Ethnography of Open Cultural Production: From Participant Observation to Multisited Participatory Communication
This chapter engages in an in-depth discussion of the ways in which ethnography could be adapted to understand creative practices that are scattered over multiple spatial, temporal and communicative contexts. Starting with an overview of some of the impor
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Ethnography of Open Cultural Production: From Participant Observation to Multisited Participatory Communication Julia Velkova In recent decades, qualitative research has been challenged by the increase in social and cultural practices that take place in mediated contexts. Older and newer technologies of mediation have, with different intensities, been layered on each other, invented, abandoned, reappropriated, modified and recombined, forming cultures through communication (Carey 2009). Media convergence, mediated identities, redefinition of social boundaries and the transcendence of geographical boundaries are just some of the major transformations that have become increasingly entwined in people’s lives (Markham and Baym 2009, x). While technological change and, more recently, the Internet have exposed many practices previously unthinkable for qualitative research, they have also made them very complex to study and sometimes difficult even to locate. The particular area that this chapter is concerned with is the ethnographic study of alternative forms of organizing media production. More specifically, it focuses on the question of the value of ethnography for studying cultural practices and meaning-making processes that emerge
J. Velkova () Media and Communication Studies, Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 N. Wildermuth, T. Ngomba (eds.), Methodological Reflections on Researching Communication and Social Change, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40466-0_8
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in the contexts of media projects that are made predominantly in mediated contexts, by geographically dispersed individuals, through asynchronous communication, and in which the production frameworks are based on principles of openness and sharing. Typical examples of such projects include Wikipedia and the Linux operating system. Both have become strong cases in point to illustrate the new possibilities opened up to media users through technologies of communication in order to articulate alternative discourses, create their own media and infrastructures, and form networks of ‘self-communication’ (Castells 2009, 42). Some scholars have regarded these projects as emancipatory, functioning as demonstrations of viable alternatives for more democratic ways of organizing media production and of sharing knowledge (Hess and Ostrom 2011; Lievrouw 2011, 177–213). Others have seen in them an increasing trend of blurring the boundaries between media producers and consumers, forming novel forms of social organization and more horizontal power structures (Benkler 2006; Bruns 2012; Noveck 2009). These projects are therefore strongly anchored in a discourse that positions them as drivers of social change. Critical voices have, however, pointed out the need to regard them in more nuanced terms. On the surface, these projects may appear to be decentralized and democratic, but ethnographic studies have shown that, internally, they are often centralized, full of inner contradictions and regulated in comple
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