Digital Literacies

We all now know that poor old Gordon got caught unawares talking about a prospective voter in unflattering terms. After a walkie talkie stroll a couple of weeks ago, he had to try and be diplomatic with a woman who had (at best) some seriously strange views and weird questions to ask. At worst, she was a bigot – and maybe many of us would agree.

I think it is very normal to do what Gordon did; grin and bear it, be polite to her face, and slag her off afterward. This according to most linguistic ethnographers is normal; Ron Carter found that the most common topic of everyday talk is about other people. Also sociologist Erving Gofmann would say that Gordon just wanted to save the woman’s face and not attack her in public; so was polite to HER, but then slagged her off after. I know we all pretend we don’t do this; but you and I know, that this is what we all do.
The advent of new technologies meant that Gordon got caught being normal. He thought he was talking in private, but his comments were broadcast publicly because he left his microphone switched on. So he attempted to talk privately; journalists overheard, and then publicized it across worldwide media. Gordon was revealed saying something in private, and the reaction given was outrage. He was slated in the press for this incident days and weeks after. I anticipate it will be re-called repeatedly in years to come. Poor Gordon.

Technology broadcast the words of Paul Chambers also, in ways he had not anticipated. Tweeting in exasperation about the closure of Robin Hood airport, he joked to his friends (he thought) that he would blow up the place:

“Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”

Poor old Paul; his tweet got read by a wider audience than he imagined, and he was contacted by the police … then done for time wasting.

How many of us tweet away; rabbit on on Facebook; blather on our blogs; (etc) without ever dreaming that more than our envisaged readership is reading?

We often forget how technology can make what we think of as a private space, a public one. By the same token, we sometimes confuse a public space with a private one.
We have to learn to be careful with new technologies. (Even when we remember their power most of the time …. sometimes we forget).

Here’s some nice technology for teachers:

Some time back, on this blog, I talked about ‘researching both ends’. this is about the need, when researching what is going on online, to take account of people’s offline contexts when they involve themselves in online text production. It is not enough to just look at what is online if you are carrying out ethnographic work, as so much of what happens online has roots in, or is influenced by offline contexts.

Fields and Kafai (2008) talk about ‘Connective ethnography’ which sounds altogether more sensible – in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (2009). 4:47–68 They talk about how young people share knowledge in on and off line spaces in order to progress in the virtual world Whyville.

There are those who are now beginning to reject the idea of ‘Virtual ethnography’ since off line worlds are not completely separate from online spaces – we see much evidence of the replication of off line spaces in online spaces; and we also see how online spaces are used to do the social work needed to maintain off line relationships (and I am aware here of the clumsiness of my terms offline and online lives etc.) Rybas and Gajajjala prefer the term cyberethnography – emphasising the way in which the human is behind the digital activities.

I am going to explore all this stuff as it relates not just to the importance of getting the methodology right, but also to the whole issue of identity as it relates to digital activities.

*(Title refers to a paper: PublicDisplays)

Interviewing a group of 17 – 18 year old students about their uses of Facebook yesterday reminded me of a few things. Firstly, that there are a great many ways of engaging with the same thing; secondly, that even if the activities that young people are involved in over time might change superficially, young people remain pre-occupied with the same identity and social issues as ever.

Before I explain, I think maybe I should say that I don’t think I will try to discuss anything and audio record it, with as many as eight people again! That aside, it was very useful to have done this, as it reminded me of the dynamics that exist amongst young people who are attending courses together and how they banter and tease etc etc This was a good reminder of the meatspace stuff that inevitably filters into the Facebook activities.

Number one finding – the students all told me that they did not like completing their Facebook profiles; most had only put in their name, photo, date of birth and city where they live. After that, they say they rarely update their status; they do not write on their wall, and don’t like it when others do so. They said they mainly chat on the instant messaging facility in Facebook and that they also join groups. The groups are for joining and looking at , but they rarely write anything. They spend a lot of time looking at girls’ photos, talking with each other about them and trying to get the girls to ‘add’ them as friends. So my first point is that while there is a lot of looking, & some reading happening, there is not much writing or much straying across to lots of other sites to get links etc

The boys are making lots of collections however; they have lists of which groups they belong to (automatically created by Facebook) and they can display, in their ‘friends’ section, the profile pictures of the girls they have managed to add; there is something here of the collector; the groups are about funny things and the girls are to do with sexuality. (Many of the pictures of the girls’ pix are sexually provocative etc). These are the public displays of connection the boys seemed keen to share on their Facebooks.

This was all a really fascinating wake up call for me and reminded me of stuff I had been writing about ten years ago for my PhD thesis around boys’ demonstrations of hetero-normative masculinity in school…. (Paper here: expressionsofgender)…. In the classroom, I noticed these demonstrations had to be made on a regular basis, so that they would be construed always as ‘proper’ male and as heterosexual. In the classroom, such displays were often highly disruptive, anti-academic and anti feminist. In being interviewed, in showing me the Facebook pages, the students continued to banter the whole time, licking each other into shape, making each other behave in the hetero- normative ways. I liked this group of kids; don’t get me wrong. But they are a far cry from the Facebooking people I had been envisaging for a while – who have been writerly, keen on presenting themselves in text and looking for alternative possibilities. These boys were reflecting their college selves into their Facebook selves, that’s true. But the digital revolution is not one that is transforming these essential aspects of young men.

When I have managed to transcribe the recordings, there will be more to say no doubt.

Below we have a piece from Charlieissocoollike – with his take on teenage boys. Charlie is clearly VERY middleclass and has now, I noticed, got an international following of adoring girls. These girls make video responses to his films and echo many of the techniques that he sees in his work. A fascinating cultural phenomenon – we see some memes across these videos – some of which are multimodal – but I do not see Charlieissocoollike as demoonstrating anything like what is typical in Internet use. Anyhow – have a laugh at this:
.

There is something very Adrian Mole and certainly very English in all this. Now a video response from a fan in Australia ….

(!!)

A few weeks ago we had a post-graduate research day for the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth at Sheffield. The theme was Children as Participants in Research – with an emphasis on involving young people in the research process. The idea is, that by involving participants in the research process, such as collaborating with them about what to look at, how to analyse, collecting data, and so on, it makes the whole business of research more open and respectful – therefore more ethical.

I do agree that it is good to involve research participants – and I also think that children and young people are more likely to be overlooked in the consultation process. Indeed, the theme for the day’s event was chosen by me (as co-ordinator for post graduate events in the Centre.) So while I offer some reservations in this post, I do at the same time, believe that it can be really good to collaborate with others when carrying out research and I do believe it is a good idea – but it is not essential for ethical work.

We should be cautious. It is not always going to be the case that research participants WANT to be active in gathering data, even making up research questions and so on. They may like to be involved in a research project but may not have an interest further than that. Just because we as researchers are interested in data analysis and so on, does not mean our research participants necessarily are. In this case, I think that we need to respect those people who do not want to collaborate with us, and we should respect researchers who do not always involve participants – it may be that there are good reasons not to do so. I think we can be over zealous sometimes and almost seem as if we are bludgeoning people to become involved – in order to make an ethical point for the methodology section of our articles!

Secondly, the postgrad. day seemed to involve a LOT of ethnographic research; this method has a lot to recommend it in terms of ethics alone. The method, involving multiple ways of gathering data over a long period of time, typically with the researcher getting ‘immersed in the field’ and aiming to acquire a ‘thick description’ of what is happening. Data might include, photos; video; audio recordings of events; notes jotted down; selected items from within the field – pictures drawn by people, notes made; in fact evidence may be items produced by the participants or by the researcher. Data for an ethnography could be virtually anything from within the field and which seems to be of significance to the research focus.

I have carried out a number of ethnographic studies looking at online spaces – such as Flickr and also eBay and Blogs. In doing so I have spent ages looking at the online space, tracing threads across the sites, talking to people involved in the sites and so on. The method attempts to try and eliminate that whole “researcher superiority” thing; it does not set up experiments and look at how people react. It looks at what people are doing in context and seeks to understand what happens ‘naturally’, as life goes on. Intervention is anathema to the ethnographer because it is about understanding the culture as it is. To do an experiment of some kind, or to even ask a series of questions from a list would be seen as intrusive, forcing a paradigm or values system on the data. Ethnography seeks to understand how the people of a particular culture operate and what THEIR values are; o have a list of questions brings in your own framework or way of seeing. In ethnography, researchers don’t take the moral high ground and try not to impose their values . I like doing ethnography and you can end up feeling very involved in the research project with this method. I like it as a method… but it is just one way of looking.

It is important in analysing for an ethnography that you try to understand the values of the people in the research space. To do this well, you need to be able to try and put aside your preconceived ideas of the culture and the people. You need to try and come to it without judging and this is very hard as it requires a lot of honesty from the researcher about who they are, what values they have, and what influences the way they interpret what is happening. I think the difficulty involved in being circumspect should not be underestimated.

I have therefore recently been thinking that I also like the approach where people are interviewed and where the researcher does NOT necessarily hang around all the time. This is because in interviews the research participants never forget that they are being researched and therefore can control what they let the researcher know (very important in terms of ethics); secondly that the researcher does not hang around for ages in places where people want to feel private. With interviews or questionnaires, the participants KNOW at all times what the researcher is looking at and can more easily object – unlike when the ethnographer takes notes that the participants may not be aware of, or takes a picture that the participant was not expecting, etc.

My example is my planned research on Facebook; I will only be interviewing young people. I will not look at their Facebook without them present and I will not keep going back to talk to them. I want to let them get on with their lives and not feel that they are being watched by some weirdo researcher lurker. This is a new way of researching for me and I hope it is going to be OK. (Usually I am a weirdo lurker researcher).

Here are some birds hunting for stuff too … (thanks Ahmed for sending me this picture)

Photo by Ahmed Frewan: Birds

So all in all, I think that we should not assume that participants who agree to be in our research project actually want to DO the research; secondly I would like like to say that in some instances, what might appear to be less sensitive, procedural research, (eg interviews) might sometimes be construed as more sensitive.

…. the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has warned …..

See the BBC report here.

It’s a funny old world. Surely people who use facebook are aware of the difference between making contacts on Facebook and making ‘real’ friends. The archbishop’s concerns are around the way people are using text instead of face to face interaction….

Archbishop Nichols said society was losing some of its ability to build communities through inter-personal communication, as the result of excessive use of texts and e-mails rather than face-to-face meetings or telephone conversations.

He said skills such as reading a person’s mood and body language were in decline, and that exclusive use of electronic information had a “dehumanising” effect on community life.

Interesting idea – ‘excessive use of texts or emails’ …. I admit I get fed up of too many emails but this is because they signify an increased workload over the decades. This is not about reduced capacity to communicate – maybe even the reverse.

I am not aware of the research that says we can no longer read each other’s body language – and must admit I doubt this. I would argue that Facebook (and other sites) are not used instead of face to face communication for most people – but ‘as well as’ . It is about keeping in contact when it is not possible to see each other. Thus for the majority this kind of virtual contact is additional to other kinds of interactivity. Take Twitter users for example – the 140 word quickies mean that we can keep in touch on the hoof and that we are able to balance a whole range of complex relationships whilst doing other things at the same time. We are perfectly aboe to read the body language of others as well … especially that rolling eye movement when people discover you are addicted to Twitter!

Further it cannot be underestimated how powerful it is to meet somebody for the first time who you previously only knew online. But anyhow, that aside, it is the case also (e.g. see Sonia Livingstone’s work or Benkler ) that most young people keep in contact with just those people who they already know through face to face networks.

Finally, there are many people whose only networks are through online interactivity. I am talking here of people who are isolated through disability, illness – or even because they are carers – who find great friendships in online communities. To be forever reading in the press that such relationships are not good enough or are of lesser quality is a value judgement that puts such individuals in a deficit space. It is bad enough to be isolated without having condemnatory remarks made about what may be the only relationships that exist beyond the home for some people.

Nice little vid showing how the world can go ALL WRONG if we start behaving in RL how we behave in Facebook…. (don’t have nightmares now) ….

Gosh. I wish I had known this before. Apparently going on Twitter and Facebook (etc) can lead to Cancer. It has got everybody all of a flutter (as well as twitter) commenting on articles and on blogs all over the place. (They should know better).

The National Health Service ran this summary of the report; it seems that the ’study’ upon which the report is based is largely data free. The report argues that social networking sites actually ISOLATE people. Gosh. So much for my little blog post yesterday. Even the infamous badscience blog gives the ’study’ a mention but does try to exert self control.

Gosh. Why oh why are people so scared of online social networking? They are funny. Honestly I sometimes think they are joking. But it’s not really funny that they are saying these things cause cancer. I am having enough trouble keeping off the red wine. (or on it).

Twitter can help save lives as well though – since it allows surgeons to communicate quickly and effectively, supporting each other across the network as they operate.

Just to show I am not a complete cynic, I like this website about science.

but hey, I have been busy.

Thank Goodness I have a short break now before the new academic year. (Although Guy and I do need to finish that book (2009, we hope) Web 2.0 for Schools: Learning and Social Participation for this series before end of August … but it’s coming along …)

This last few weeks I have been to this conference hosted by UKLA – did a keynote with Guy that links into our new book (did I mention that?)

And then moved on to Mississauga, near Toronto where I did a summer school with Guy, Colin and Michele. That was fun. here is the slideshow of my keynote on the interface between Flickr and Streetart (and stuff).

Am now in New Jersey, having a fabulous time meeting Flickr Friends and partying.

Been looking at streetart as usual:

had our first ever facebook party. Met so many interesting people.

(Thanks to TT for image.)

It is a year since the Information Commons opened at The University of Sheffield.

What better way of celebrating than viewing a YouTube video filmed in that luscious space…

The popularity of YoTube is immense and in a recent piece of research I found that this is the favourite website of 24/24 interviewees aged between 16 and 18 . What is the attraction … well for the most part it is WATCHING videos and then talking about them on MySpace, Bebo or Facebook. It is a vital part of online conversation. Videos most watched are music videos ..’ so you don’t have to buy them’ and ‘funny videos’ . they did tell me that they would love to make videos and upload and would like to learn how to do this in school….

Seems to me that just as on other social networking sites, people do stuff in order to upload to YouTube… not ust about recording stuffalready going on. Look at this bit of naughtiness as students trespass on the roof of the infamous Arts Tower.

The message was spread mainly via Facebook for everyone to KEEP STILL and FREEEEZE yesterday at 3.30p.m. in Trafalgar Square.

People turned up from all over the country to take part in a massive piece of art work – a community event which begins online, moves off line to the real world and is reported and documented online again.

Enabled by the web these flash mob games continue through the world.

At one time I used to receive loads of ‘jokes’, stories, images (usually sexist, laughing at how stupid men/women are) even prayers on email.
These have died down now – maybe as people have tired ofthese things, or maybe because I rarely responded to the ones sent to me (perhaps everyone else gets as many as they used to) . I think that what they do is kind of ‘poke’ people, reminding them of who they cpuld interact with if they want to, in the same way as facebook does I suppose. And maybe now a lot of this kind of phatic socialisation and development of in-jokes has transferred to facebook, Bebo and so on and on.

Anyway I got this today:

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids
in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s probably shouldn’t have survived, because
our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was
promptly chewed and licked.

Yes, you’re getting old!!

I admit to having quite liked reading this and felt a bit smug and thought ‘oh yes!! That’s true – especially as I started remembering spending days roller skating while pushing along my old dolls pram filled with stuff.There are myths and tropes about today’s kids, yesterday’s kids and today’s adults. I guess the meme within this whole thing is the one that has persisted over generations which is that in the old days, people had it tougher and it did them good.

Certainly the author of ‘Toxic Childhoods’ has a rose coloured notion of the past and probably has loadsa conversations about the good old days.

But I am not glad I have thirteen amalgam fillings in my teeth; that my Mum used to cut a hole in the front of my winter shoes to turn them into summer sandals; or that Sundays were so endlessly endlessly boring; or that oneof my junior school teachers smoked in the classroom and that kids got whacked on the hands, legs or face if they did stuff wrong in school. Don’t et me wrong, I enjoyed my childhood and it is quite thought provoking getting these kinds of email from time to time. (And it is this that shows my age – I can talk about my childhood and know that it was very very different in so many ways to that of ‘kids today’.