This week’s readings brought into focus some of the central questions surrounding identity formation and presentation in online communities. As I read, I kept in mind the methods utilized by the authors and the effectiveness of these methods at getting to the core of identity formation issues. These readings lead me to ask not only what ethnography is, but also what it does and how we can conduct it successfully in online settings.
It was after reading Presentation of Self on the Web: an ethnographic study of teenage girls’ weblogs by Denise Sevick Bortree that I became most aware of the issues surrounding the use of the ethnographic method online. I was particularly disappointed with the way in which Bortree conducted her “ethnographic” study. Bortree’s main goal is to uncover the ways in which teenage girls “use blogging as a tool for self-expression, both for interpersonal communication (to friends) and mass communication (to a broader audience of teenagers)” (Bortree 2005:28). Bortree is clear that she intendeds “not to generalize but rather to explore more deeply” why teenage girls were blogging (Bortree 2005:29). Unfortunately Bortree’s study does not seem to take into account the race or class (issues central to identity) of the bloggers that she examined but rather uses a general group of teenagers that she thought appeared to be friends. Although Bortree did interview a select number of bloggers she did not interview the blogger’s whose writings she examined most thoroughly. On top of these factors I also did not get the impression that Bortree was actively participating in the online community but rather “lurking” on the blogs.
Similar to Bortree’s analysis, in danah boyd’s article Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life the concerns of ethnicity, gender and class are nodded to but never specifically addressed. Although boyd justifys her use of the term “teenager” she still groups together her informants as “primarily urban youth” (boyd: 2007:2). However, it should be noted that boyd claims to have found “that race and social class play little role in terms of access…Poor urban black teens appear to be just as likely to join the site [MySpace] as white teens from wealthier backgrounds – although what they do on there has much to do with their level on Internet access” (boyd 2007:3).
After mulling over these concerns, I came to ask, “If this is not the correct way to conduct an online ethnography then what is?” In a space where identity is so flexible and fluid is it important to know the race, gender and class of the informants that we are studying, and if we cannot meet them in person, then how will we ever know?
Upon reading J. Patrick Williams’ article Authentic Identities: Straightedge Subculture, Music and the Internet, I was able to engage with some of these methodological questions. Williams focuses on an online community of straightedge teenagers and engages with them directly by becoming an active member of their online forum as well as conducting interviews. The article specifically challenges the notion that youth subcultures revolve around music consumption, yet does not ignore that this has caused debate within the community. Williams notes that there were two kinds of forum participants, those who used the forum as a “supplement to participation in a face-to-face music scene and those whose internet use was a primary or sole source of subcultural participation” (Williams 2006:175). I appreciated Williams’ attempt to actively participate in online forum discussions with his informants, which I felt made his work more ethnographic. In the description of his methods Williams notes two strategies that he employed while conducting his research - ‘observation ethnography’ and ‘informant ethnography’ (Williams 2006:18). During the informant ethnography phase of the project Williams utilized many of the techniques of anthropologists in traditional field settings such as participation and interview as well as prolonged engagement (two years). Although I feel that this level of engagement is necessary and missing from Bortree’s analysis of blogging I also became aware of its implications.
A good example of how ethnography also works on informants can be found in a post relayed by Williams where an informant specifically addresses the negative impact of people arguing about what it means to be straightedge. After examining this post I came to wonder if Williams’ inquiries about what membership to this group meant had sparked an unusual amount of debate surrounding the topic.
My reading also called attention to the fact that these works exist inside of a particular canon of anthropological discussion of the Internet. I could not help but notice the lack of attention these pieces paid to the more political and economic aspects of computer mediated communication. While recognizing the value of these works as well as their specific subject matter, I recalled Taylor’s notion of the modern social imaginary. These authors specifically intend to investigate identity without calling into question the factors that make identity a central concern to western scholars nor did they situate identity in the spheres of race and class.
