JL ethnography

25
Scottish Beekeeping Association Interactive 3 November 2010 s0900191 My digital scrapbook ethnography of

description

This is my EDC ethnography

Transcript of JL ethnography

Page 1: JL ethnography

Scottish Beekeeping Association Interactive

3 November 2010 s0900191

My digital scrapbook ethnography of

Page 2: JL ethnography
Page 3: JL ethnography

“One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care.”

Leo Tolstoy

Page 4: JL ethnography

As part of the E-Learning and Digital Cultures course on the MSc in E-Learning at the University of Edinburgh I am required to carry out a short ethnographic study of an online community of my choice. I have selected the Scottish Beekeeping Association Interactive (SBAi) forum as the subject for my study.

Introduction...

As this is a mini-project I narrowed my ethnographic gaze to consider three themes: what membership means within the context of this community; the presence and impact of status and hierarchy within the community, and; whether a short lexical analysis might offer an insight into the community.

This report begins by providing

some basic background

information about the SBAi

forum, before reflecting on the

community in the context of the

three themes outlined above. I

conclude by briefly discussing

what I have learned about the

community.

Page 5: JL ethnography

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/

The SBAi forum was created in February 2010 since which time 185 members have ‘bumped into each other in cyberculture’ (Rheingold, 1993), creating a small, active community. The growth of the forum supports Bell’s view that, ‘the possibility of community arises from shared interests’ (2001: 100). An administrator oversees the forum.

The Scottish Beekeepers Association describes itself as the ‘member organisation representing Scottish beekeepers nationally and internationally’. Members of the SBA are able to keep abreast of news and engage in discussion through a blog and forum. The latter resource hosts regular discussion and is the subject of my ethnographic study.

The Scottish Beekeepers Association Interactive

Page 6: JL ethnography

Although the SBAi forum is open to public view, one can join the Community by completing an online registration form. Once registered, an individual’s status moves from Guest to Member, which bring the privilege of being able to contribute to discussion threads. Guests (unregistered) and Members (registered) are collectively termed Users.

Defining community membership

Page 7: JL ethnography

 The site itself offers no obvious background to the genesis of the forum therefore we are left with a difficulty in determining the boundary fence for the forum community: should it include all Users or simply those who have registered?  

It is common with this type of downloadable forum for the administrator to determine whether the ability to post messages should be restricted to those completing a membership form. In the case of the SBAi, the administrator may have determined to set community membership on the basis of an individual’s intention to contribute to discussion (this, after all, is advertised as an interactive forum). An alternative reading however is that the site creator introduced a ‘registration before posting’ feature in order to reduce the potential for spam or flaming.

For the purpose of this exercise,

it is tempting defer to the

definition of community

membership as those individuals

listed under the tab of the same

name.

Page 8: JL ethnography

The Community tab allows anyone to examine the profile of individual members. It is also possible to rank forum Members based upon the number of forum posts they have made. Of the 185 Members, 89 have yet to contribute towards discussion. In terms of interaction, the only thing that distinguishes these Members from Guests is that the former have registered with the site.

Activity in the SBAi hostel

Page 9: JL ethnography

Perhaps a pragmatic way of defining the membership of the SBAi community is to try and visualise the relationship between Guests, Members and the Administrator as a physical dwelling place. The forum itself could be seen as a hostel, managed by the Administrator and inhabited by Members.  

Guests are welcome to visit the hostel, however they will be regarded as just passing through until such time as they intimate a desire to take an active involvement in the community. They can follow what takes place in the hostel, but they can’t participate in any of the activities (which isn’t to say that all of the Members necessarily contribute very much to daily life in the hostel).

Page 10: JL ethnography

Once a User has signed in at the hostel door, they are given a name badge that denotes their place within the community, beginning with Junior Member (although if Robert Kozinets is at reception when they arrive, he’ll give them a Newbie badge instead).

Newbie

The new arrivals might not appreciate the connotations of being an apprentice community member, but unlike the users outside (known inside the hostel as Lurkers), they at least have a voice.

Typology

Page 11: JL ethnography

Assuming they take an active part in discussion around the dinner table, the Junior Member will graduate to become a Member (or Mingler or Devotee depending on the nature of their interaction), the qualification for which is having made between 30 and 99 forum posts). Finally, after making 100 posts they will earn the status of Senior Member (or Insider).

Page 12: JL ethnography

Out of 185 SBAi Members, 7 are Senior Members, 8 are Members and 172 are Junior Members. In fact 25 Members have never posted, while 44 ‒ almost a quarter of the entire community - have posted only once or twice. It is clear that levels of immersion and investment within the community vary dramatically.

A community within a community

Page 13: JL ethnography

Of 2501 forum posts, 1498 (60%) are attributed to the six Senior Members of the community. In effect, there is a community within a community, with a reasonably small hardcore of around 10-15 particularly active participants, surrounded by a much larger, almost dormant (in terms of interaction) group of users on the periphery.

Page 14: JL ethnography

 The hierarchy that exists however seems appropriate considering how the site is used. Many Members consult the forum with a view to harvesting advice on beekeeping or to have a specific bee-related question addressed. They are drawn to the site in search of an individual or community of experts. As the SBAi is based around a physical world activity, newcomers might naturally defer to perceived experts as they would in ‘real life’.

This automatic determining of

status based upon interaction

establishes an apparent hierarchy

within the forum. The advertised

distinction between Member status

challenges what Kozinets (2010)

describes a ‘status equalization’

effect within the online community.  

Status & hierarchy

Page 15: JL ethnography

As this is a mini-project I narrowed my ethnographic gaze to consider three themes: what membership means within the context of this community; the presence and impact of status and hierarchy within the community, and; whether a short lexical analysis might offer an insight into the community.

It should be noted that the presence of a hierarchy should not necessarily be seen as negative in this context. On the contrary, the regular input of a hardcore of Senior Members seems to offer the forum momentum. Put simply, without the enthusiasm of Gavin, Jon, Stromnessbees and other regular contributors, there is no forum.

Page 16: JL ethnography

As part of her ethnographic study of the Schome Park community in (Teen) Second Life, Gillen (2009) carried out a lexical analysis of virtual world discussion. For my small-scale exercise I chose to ‘interrogate the text’ by pasting the content of one month’s worth of discussion into Wordle, with the intention of creating a diagrammatic representation of discussion. This would also provide a ‘frequency list of words’ (p67). In contrast to the experience of Gillen however, ‒the numerical frequency of words reveals relatively little about the group (see below).

A (short) lexical analysis

Page 17: JL ethnography

The second part of my lexical analysis (on the next page) is more informative. The Wordle diagram ‒ which automatically excludes smaller words ‒ displays the size of words based upon their frequency within forum discussion over the month.

However, by ignoring the smallest words (it, and, the etc), it is possible to identify a tendency towards language centred on enquiry: how, when, why. This is consistent with the idea of the forum as a digital space for increasing individual and collective understanding of beekeeping.   

Page 18: JL ethnography
Page 19: JL ethnography

Also worthy of note is the

presence within the diagram of

the names of some contributors

(Gavin, Eric, Jon). This again

emphasises the dominant role

within discussion of a

committed hardcore of Senior

Members.

The Wordle diagram highlights the major topics of discussion: brood, colonies, sugar, bees, honey. This is significant as it demonstrates that the community is concerned with the topic of beekeeping rather their own status as an online group ‒ there is little mention of the forum itself within discussion.

Page 20: JL ethnography

We might also learn about the community from the overall tone of discussion, which could be described as friendly, polite and correct. It is possible to detect a general sense of warmth and positivity in the forum. The enthusiasm that users have for beekeeping in the physical world seems to merge into their online discussions, supporting Gillen’s view (2009: 66) that, ‘we might not necessarily locate a hard-and-fast boundary’ between the virtual and real world.

 The atmosphere of positivity may be linked to the dominance of a relatively small number of contributors who have a strong investment in the forum. As Kozinets (2019: 24) suggests, when members of a community envisage engaging in future discussion they, ‘will act in a friendlier way, be more cooperative, self-disclose, and generally engage in socially positive communications’. In addition, it is clear friendships have developed within the forum.

Community investment

Page 21: JL ethnography

Rheingold (1993) in Bell (2001) suggests that the virtual community might be seen as ‘a bit like a neighbourhood pub or coffee shop’. In a similar vein, I choose to imagine the SBAi forum as a comfortable and homely garden shed where one can enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of cake whilst chatting about matters beekeeping.

Page 22: JL ethnography

 From my viewing position, I witnessed a small, active and overwhelmingly positive community that radiates warmth and openness. This is a place where ideas are shared and friendships formed.

When I embarked on the quest to carrying out an ethnographic study of an online community, I was concerned that I should treat the subject ‒ and its members - with respect. This meant keeping my distance from the SBAi forum so that discussion should continue unmolested. The approach I chose then was to travel inside the world of SBAi ‘by looking, by reading, by imaging and imagining’ (Hine, 2000: 45).

Conclusion

Page 23: JL ethnography

Although members are technically allocated a status based upon level of participation, this community does not appear to suffer from any negative connotations of rank. Instead, there appears to be a respectful acknowledgement that when it comes to beekeeping, some members of the community have more real world experience than others.

 One of the most significant

lessons I learned was when a

group of individuals has a strong

passion for a physical world

activity, their enthusiasm can

spread to create a vibrant, warm

and buzzing online community.

 ...I also learned quite a lot about bees.

Page 24: JL ethnography

References:

Bell, David (2001) Community and cyberculture, chapter 5 of An introduction to cybercultures. Abingdon: Routledge. pp92-112 [e-book]

Gillen, G (2009) Literacy practices in Schome Park: a virtual literacy ethnography, Journal of Research in Reading, 32(1), 57-74.

Hine, C (2000) The virtual objects of ethnography, chapter 3 of Virtual ethnography. London: Sage. pp41-66

Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage. pp. 21-40

Page 25: JL ethnography

2 November 2010 s0900191