Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Adam's Readings for 10/25

There are three readings here. Please read them in this order:

1)"YouTube's Social Network" - This is a small excerpt from Jean Burgess and Joshua Green's book "YouTube:Online Video and Participatory Culture.

2)"Ethnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication"- This is an exhaustive survey of online ethnographies with a call for integrating online and offline data with the use of computer mediated communication.

3)"Guess Who’s Coming to Work: Generation Y. Are You Ready for Them? -A short overview of millennials in the workplace."


Things to consider while reading:

1) How does researching online Youtube content fit/not-fit/blaze trails in contrast to the parameters set in "Ethnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication." (listed directly below)

“a. Because online ethnographers are not physically co-present with their research subjects, they cannot use their interpersonal skills to access and interpret the social worlds they are studying. Instead, ethnographers must develop skills in the analysis of textual and visual data, and in the interactional organization of text-based CMC.

b.The process of gaining access to the setting and research subjects is different in online ethnography because of the lack of physical presence and the resulting anonymity provided by the medium. Ethnographers must therefore learn how to manage their identity and presentation of self in visual and textual media and to do impression management via CMC modalities such as e-mail, chat, and instant messaging.

c.The blurring of public and private in the online world raises ethical issues around access to data and techniques for the protection of privacy and confidentiality. Ethnographers must learn how to apply standard principles of human subject protection to a research environment which differs in fundamental ways from the face-to-face research contexts for which they were conceived and designed.”


2)In Burgess and Green's article, they argue that YouTube is not inherently designed for collaboration or community. Given the mass population of millennials on YouTube, what characteristics of the millennial cohort are making it so?

3) The article I provided on millennials is a great representation of the majority of the literature on my generation. There is an inherent lack of case studies, or concrete examples implementing the suggestions offered by said literature. Think about Project for Awesome (P4A) and be prepared to discuss the benefits and possible obstacles that can arise in using this phenomena as an online ethnographic study within the framework of the readings.

Helpful links:
projectforawesome.com
youtube.com/vlogbrothers
(just search project for awesome 08 or 09 in youtube and look at some of the responses)

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