Date/Time
Date(s) - 18/05/2021
13:00 - 15:00

Instructor
Karin Wenz

Categories


> Attention: This workshop is offered in the beginning of week 7 due to the high amount of holidays during week 5 and 6. Be reminded that the deadline for the workshop reflection is, thus, extended to May 18, 23:00.

Organizer: Karin Wenz

Karin Wenz is Assistant Professor for Digital Cultures at the faculty for Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University since 2003. She was principal applicant of the research project “Narrative Fan Practices, 2010-2015 and of the research project “Hacking Heritage” (2014-2015) both funded by NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). Her disciplinary profile is in digital culture with a focus on digital art and literature, digital games, and hacking. Her recent research focuses on gaming culture (theorycrafting, modding and game art, machinima), death in digital games and hacking communities. Currently she prepares a research project on Blockchain Imaginaries together with Patricia de Vries and 2 Ph.D. students. Karin Wenz is one of the editors of the peer reviewed Journal Digital Culture and Society.

Workshop description:

The workshop will consist of a short introductory lecture and group work.

The lecture will introduce you to a particular type of ethnography. Ethnography is a qualitative research methodology which commonly involves multiple methods, such as participant observation and interviewing to systematically study people and cultural phenomena. We will focus on ethnographic approaches which were developed in order to understand how individuals communicate and interact using digital technology. Such approaches have been called ‘virtual ethnography’ (Hine, 2000), ‘digital ethnography’ (Pink et al., 2016) or ‘ethnography for the internet’ (Hine, 2015). Often, they are closely related to digital social research, internet research as well as science and technology studies.

Nowadays, ethnographers (and other researchers) are confronted with the fact that digital technologies and environments have become very important for social, political, and economic practices. Thus, ethnographic methodologies are required which are tailor-made for researching how digital technologies are used, created, and how they influence our daily lives. In this course, you will explore the ethical and methodological challenges of ethnographic research, and most importantly you will get a first impression on how to conduct an ethnographic study in a collaborative, team-based setting. We will critically reflect on the implications of ethnographic approaches for researching digital developments.

During the 2nd part of the workshop small groups will be formed. Through a brainstorming activity you will have the opportunity to start thinking about potential areas of interest within the groups that can potentially be turned into solid virtual ethnography projects.

Possible communities/topics to start with could be

What are the methodology and/or methods that the workshop will cover?

The concepts virtual ethnography, digital ethnography and ethnography for the internet will be introduced and the differences explained. Students will choose a specific Online community with their teams, collect their first observations and brainstorm about ways how to further investigate the community chosen. The following questions have to be answered:

  1. Who are the participants/members of the community?
  2. What are the topics and the practice(s) the community is discussing?
  3. Are there problems to investigate the community? Are there limitations?
  4. Are there ethical questions involved in conducting research on this specific community?

To participate in this workshop, you will need to prepare the following material(s):

Sarah Pink is one of the pioneers of Digital Ethnography. Watch the following interview in preparation for the workshop:

Sarah Pink (2018). Digital Ethnography. https://youtu.be/0ugtGbkVRFM

and read the short article by Christine Hine:

Hine, C. (2016). From virtual ethnography to the embedded, embodied, everyday Internet. In Hjorth, L. et al. (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography. Routledge, pp. 21-28. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315673974.ch2

At the end of this workshop, you will have obtained the following skills:

  • you will acquire basic knowledge about the method of virtual ethnography and how it may be applied in different Online contexts
  • you will be able to reflect on the (ethical) implications of virtual ethnography
  • you will learn about the limitations of the method
  • we will discuss what kind of research questions can be answered with virtual ethnography

Workshop Format:

The workshop will be offered on Zoom and consist of a max. 1-hour live lecture on Zoom followed by 30 minutes breakout groups and 30 minutes for the groups to report back on their findings, ideas, problems they encountered.

Booking is available below from 29 April at 8:00.

Bookings

This event is fully booked.