The third method that I used in my dissertation was the guided ethnography. The purpose of the post is to describe in some detail the process I used and the rationale why I followed this process.
This section began at the end of the interview stage. The ethnography was designed to be discussed with the co-participants in four sections with the co-participants sitting in front of a computer (preferably their computer). The purpose of this method was to allow the co-participants to show and tell how they interact with Facebook and their perceived relationship between themselves and others on the network. The first section of the ethnography was to get each of the co-participants to talk about the creation of their Facebook account and how they developed their profile page for the first time. The first part of the first section was to ask the co-participants about their previous experiences with online social networks and CMC platforms to see if Facebook was their experience with online social networks and I wanted the co-participants to talk about the reason they decided to join Facebook. This would provide an element similar to an “arrival story” for each of the co-participants. If the co-participant used online services in the past, I wanted them to describe the differences they experienced between Facebook and other services. This description of differences was to show a sense of the “digital native.” Also, I wanted each of the co-participants to show me their first profile picture and explain to me why they selected that picture. I also wanted the co-participant to discuss the first few interactions they had on Facebook and also to describe their thoughts and feelings about interaction with others.
The second section of the research asked the co-participants talk about the first year of college and how the school year has influenced their ability to update their Facebook page. It was in this area that I was attempting to pull areas of coping and adjustment that were basically present in the co-participants’ everyday lives and allow them to show me using their Facebook interactions as the framework of the conversation. I wanted the co-participants to discuss how often they update their page, how often they go on Facebook and have them explain to me the rationale for the frequency they go to Facebook.
The third section asked the co-participants to talk about the others they connect with on Facebook. I wanted them to tell me what term they used for others that visited their profile page, wrote on their walls and generally interacted with them on a daily basis. I wanted to know if the co-participants were aware of how many Facebook friends they had, how they felt when others wrote on their walls and generally how they promoted themselves on Facebook.
The final section was essentially a reflection on the analysis of the previously conducted survey and interview sections. One of the elements that came up during the interview section was the influence of current events rather than personal interactions. With this in mind, I asked the co-participants if they were first aware of a breaking news story from Facebook rather than traditional news media sources and to describe that experience. In addition, I wanted the co-participants to discuss what they did with the knowledge of the breaking news story. I wanted them to show me an example of a breaking news story that “broke” on Facebook and show me the reaction to that story.
The reflective mode that is present in most, if not all, ethnographic studies complement the previous two methods in these methods while keeping the focus of the research in the forefront. This mode also adds a holistic level of analysis that would have been lacking if the previous two methods were the single research methods used in this dissertation. By actively taking the analysis of the previous research methods back to the research subjects in the form of different research instruments to clarify the focus of the research and finally apply a reflective analysis from the ethnography helps deal with the limitations present in the study. The reflective analysis embedded in the dissemination of the ethnographic instrument allowed me to place the gathered data into overarching thematics that help explain the nature of this research and attempts to explain the relationship between the critical elements of this thesis.
The reason guided ethnography was chosen to end the research process was due to the fact the interview section of the research focused primarily on the real world environment of the interviewee and there needed to be some focus on the online interactions of each interviewee in order to balance the real world and the virtual world engagement of the individual. Guided ethnography was designed to look at the “everyday uses” of computer-mediated communication tools like online social networks and is loosely based on the virtual ethnographic method used by Christine Hine (2003). In addition, by listening carefully to the responses of the individuals, a researcher could begin to intelligently discuss the impact of the CMC on society and society on the CMC tool. Another rationale for selecting guided ethnography, as the last research method in this triangulation study is due to the acknowledgment by Christine Hine that ethnography is one of a select few research methods that treat the Internet as culture and cultural artifact. This is done because the nature of guided ethnography was designed to deal with the following principles: a sustained presence online, an a prior knowledge of boundaries, an understanding of spatial and temporal dislocation online, the need of “intensive engagement with mediated interaction” and understanding not only the disembodied nature of online communication but the ‘not quite’ relationship between itself and the real world (Nocera, 2002). These developed principles of virtual ethnography fit into the overall meta-narrative of “participation and observation” embedded into ethnographic methods.
When all of the Facebook networks merged into one “meta-network” at the end of 2009, the visual evidence of the merger was minimal except for the fact a person could find their friends, colleagues, and others that had a Facebook account easier in the “meta-network” when compared to the previous walled gardens. The relationships between research subjects, ethnographers and readers of ethnographic work in this minimallistically marked realm of Facebook are at best amorphous constructs and worse chaotic disjournments. The concept of “going native” in Facebook should not be seen as a pejorative statement towards any researcher studying online social networks, but rather a statement of the norm. Ethnographers must note that they are primarily studying an environment in which they themselves are considered native. This acknowledgment should be discussed by any researcher in the field of ethnographic studies of online social networks and should be noted in the reflective elements of the analysis of the ethnographic research.
The Guided Ethnographic Instrument
The instrument used for the guided ethnography section of this research was based on Hine’s original instrument, from her study of online supporters of Louise Woodward (a British au-pair accused of murder in 1997), Hammersley & Atkinson’s (2007) work in face-to-face participatory ethnographic studies and a base analysis of the interview and survey section of this research. The format of the study was to discuss with those participating in this section how their level of engagement with others on campus through Facebook and other means. This ethnographic section would study the first-year college students’ engagement through their artifacts and interactions on Facebook. Finally, this instrument would examine the creative process of these students to produce artifacts on Facebook. Through this study, the plan is to observe how Facebook acts as a creative outlet for the students. If so, it would be important to note how the students’ online work correlated to their ability to cope/adjust to college life.
The Guided Ethnography Process
The guided ethnographic process began in April 2009 and was held in the two remaining Midwestern campuses of the survey. All of the seventeen interviewees agreed to be co-participants for the ethnography. The format of the ethnography was the co-participant, and myself needed to be in front of a computer. I asked the co-participants if they would allow the virtual ethnography to be conducted in their dorm or apartment. Only four of the seventeen co-participants agreed to use their personal computers in their dorm or apartment. The other thirteen co-participants agreed to conduct the ethnography in a public area, like a restaurant, student union, and the campus library.
The rationale for the guided ethnography to occur in the personal residence of the co-participants was to observe the co-participants use Facebook in as close to their normal environment as possible. Also, since the co-participants had talked with me in the past, I felt that I could attempt to ask the co-participants to use Facebook as naturally as possible with me asking questions about their Facebook experience. Once again, the questions asked during the guided ethnography were designed to ask for a little more personal information from the co-participants but not embarrass them. Since most of the co-participants chose not to conduct the ethnography in their dorm room or apartment, I asked them to take me to a place that they would generally use Facebook outside of their dorm room or apartment. Six of the ten chose a coffee shop while the other four chose the library.
The sessions lasted between 1 to 3 hours depending on the level of conversation between the co-participants and myself. As with the interview, I used a digital recorder to record the session, and I made sure that the co-participants were aware the meeting was being recorded. During the course of the session, I used a notebook to take field notes and “catalog” the artifacts the co-participants presented on Facebook. I attempted to log those artifacts that show some level of coping as defined by the previous research done on coping. After going through the ethnographic instrument, I would go back to the co-participants about one or two artifacts they presented online and ask them to clarify the context of the artifact. The clarification will be included in the analysis.
Ethnography as a research instrument was focused on getting the co-participants to create a narrative of their Facebook experience and discuss that experience as thoroughly as they possibly could. Much like the interview process, the co-participants helped with this process, as they were able to give me an understanding of how they saw engagement and interactivity on Facebook. After conducting the ethnography study, I believe that selecting guided ethnography as the final method for the dissertation was the correct choice. I believe that conducting a guided ethnography study gave me some of the responses that the interview or survey could not provide. I was allowed to directly engage with the co-participants in the creation of the narrative that related to their Facebook experience. The method allowed me to question aspects of the previous research and apply the data from the previous two methods to form a coherent narrative based on the overall research. Because of the reflective nature of this method, the level of analysis could be more complicated as there was the analysis from the guided ethnographic sessions layered on top of the meta-analysis of the overall research. This level of complexity in the study aided in the clarity of the final analysis in the next three chapters.
