. Virtual mooring allows travelers to maintain backpacker and home culture simultaneously. Following is the behavior of online posting of a backpackers journey which invites friends and family to virtually experience the trip. Collaborating is the interactions of backpackers with fellow backpackers on the trail. (Dis)connecting refers to the change in backpacking from a disconnected experience to one of choice. This has an influence on the traveler on whether they want to experience their surroundings or blog away the hours in a hostel about the journey.

Skågeby, J., MDALAB – Human Computer Interfaces, Institutionen för datavetenskap, Linköpings universitet, & Tekniska högskolan. (2009). Exploring qualitative sharing practices of social metadata: Expanding the attention economy. The Information Society, 25(1), 60-72. doi:10.1080/01972240802587588

This ethnographic study focuses on the end-users practices of social metadata usage on Facebook. One of the goals of the study is the development of theory relating to social metadata and relationship maintenance. Gifting theory is used as a starting point to gain understanding of the research topic. The study identifies social dilemmas cause by the use of experimental profiles, clashes between work and non-work usage, and personal social investment.

Skågeby, J., Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för mediestudier, & Humanistiska fakulteten. (2012). The irony of serendipity: Disruptions in social information behaviour. Library Hi Tech, 30(2), 321-334. doi:10.1108/07378831211239988

This conceptual article uses a meta-ethnographical approach using three previous ethnographic studies on social media usage as resources of data. The author discusses the strengths of meta-ethnography such as the ability to gain more generalizable insight that can not be achieved by a single study. The author introduces social information behavior which views the tension between serendipity and disruption. Tension can surface due to work and non-work, public and private, and collective and individual relationships.

Stockdale, R. (2008). Peer-to-peer online communities for people with chronic diseases: A conceptual framework. Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 10(1), 39-55. doi:10.1108/13287260810876885

This ethnographic study examines peer-to-peer online communities for individuals with chronic diseases. The author builds a proposed conceptual framework to identify the needs of the community members by reviewing research literature. The data collected from each of the three studies are examined against the framework in an iterative cycle. This process helps the researcher to identify social needs of the community members such as communication through self-expression, advocacy, and spiritual support.

Turkle, S. (1997). Multiple subjectivity and virtual community at the end of the Freudian century. Sociological Inquiry, 67, 72-84.

This article is drawn from Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet by Turkle. It provides a historical look at the study of online communities with discussions of individuals being in multiple contexts at one time due to “windows” technology, and the interactions that take place in multi-user domains. The article provides a reader with a foundation of what concerns, issues, and theories researchers were tackling in the beginning of online ethnographic research.

Ward, K. (1999). Cyber-ethnography and the emergence of the virtually new community. Journal of Information Technology, 14(1), 95-105. doi:10.1080/026839699344773

This article is using the term “cyber” to mean virtual or online rather than another common definition which is the combination of man and machine. The author states that cyber-ethnography differs from regular ethnography by dispensing with preconceived notions of community. The article discusses the myth of virtual communities being a utopia. The discussion continues with examples on how cyber-ethnography is conducted. The article ends with a brief discussion of an appropriate definition for virtual communities.

Wilson, S. M., & Peterson, L. C. (2002). The anthropology of online communities. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31(1), 449-467. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085436

The authors of this article discuss anthropological research of online communities. It begins with a short history of the Internet revolution. The authors note that the era had an “…optimistic notion that the Internet would inform and empower individuals worldwide, may underestimate the power of states to control information access.” Other discussions in the article include terminology, ephemerality, information technology as cultural “(re)production”, community, and personal identity. The discussion of identity is illustrated with a reprint of a famous New Yorker cartoon. Finally the authors round out the article with a discussion on ethical research.

For my second update, I have completed a short annotated bibliography of the 21 articles I’ve found.

Allen, S., & Gough, A. (2006). Monitoring environmental justice impacts: Vietnamese-American longline fishermen adapt to the Hawaii swordfish fishery closure. Human Organization, 65(3), 319-328.

This ethnography examines the effect that the ban on fishing swordfish would have on Vietnamese-American fishers based out of Hawaii. At the time of ban, the group that was predicted to be the most severely effected was the Vietnamese-American fishers. The authors attempt to analyze the social effects of the ban on targeting swordfish, such as the effects on family and community cohesion and changes in household income. This study also attempts to analyze the effects of the ban on the larger longline fishing community.

Barikor-Wiwa, D. (1997). The role of women in the struggle for environmental justice in Ogoni. Cultural Survival Quarterly, 21(3), 46-52.

This ethnography explores the successful environmental justice movement that occurred in Ogoni, Nigeria, in 1993. In the face of outside corporate oil exploration being conducted by Shell Oil, Ogoni women had to organize the whole Ogoni community to fight against Shell Oil and the dictatorial Nigerian government. Strengthening the cultural ties of the Ogoni as well as giving Ogoni women a larger political role in local villages brought about the success of the grassroots movement of Ogoni women.

Brockington, D. (2005). The politics and ethnography of environmentalisms in Tanzania. African Affairs, 105, 97-116. doi: 10.1093/afraf/adi071.

This article explores the relationship between environmentalism and local, regional, and central governments in Tanzania. Each sector of the government views environmentalism as a necessity, but differs in how environmentalism is utilized as a tool for politicking, scapegoating, and manipulating public discourse.

Brown, P., & Pellow, D. N. (2009). The political economy of environmental justice: Evidence on global and local scales. Nature and Culture, 4(2), 208-221. doi: 10.3167/nc.2009.040206

The authors provide a review of environmental justice movements, but also situate these movements in the larger political economy of the environment. Furthermore, the argument is made that environmental activists, in their attempts to rid their local communities of environmental ills, often do not consider where the waste is going, if it is not going to their community. Companies and governments often make deals that distribute the waste to the global South, which presents an entirely new host of environmental problems to the people in those countries.

Cabrejas, A. H. (2012). “Laciana is black. Greens go away!” Environmentalists as scapegoats in a mountaintop removal conflict in Laciana Valley, Spain. Organization & Environment, 25(4), 419-436. doi: 10.1177/108602661246973

This ethnography analyzes the environmental and social conflicts surrounding the mountaintop removal of coal in Spain. The author examines the different narratives being used by supporters and detractors of mountaintop removal practices, and comes to the conclusion that the success of the anti-mountaintop removal groups has been largely limited by violence against those groups as well as the supporters using environmental groups as “scapegoats.”

Checker, M. (2001). “Like Nixon coming to China”: Finding common ground in a multi-ethnic coalition for environmental justice. Anthropological Quarterly, 74(3), 135-146.

Checker examines how previously divided activist groups in Brooklyn, New York, came together to promote environmental justice in their neighborhoods. By combining their resource pools, formerly adversarial activists were able to create a unified narrative around environmental justice as well as minimize the ethnic and racial differences that previously divided them.

Checker, M. (2005). From friend to foe and back again: Industry and environmental action in the urban South. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, 34(1), 7-44.

Taking a slightly different approach to environmental justice, Checker takes a political economy approach to a local environmental issue. She analyzes how the relationship between communities, industry, and state institutions have come together to create toxic contamination that disproportionately affects the lower-income and racial minorities of the community.

Checker, M. (2007). “But I know it’s true”: Environmental risk assessment, justice, and anthropology. Human Organization, 66(2), 112-124.

Checker attempts to uncover how environmental risk assessments only engage a certain population and routinely disregard the experiences of the poor and people of color. These occluded experiences often lead to increased perceptions of environmental risk in the marginalized communities.

Chi, C. C. (2001). Capitalist expansion and indigenous land rights: Emerging environmental justice issues in Taiwan. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2(2), 135-153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14442210110001706145

In an effort to blend research and activism, Chi examines the structural conditions in Taiwan that allow for marginalized tribes to continuously be abused by the government when it comes to disposing environmental waste. Furthermore, the paper examines how community groups have emerged to take back control of their land to protect it from future harm.

Di Chiro, G. (2004). Living is for everyone: Border crossings for community, environment, and health. Osiris, 19, 112-130.

Di Chiro examines the work of Teresa Leal, an environmental justice advocate working along the U.S.-Mexican border. Examining how Leal works within a globalized world after the advent of NAFTA, this ethnography looks at how the environmental, economic, and public health conditions of the region are changing due to increased transnational trade.

Flocks, J., & Monaghan, P. (2003). Collaborative research with farmworkers in environmental justice. Practice Anthropology, 25(1), 6-9.

The researchers used a community-based participatory approach to gather data about exposure to pesticides among farm workers in Florida. Heavy pesticide exposure disproportionately affects the lower-income farm workers, who are often of Mexican heritage. Through their work, the authors offer an intervention campaign that will help the farm workers reduce pesticide-related health effects.

Grineski, S. E. (2006). Local struggles for environmental justice: Activating knowledge for change. Journal of Poverty, 10(3), 25-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J134v10n03_02

 

This ethnography takes a community-based participatory approach that also examines the political economy of local environmentalism in Phoenix, Arizona. In an effort to establish environmental justice, university researchers worked with community activists to gather opinions of health and environmental concerns in a low-income Latino neighborhood. Analysis of these surveys reveals how justice can be brought to a marginalized community through the activation of knowledge in certain legal and political structures.

 

Haenn, N., & Casagranda, D. G. (2007). Citizens, experts, and anthropologists: Finding paths in environmental policy. Human Organization, 66(2), 99-102.

 

This paper offers researchers advice on how they should navigate their roles as within a community. Specifically, the authors offer possible roles such as “translator, advocate, researcher, knowledgeable authority, coalition builder, and activist” (p. 100). The authors assert that the researcher needs to understand his or her role when it comes to public policy-making, especially where environmental issues are concerned because these issues are oftentimes a local issue, and the issue needs to be sold to individuals further up the hierarchy as something that needs to be taken seriously.

 

Harper, K. M. (2001). Introduction: The environment as master narrative: Discourse and identity in environmental problems. Anthropological Quarterly, 74(3), 101-103.

 

In this brief introduction, Harper outlines how the environment has become a “master narrative,” such that talking about the environment has become a method of political organizing and debate. The concept of the threatened environment, argues Harper, has allowed a larger discourse to occur that encompasses issues of toxicology, ethnicity, gender, and risk perceptions, as well as many others.

 

McDonald, J. (2009). Bulldozers, land, and the bottom: Environmental justice and a rapid assessment process. Practicing Anthropology, 31(1), 4-8.

            In Lexington, Kentucky, a proposed roadway extension threatened to destroy an old part of the city, which was mainly inhabited by low-income African-American and European American settlers. The rapid assessment process, a qualitative process using open-ended interview questions, attempted to identify and understand the needs and desires, especially as they relate to the culture, of this small portion of the community. Results found strong historical, social, and cultural ties to the community. Additionally, there was a sense that community members were being lied to, and this sense of dishonesty led the community members to reject the proposed project.

Moberg, M. (2001). Co-opting justice: Transformation of a multiracial coalition in Southern Alabama. Human Organiztion, 60(2), 166-177.

 

This article examines the debate over the construction of one of the nation’s largest phenol plants near Mobile, Alabama. An opposition movement originated in middle-class white neighborhoods. This movement protested against the plant due to the likely drop in home values in the area. This group attempted to incorporate the voices of lower-class African-Americans by appealing to the likely negative effects to local public health. This strategy had mixed success, but highlights how the strategies and claims of a movement can change when participants from an outside group become involved.

Palamar, C. (2010). From the ground up: Why urban ecological restoration needs environmental justice. Nature and Culture, 5(3), 277-298. doi: 10.3167/nc.2010.050304

Urban restoration projects, which seek to protect urban ecosystems, are often fraught with conflicts that arise from a mismatch between social realities and traditional restoration processes. The author argues that the larger environmental justice movement can provide a framework by which ecological restoration practitioners can operate in their local neighborhoods. Using New York City’s Green Guerillas, a community gardening program, as a case study, the author sets out to provide an outline for effective urban restoration.

 

Peace, A., Connor, L. H., Trigger, D. (2012). Environmentalism, culture, ethnography. Oceania, 82(3), 217-227.

 

This article offers a brief summary of the anthropological study of local environmental issues and the insights that anthropologists have to offer regarding the study of environmental issues. The authors point out that environmental issues are largely rooted in historical, religious, cultural, ethnic, and gendered terms. The authors argue that it is only possible to understand local environmental issues through these lenses.

Porter, R. & McIlvaine-Newsad, H. (2013). Gardening in green space for environmental justice: Food security, leisure, and social capital. Leisure/Loisir, 37(4), 379-395. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14927713.2014.906172

This ethnography examines how environmental justice was achieved through the implementation and growth of a community garden. The garden was originally conceived as a method to create environmental justice by combatting increasing produce costs and a lack of knowledge regarding commercial growing practices. Results indicate that as participation grew in the garden, the participants began to realize that the garden brought with it social benefits as well as food security.

 

Robyn, L. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and technology: Creating environmental justice in the twenty-first century. American Indian Quarterly, 26(2), 198-220.

The author asserts that the traditional values held for centuries by American Indians, especially values concerning the deep-rooted connection between the land and the people, have been legislated out of practice as Western Europeans expanded across the North American continent and imposed their hegemony on the local people. The environmental policies of the natives, which were based on the notion of reciprocity with the environment, were regarded as primitive, and did not help the causes of Western Europeans. Due to their primitive ways, and also due to the increased colonial imperialism occurring at the time, Natives have been largely ignored when environmental policies were determined. Throughout the article, the author argues that environmental injustices against American Indians have been codified into law to the detriment of the natives while benefitting European colonialists.

Vasudevan, P. (2012). Performance and proximity: Revisiting environmental justice in Warren County, North Carolina. Performance Research, 17(4), 18-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2012.712245

This performance ethnography examines how researchers interact within a community, asserting that researchers need to perform their roles with more intentionality. The author then asserts that performance as a mode of analysis can help people better understand their daily interactions with the landscape. Furthermore, public performances, asserts the author, allow participants to express emotional attachment to the environment and portray “cultural memory” in ways that text-based scholarship cannot.

My project entails an exploration of the oral history method. I aim to create a 2,500 word synthesis of literature pertaining to oral histories. Additionally, I plan to interview two historians who have executed oral history projects. I also hope to provide insight based on my experience.

I. Pre-writing

Now in my third semester of the iSchool doctoral program, I have learned (the hard way) some tips in terms of synthesizing research or creating a literature review: 1. find, annotate and REALLY organize journal articles (at this point, twenty-five);  2. generate a taxonomy of topics in order to avoid perfunctory summaries of articles and, instead, write thematically (Dr. Stivilia taught us this valuable hack); 3.  use a dual-monitor PC in order to have articles on one screen and my Word document on the other; and 4. create bulleted sections of knowledge and quotes which can later be fashioned into an essay or report.

2. Content

I mention these steps not to appear high-minded but to state that I left off these important steps when creating my project proposal. In fact, I really underestimated the amount of work it would take to critically read, decipher concepts, organize categories using a taxonomy and transfer knowledge to the written report. Despite, my initial proposal, it is best that I coalesce all of my data at a later point, when I have fully explored the literature, the interviews as well as my own experience.

So far, I have read 17 articles and created a taxonomy of major themes, which you can access here.  Also, I organized said themes and insight in a preliminary report, which is available here. You will notice that I created bullet points or lists. In my estimation, have met my goal of providing a 1,000 essay as my second project update since my draft report thus far contains 2,038 words.

The dominant themes are that oral history is a democratic research avenue which allows for

• activist scholarship
• public discourse
• reconstruction of past/popular/limited narratives
• agency for the marginalized
• research as a shared experience
• acknowledgement of the value of the everyday life of the lay person

Trust, deep listening, reciprocity, unstructured/semi-structured designs and rich description are championed.

Yet, oral history research has its flaws in that it still upholds traditional power structures, calls into question validity and reliability on account of its reliance on memory, and jeopardizes the safety of participants  in highly-politicized and/or dangerous communities.

3. Accidental ‘Experiential Learning’ Experience

Ironically, writing about oral history requires me to employ some of the requisite techniques. Specifically, I employed what I would consider deep listening (that is, critical reading). I also extrapolated patterns as well as coded and quantified information, thereby utilizing the content analysis technique. In terms of my method, I paid careful attention to data quality control and knowledge organization.  Moreover, I will soon interview two experts and, thereby, apply intensive interviewing best practices. In essence, this project allows me to not just know, but do. I’m reminded of a quote by Confuscious: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Considering the fact that I already have 2,038 words yet AT LEAST eight more articles, two expert interviews plus my own experience to include, there is no way that my final report will be contained to just 2,500 words. I am not sure what an adequate end goal is. Instead, I will allow the paper to naturally conclude when I have reached a point of saturation.

My next project update will describe how my interviews went!