008 - Course 02. What Do I Do When My Respondent Facebooks? Making Sense of Social Media Use in Ethnographic Research

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Abstract

The ethnographic tradition in sociology has not kept pace with an increasingly mediated social environment This workshop will address what it means to do participant observation now that digital technologies and social media are staples in the lives of many research respondents. The online world may feel less “virtual” to many of them (and us) and more like a “real” part of their (and our) social environments. This workshop will address multiple ways to incorporate this emerging digital reality as well as the sociability of these digital practices into ethnographic research. The course is designed for ethnographers who are not interested in researching new media per se (though they may find it useful as well) but are looking for ways to account for the whole of their participants’ lived experiences, which, more likely than not at this moment in history, involves a mediated component.

This workshop will address the following questions: When are mediated practices important to answering a research question? What might a researcher be missing should s/he ignore the mediated component of their respondent’s? How might one investigate an online component of a primarily offline fieldsite? What are the best ways to integrate respondents’ everyday technological practices such as texting, twittering, blogging or Facebooking into ethnographic field notes? How does one even begin to think about “thick description” in mediated environments? How might a researcher use emerging social media in their research endeavors?

This course will suggest best practices for incorporating mediated practices as a part of ethnographic research as well as interrogate ethical issues that may arise in this sort of research.

(Fee: $70.00; Participants must preregister for the Annual Meeting in order to register for this event.)

Sub Unit

• Course

Session Organizer

• C.J. Pascoe, University of Oregon

Leader

• C.J. Pascoe, University of Oregon