Reflections With Words

In regards to Hines, it seemed as if most of her writing was spent trying to define and then un-define virtual ethnography. The main idea that struck me was the point that along with the Internet and its vastness there is virtually no tangible thing that you can point to as the credence or representation of it all. It seems the only real kind of measurement that can be calculated is the conectiveness and activity of the community. Hines alludes to this in her fourth point, “As a consequence, the concept of the field site is brought into question. If culture and community are not self-evidently located in place, then neither is ethnography. The object of ethnographic enquiry can usefully be reshaped by concentrating on flow and connectivity rather than location and boundary as the organizing principle.”
It’s comparable, I feel, to the quote I think Greta used in one of her video’s in regards to once something exists you can’t get rid of it; you can only criminalize it. The topic regarding the implications of anonymity in public discourse relates to this in that, there are no parameters as to who, what, when where or why information has been distributed. So, just like when you try and pinpoint or define a culture that is literally floating in the airways around us and is now accessible on nearly every inch of the planet, this too is all brought into question. If you don’t know where the information came from how can you measure it’s effectiveness and influence rather than it’s reach?

In Benkler’s writing I found the studies by Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman very fascinating. Their research focused around a community where high speed Internet was available in a time before broadband was widely accessible. What they found was that people who were connected recognized three times as many of their neighbors by name and regularly talked with twice as many as those who were not wired. I immediately thought of Kevin Champion's video about the industrial revolution and suburbia damaging the tribal community. The findings by Hampton and Wellman, in some ways, bring back that tribal mentality along with connectiveness, and significance (on a much wider scale) that communities really haven’t seen in ages. I’m not sure if I’m crossing over too many boundaries with these thoughts, but in my mind I see a captivating connection.