| The ethnographic fieldwork
was conducted at an interactive science discovery centre.
Our substantive research focus was based around the production
and consumption of ‘science’ in the context of
an educative, entertainment setting. Hence we were concerned
with the means by which the setting ‘produced’
interactive exhibits and displays of scientific principles
and the strategies of learning and sense making invoked by
‘consumers’ (children, teachers and families).
Thus the methodological aspects of the project were explored,
tested and critiqued through a substantive research project
that mapped onto existing research interests of the project
team. Through this approach we were able to contextualize
digital ethnography as an innovative and potentially fruitful
way of understanding the social world and social processes.
The methodological findings of the project have enabled us
to identify a number of issues confronting researchers wishing
to produce hypermedia ethnographies:
Coding and hyperlinking
Analysis of visual
data
Multimedia integration
Analysis/representation
Ethnography
as design
Sequentiality
Data management and
archiving
Coding and hyperlinking
There has been some disagreement in the published literature
as to whether a meaningful distinction can be drawn between
coding and hyperlinking (see Coffey et. al., 1996; Kelle,
1997, Lee and Fielding, 1991). Our work suggests that these
are related but distinct approaches to qualitative data analysis.
On the basis of our experimentation, we propose a distinction
between the largely associative activity of hyperlinking and
the indexing work of coding. Hyperlinking focuses attention
on the nature of the diverse relationships between segments
of data, whilst coding focuses attention on categories of
data segment - through assigning them to common categories.
When a piece of data is hyperlinked to another, the nature
of the relationship between them is specified (through naming
it – such as ‘this contradicts that’ or
‘this follows from that’). When a code is assigned
to a piece of data, by contrast, the relationship is usually
‘this is an instance of that’. The advantage of
hyperlinking therefore lies in its ability to help the researcher
specify the nature of the links within the data-set and to
see it as a network of semantic and thematic relationships.
Coding, on the other hand, tends to focus attention on groups
of data-segments and their content.
However, we do not conclude that coding is inferior to, or
should be replaced by hyperlinking. On the contrary, our work
has shown that a period of initial coding of the dataset is
essential before hyperlinking can proceed. Without this, hyperlinking
will be a blind process at best, with the researcher making
links through the data-set without a thorough knowledge of
its thematic patterns and main contours. Coding allows the
dataset to be thoroughly perused and its main themes noted.
Once this initial coding is complete, hyperlinking can produce
valuable results. Hyperlinking can consist of both data-to-data
links and data-to-analytical memo links. We experimented with
both of these and found that data-to-data linking is where
the innovatory potential of hypertext analysis lies, since
it forces attention on the relationships amongst data. Data-to-memo
linking is more akin to traditional coding. Both, we found,
complement each other. Back to menu.
Analysis of visual data
We identified four stages in the analysis of video data.
• Logging the time code
• Storing and capturing the footage
• Transcribing video footage
• Analysing video footage
This last is the big question that confronts hypermedia ethnographers:
to what extent should video fieldwork footage be intensively
analysed in the same way as written (transcribed) material?
In reviewing the literature on visual methods, we found an
imbalance in the extent to which procedures have been elaborated
for visual-mode and written-mode analysis, respectively. Whilst
published work on the latter is full and detailed, principles
of visual analysis for social science have been relatively
neglected (here we are referring to fieldwork images, rather
than pre-recorded images as in film or media studies). Some
studies propose coding video footage in a similar way to written
transcripts (Nastasi, 1999). But there has been concern that
coding reduces footage to a flattened plane of analysis through
disaggregating it into segments and recoding it into verbal
descriptions (Pink 2001). Such critiques relate to the well-established
disagreement between realist or ‘factist’ approaches
to image analysis (Collier and Collier, 1986) and more constructionist
approaches (Pink, 2001; Banks, 2001). The latter focus on
interrogating the relationships between viewer and image and
the contexts in which the image was made, rather than seeing
them as records of natural action. They are rarely directive
about specifying precise procedures for analysis of content
per se.
We utilised both approaches - finding it necessary to treat
our video footage both as realist records (which we coded
qualitatively according to broad content themes) and as narratives
shaped and generated by the researcher’s interactions
with specific fieldwork contexts (in which we produced a number
of edited sequences of selected field activities and processes).
We found this approach produced useful insights into the different
kinds of information yielded by the same video data. Our experience
suggests that attempts to devise intricate content coding
schemas for video will be more suited to technical fields
of inquiry (such as kinesics) rather than to the sociological
interpretation of visual records as complex representations
of social worlds. The multimodality of video footage means
that its meaning is produced on a number of levels. We found
that coding of video was most useful on the level of categorising
footage very broadly into general themes. For more ethnographically-attuned
analysis, editing the video material into narrative-governed
relationships and scenes produced deeper insights into the
interactions between filmed participants (and with the researcher
and camera). Back to menu.
Multimedia integration
Literature on visual methods now abounds, but little work
has been done on the integration of different media within
one project. We found that using multimedia encourages the
fieldworker to think of more and diverse materials as potential
data and to explore how these are inter-related. For example,
rather than routinely resorting to one method we considered
the potential of each medium for recording different kinds
of data (still photography or video? Image- or sound-recording?)
Our work underlines, however, that multimedia ethnography
is not a simple process of collecting material in different
media and then adding them together. Our findings emphasise
the distinctive ways in which different media communicate,
and indicate some support for the analysis of multimodality
proposed by linguists (see Kress and Leeuwen, 2001). Multimodality
emphasises that bringing different media together (as in a
typical web-page) produces a meaning-making environment which
is not simply a sum of the various media present. Different
media deploy different modes of meaning. Our use of various
media in our data-records (video footage, audio recordings,
photographs, scanned images, written fieldnotes) shows how
different kinds of ethnographic insight are afforded by each.
However, we found that there is no such thing as multi-media
analysis per se. Our experiments suggest that diverse media
cannot be lumped together and subjected to generic analysis.
Instead, analysis has to proceed initially by examining each
media-specific data-set in turn, i.e. photographs have to
be analysed separately from video footage and written fieldnotes.
Different procedures of analysis are applicable to different
media and contain different kinds of information – for
example, an image of a space presents it as a map, whilst
a textual account provides a narrative or itinerary of it
(see Hastrup, 1992). Analysis needs to take account of these
differences. Back to menu.
Analysis/representation
In an ethnographic hypermedia environment all data-records
can potentially be made available to the reader through hyperlinking.
The division of labour between the analysis and representational/authoring
stages of research is therefore blurred - the activity of
‘writing up’ becomes increasingly interwoven with
that of analysis. This presents both opportunities and costs.
On the one hand, it allows the writer to keep incorporating
insights and arguments right up until the moment in which
h s/he decides to end the authoring process. On the other
hand, there are two related dangers. One is that the authoring
strategy becomes impossibly unwieldy and complex. The other
is that the later stages of analysis become overshadowed by
(re)presentational considerations, so that the demands of
writing for an audience (such as readability, screen-design,
navigation, and so forth) come to govern the direction that
analysis takes. For instance, in the following steps in the
analysis process, the last two clearly impinge on decision-making
about representation:
• In initial analysis, ‘rough’ coding is
followed by intensive data-to-data and data-to-memo hyperlinking
(as above).
• In the later stages of analysis the ethnographer begins
to write analytic texts (interpretative nodes) to explicate
key aspects of the emerging analysis.
• These interpretative nodes will be hyperlinked to
selected data nodes - i.e. to the relevant data-records including,
where appropriate, video footage/montages, sound and photographs/graphical
images.
Consequently, at the end of the analysis stage, there will
be a number of interpretative nodes hyperlinked to data nodes.
In addition, where appropriate, the latter will in turn be
hyperlinked to other data nodes. In finalising these hyperlinks,
the author needs simultaneously to consider how to order and
structure them for representational purposes. Because hypermedia
analysis and representation both take place in the same medium
(the computer screen), there is bound to be a danger that
analysis will be influenced by screen-design and presentational
concerns: this is an issue that needs further acknowledgement
and discussion in the literature. Back to
menu.
Ethnography as design
We found the representation of our analysis to be a complex
part of the project. The technical parameters of the book-form
have long shaped the classical rhetorical conventions of ethnographic
writing (Atkinson 1990). In writing for and within what Bolter
(1999) calls the topographical writing space of the computer,
these cannot simply be replicated. The electronic computer
screen does not naturally lend itself to the construction
of a single rhetorical sequential narrative. Firstly, screenfuls
of dense text become unreadable: written text must be shortened.
Secondly, hyperlinking means that the reader’s experience
will be one of exploring alternative pathways, rather than
a fixed sequence of pages. Thirdly, use of the screen’s
multimedia dimensions (graphics, video, sound) need to be
carefully planned if each screen (singly and together) is
to make sense to the uninitiated reader. Fourthly, because
the medium is electronic and evolving, one may decide to allow
readers to annotate and comment, contributing directly to
the ‘text’. At the same time the ethnographic
hypermedia environment can be linked to and with other electronic
texts/web-pages, undermining the idea of fixed content boundaries.
This means that the ethnographer’s task inevitably becomes
focused on matters of design: how best to (re)present the
material to the reader on-screen? Different media have to
be co-ordinated on the screen. Hyperlinked interpretative
text has to be navigable. The data-set must be easily browsable
and disorientation avoided (see below). We found it necessary
to use the modal resources of the screen (font size and style,
colour, screen positioning and lay-out, animation, clickable
links) carefully in order to make it clear to the reader what
reading-choices to make and how to tell ‘where’
one is at any one time. This was a difficult and time-consuming
task and would have benefited from available reader-testers
to try out decisions made. Trial and error is resulting in
a series of recommendations, which we hope to test and take
forward in a future project. Here, we note that these design-tasks
are time-consuming need to be factored into such a the project.
Back to menu.
Sequentiality
Our work shows that the losses and gains of multi-linear writing
have to be carefully evaluated. It seems clear to us that
the successful communication of ethnographic interpretation
will usually require a step-by-step exegesis. So writers will
not want to lose the vehicle of a clear linear sequence in
order to present an unfolding argument (or series of arguments).
Hypertext can easily be used to ensure a default ‘next’
path through a sequence of pages. Any of these can contain
small circular detours – perhaps into the dataset –
which nevertheless deliver the reader back onto the path again.
The navigational structure can be made as simple or as complex
as required. Our hyperlinked trail leads the reader through
a sequence of argumentation and controlled exploration of
the data, through three interlinked paths. We have tried to
be reasonably adventurous with the structure in order to explore
the potential challenges. Again, the major challenge is to
keep the reader orientated.
Hypertext is well-suited to the illustration of competing
viewpoints, multiple perspectives and alternative voices (vis-a-vis
the debates in ‘post-paradigm’ ethnography over
multivocality and reflexivity). We have included some exemplars
of this potential in the prototype ethnographic hypermedia
environment, and our plans for dissemination will ensure further
experimentation in this area. Back to menu.
Data management and archiving
Preparing a good digital data archive is essential, we found,
for two reasons. Firstly, the hypermedia approach we favour
presupposes that readers of the research can explore the entire
data-set upon which analysis has been conducted. In this way,
original interpretations can be fully interrogated, alternative
readings proposed and secondary data analysis carried out.
Secondly, our experience shows that hypermedia analysis/representation
can only proceed on the basis of a very organised and well-prepared
data archive. The time-consuming preparatory work involved
in assembling will be rewarded when it comes to constructing
the ‘final’ EHE, for it will ensure that readers
can navigate and orientate themselves around the dataset while
following their interpretive trail (see above). This data-archive
should contain hyperlinks allowing the reader to browse and
navigate through the contents with ease. Back
to menu.
References
Destinations
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