word munger's Journal: Ethnographic Analysis of Slashdot

After 10 years as an editor and writer of college textbooks, I have decided to return to the fray: I'm now back in graduate school, as a master's candidate in rhetoric and composition. In graduate school, you are asked to do bizarre things like "ethnographic analysis." Since it is one of my favorite communities, I have decided to do an ethnographic analysis of Slashdot.

All right, first question. What is an ethnographic analysis? Frankly, at this point, I don't have much more of an idea than you do. However, a quick Google search points to an article which appeared in JAC: an interview with Clifford Geertz, the most famous and vocal of the proponents of enthnographic research.

Here's my 99-cent summary of the method, based on what I gleaned from the interview, as well as what I found in a book I happened to find on my shelf: The Interpretation of Cultures by -- you guessed it -- Clifford Geertz [I don't know where it came from -- I certainly didn't buy it. Maybe it was required for one of my wife's college classes. Oddly, the spine hasn't even been cracked :-) ]. Geertz is critical of earlier anthropologists who claim that a ethnographic researchers should attempt to be completely unbiased, making as minimal of an impact on the community they observe as possible. Geertz argues that this proposition is preposterous. How can a nerdy, milk-white professor-type visit a balinese village and not have an impact on the community? It's impossible for such research to be objective, so rather than throw his arms up in dismay, Geertz chooses to embrace the subjectivity of the method.

Geertz says in the interview that his description of a balinese cock fight is his most famous example of ethnographic analysis. Fortunately for me, this episode happens to be included in The Interpretation of Cultures. I've just read a good chunk of it, and it truly is a fascinating read. Geertz takes pains to point out how the people of the balinese village he visited didn't really accept him until the entire village had been raided by the police for conducting a cock fight. Geertz and his wife were questioned by the police in the presence of some of the village elders, who rose to an eloquent defense of the couple -- despite the fact that everyone in the village had ignored them for weeks before. Clearly their impact on the village had been profound, even before anyone had officially taken notice of them.

The slashdot community is a much more vast and sprawling one than the tiny village Geertz observed. In this sense, I doubt my research will have the same level of impact. But you never know! My plan is to keep my "field notes" in the form of this slashdot journal. That way, any visitor to my journal can easily see what I'm up to and (if they care enough) even comment on each entry. Should be an interesting ride.

looking forward to your field notes

[MiTEG]

But I don't know how relevant other anthropologists are to research of online communities. You have to take everything you observe in a place like this with a grain of salt and assume it's a lie unless proven otherwise.

But many elements of slashdot do correlate with those in a real society; karma, friends, respect, and so on.

Re:looking forward to your field notes

[word munger]

But I don't know how relevant other anthropologists are to research of online communities. You have to take everything you observe in a place like this with a grain of salt and assume it's a lie unless proven otherwise.

But many elements of slashdot do correlate with those in a real society; karma, friends, respect, and so on.

Those are good points. I actually think slashdot is in some ways more "real" than real communities. I "know" some people better online than I do my next-door neighbors. I'm not one of those people that doesn't have any "real" friends, and I definitely value physical proximity, but online discussion is often much more sophisticated and interesting than face-to-face.

As I've mentioned, I'm new to ethnographic research, and I'm not an anthropologist, so I don't have any illusions that I'll come to some great discovery by doing this. Nonetheless, I'm fascinated by the "real" aspects of this virtual community, so it makes some sense to give it a go.