So, in my desire to have witty titles for my posts, I sometimes (always?) come up with something lame. Like I just did. Sorry. I also apologize if some of the ideas expressed here end up in my presentation. Redundancy seems to be my forte and also my strong point.
Strange organization notwithstanding (am I the only one who feels this way?), I actually really enjoyed this week's reading. I found it interesting and engaging, and as with last week's reading, it prompted me to think more about what I can do in my own practice to make for better research.
Something that I thought about (that I may or may not address on Tuesday) is that all of reality TV seems to be one large ethnography experiment, where show producers, editors, and audiences participate in observation without ever necessarily writing about it. We are all familiar with the experience of watching something closely, looking for patterns, and trying to make predictions about what will happen next.
I like what ethnography produces, which is at its most basic form a story: a story of people, of their actions, their surroundings, their likes and dislikes, with the ultimate goal of...what? Understanding. Ethnography doesn't necessarily set out to prove that Factor A causes Behavior B (although it might), and it isn't about producing statistics. It is about understanding behavior and people and practices. Also, am I the only person who actually wants to read all of Ben's field notes because they sound interesting?
I appreciated how Berg acknowledged that all researchers are subjective, and I appreciated that he seemed to encourage researchers to fess up to this and allow it to be a part of the research. It may be easy to be objective when studying tissue cells (though maybe not?), but when you're studying people you inevitably become invested in their stories. Furthermore, you have your own reasons for doing the research in the first place, and your own lens through which you view the world, and all of these things affect the research process and any conclusions you may draw from the research.
Okay, I'm at 331 words, and I don't even feel like I've said about half of what I want to. I guess I'll save it for the presentation. What I would like from you is some feedback about the following idea:
In Hands on a Camera, we usually do our project in two or more schools, with three to five teachers at each. This coming semester we want to focus more on refining the curriculum and keeping costs low (economy, you have foiled us again!), and so we are likely to have seven or eight teachers at one school. This significantly lessens the workload for each teacher, so something I'm considering having them do is a little bit of a mini ethnography as well. I always have them write field reports (though they're not nearly as detailed as the ones described in the reading), but I might want them to write more detailed field notes from the time when they are not actively teaching. This is a research project, and I think that we could do even more to beef it up. I think this would be better for the students (especially since some of them want to be documentary filmmakers, and documentary filmmaking seems to be one significant form of disseminating an ethnography--more on that Tuesday), and more informative for the overseeing teachers. Usually at the final exam I give a final interview, but I think that final would be something more like a paper instead where they synthesize their field notes.What do you think? What complications am I missing? What would make this difficult?
3 comments:
It’s an interesting idea you present here, what with reality TV and all…I can just picture the group of researchers in the back room, examining the data that comes in from these shows. But, now that I write the words, I’m thinking that market research probably would fit in here a bit, wouldn’t it? The interest in the particular group of people who are attracted to a specific show/product? Maybe it wouldn’t be ethnographic, but if you look at it from a specific standpoint, you may find a few stories in there.
Now, regarding your Hands on a Camera idea, I think that there’s serious merit here. (I’m assuming here that the “students” who would be writing the mini ethnographies are the BYU students?) In addition to providing more data for the program, it will also introduce the students to the research process, which will be incredibly beneficial for them. As with anything, the initial “set up” or frontloading will probably generate more work for you as you will have to explain the process in detail, but that may even be helpful for you to work through it and anticipate what could/should happen at various junctures. The first time through is always the roughest, but you’ve got to start somewhere. I think this sounds awesome.
Your question of ethnography stumps me a little, not because I don't believe there is value to the proposition, but would it necessarily be adding value in the right way? I have read over the site for Hands on a Camera, but for you, Erika, what is your goal(s) with Hands on a Camera? What are you truly trying to accomplish? You could have them do an ethnographic study, but would such a study actually be achieving the goals of your organization? Sorry. I'm a business organization manager and you never do things because they seem like a good idea (though this is an entirely too common thing to do). You do things because they add value toward accomplishing your goals. That's not to say that having them do this kind of study doesn't provide just that - it just depends upon what you're trying to achieve.
I think that's a great idea for HOAC. I think that will make a big difference in how the teachers understand the project as well as aiding the student in telling the story they want. I can imagine looking at footage and wondering why I shot it (not that I would ever do that), but having the notes of what was going on would lead to better stories.
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