Thursday 8 December 2011

November in Schulich School of Business

That is the problem I have always had with writing diaries - discipline and regularity. But now, almost half a year after my last post, here I am again. Last week I have received mail from new media researcher from Budapest proving that actually someone is reading this blog :) So after long months of lack of enthusiasm (and activity here) I am starting up again.

For the whole November I have left my homeland Poland and (thanks to grant from my university) went to York University in Toronto, Canada. The main aim of my visit was Schulich School of Business and especially Robert Kozinets, the author of nethnography method and this book.

I have already discussed the netnographic method of the Internet research here expressing some doubts. Now I had great opportunity to discuss my questions with the team of researchers actually coding and developing the method.

Netnography seems to be most suitable tool for researching online forums. Here the possibilities of observation, interaction, analysis of discoursive practices (access to archives!) and simply gaining access to community (for interviewing) are the best. Netnography however seems to lose its impact when it comes to investigating social network sites as Facebook. How to apply the method to this new form of online social activity?

In this case participation (so obvious and easily achieved on forums) is much more complicated. The researcher can follow some fan sites and groups - as easy as clicking Like it button. But how can he or she participate in a social group gathered on Facebook? Great amount of users protect their sites from the stranger's eye. First researcher need to become online friends with members of the community he/she is investigated. This situationa quite dramaticaly changes the classical researcher-researched relation.
In traditional ethnographic filed researcher is present in a given (limited) time frames. The relation with the observed community might have been intense and close but ended some time. What should I do with my researched FB friend after my research project is finished? Should I delete him/her? If I "keep" this relationship it will include the field in my everyday life much more than in case of offline filed research. On the other hand deleting such "friend" when the research is done points out vividly the objective, exploitive aspect of the relation (with getting rid of the informant researcher no longer needs).
In general the idea of becoming friends with respondents, gaining access to all their private comments, posts, photos, lists of their friends and their posts, photos is a little bit redifining relationship between researcher and his/her object in offline inquiry. This change is even more dramatic as far as amount (and quality) of information the investigated community has about the researcher. In the offline field researcher plays his/her social/professional role. Researcher shapes the relation with the community basing on this role. What is new in Facebook field is the threat of the loss of authority of the researcher. Not only he/she has open access to community members' profiles but also vice versa. Respondents can easily find researcher's easy comments, favourite songs and films, photos from crazy parties. I do not state it has bad influence on the researcher-community relation, maybe it can even make the communication smoother and easier but I do see some very basic differences between ethnographic and netnographic procedure and researcher-field relation.

It came as a surprise to me, that (as far as I know) most of the netnographic research actually performed by Kozinets and his team is not as participatory as I have expected from the method. It seemed to me that it is rather content and discoursive analysis followed by the interviews than becoming part of the community, "being one of them". To tell the truth it was where I have seen the biggest charm and value of this method.

The chance to talk to the "nethnographic team" at York University was a great opportunity to express my doubts - as it turned out they have similar. Robert Kozinets is now working on application of the method to the SNS as Facebook. I am really looking foreward his new text. At the York University I had opportunity to present my research project (where netnography is one of the core tools). Within next few days I will present it here as well.