Reading Reflections: 2/9

When I signed up for this class, I had no anthropology experience - other than physical anthropology - and I had no idea what ethnography meant. When people asked me what the word meant, I just said it was anthropology so we must be studying people's behavior.

After reading the Hine article, I definitely have a much further understanding of ethnography as an in-depth study of a certain aspect of human behavior. It gives me more of an understanding of what this class is and what is expected of me as a student of this class.

That being said, I took several points from the article that we could use in the overall Digital Ethnography project. The thing that makes the Internet such a popular form of media is its interactivity - which was also mentioned in the "Wealth of Networks" article. We should not just find a way to make our own project interactive - as we have discussed over the listserv, but we also need to look at how anonymous interactivity has driven the increased use of the Internet, Youtube, Flickr, etc.

For my own project, I feel I could improve it dramatically by studying the interaction of "Anonymous" posters on media reports and how they support each other while not supporting each other at the same time. This would involve a more in-depth examination of say the Youtube video of Fox 11's report on Anonymous. I would examine the comments posted to find a pattern - if there is one - to the perception of the media report.

Falling in line with the "Wealth of Networks," this examination of media reports and the public's perception of them through online comments, will most likely agree with findings in the article that show that people form a weak relationship with people - maybe exchange a few comments with other posters - but quickly move on to other Internet endeavors.