A Digital Ethnography of Teach For America: Ethnographic Analysis of the Truth For America Podcast

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Abstract

A growing number of Americans are listening to podcasts, according to survey data from Edison Research. In fact, Americans listen to 21 million hours of podcasts every day (Willens, 2015). According to the Pew Research Center, 21% of Americans age 12 or older say they have listened to a podcast in the past month (Vogt, 2016). They also report that 36% of American have ever listened to a podcast – doubling since 2008 (Vogt, 2016). As a result, many conversations in the public have shifted to digital forums (written and audio).

Traditional ethnography, often employing participant observation (Angrosino, 2008; Rapley, 2009), seeks to understand meanings, meaning making – particularly as it filters through culture(s), while offering interpretations (Geertz, 1973, 1988). Coles and Thomson, in summarizing the work of Mills and Morton (2013), suggest that ethnography can take an “intuitive and experimental” approach to understanding by “assum[ing] an interpretive position, understanding ethnography as a process of taking back and forth between theoretical concepts and empirical materials” (Coles & Thomson, 2016, p. 254). Along those lines, digital ethnography is an emerging form of ethnographic research (Willens, 2015). Murthy writes,

As social interactions increasingly move online, it is imperative that we respond critically… new media and digital forms of ‘old media’ are additional, valuable methods…For the novice and expert alike, the combination of participant observation with digital research methods into a ‘multimodal ethnography’ (Dicks et al., 2006) may provide a fuller, more comprehensive account. This is especially true with the inclusion of conflictual or ambiguous data from social networking sites, anonymous chat rooms, and blogs. (Murthy, 2008, p. 849)

Toulouse argued that the state of flux in which web sites, blogs, forums, and social networking sites operate ‘defies conventional research methodologies’ (Toulouse, 1998).

This paper will represent a digital ethnography in education policy. The research undertakes an ethnographic analysis of an education policy podcast entitled Truth For America. Truth For America is a podcast about Teach For America (TFA) that provides voice to educators, parents, students, and other key stakeholders. Truth For America is co-hosted by Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig and Dr. T. Jameson Brewer. Currently the podcast has 12 episodes and about 15,000 listeners. Truth For America is free and publicly available on iTunes and YouTube.

In this digital ethnography, we focus on examining how 20 educators describe the impact of neoliberal reforms through TFA (connections to charter schools, changes to leadership preparation, and policy outcomes) and what happens in their classrooms. We look forward to sharing this ground breaking digital ethnographic research.

References
Angrosino, M. (2008); Coles, R., & Thomson, P. (2016); Geertz, C. (1973); Geertz, C. (1988); Murthy, D. (2008); Rapley, T. (2009); Toulouse, C. (1998); Vogt, N. (2016); Willens, M. (2015).

Authors

• Julian Vasquez Heilig, California State University, Sacramento

• T. Jameson Brewer, University of North Georgia