HSOC-315: Digital Ethnography

Distinctions between "real" life and the cultural experiences facilitated by digital platforms are increasingly difficult to maintain. No longer spaces that merely supplement or distract from our ordinary lives, online worlds are integral to the creation and maintenance of contemporary identities, work flows, communities, and more. This class takes an ethnographic approach to understanding the variety and significance of life online. Premised on deep engagement across cultural contexts, ethnography aspires to grounded, respectful, and dialogic accounts of the everyday. Over the course of the term, students will be introduced to anthropological precedents and hands-on methods for learning about and from the digital. As global crisis forces more and more of social life online, the research tools provided in this class are of growing importance-both to scholars interested in understanding transformations to contemporary life and designers working to develop innovative and ethical solutions to collective challenges. During this course, students will learn a variety of ethnographic methods while employing them at a chosen online fieldsite. The resulting data will inform the development of a final project. Course readings and discussions will offer an introduction to debates in ethnographic theory; the application of qualitative methods in research; techniques for data analysis; as well as the politics and ethics of research.