Qualitative research involves the logics of both inductive and deductive thinking. These are not binary opposite concepts, but rather moments, cycles of thinking and sensemaking.
Category: ethnography
Focus on conceptual and methodological frameworks for studying the use of digital media or digital technologies in everyday life, studying digital or virtual culture, or studying social contexts that are digitally-saturated.
I’m working on building my vocabulary for why and how it matters that we reflect on our mindset, our methods, and most importantly, our reason for doing social research in the first place. This exercise/essay is part of a larger set of writing projects.
What’s the difference between writing for process and writing for product or publication? I am asked this methods question frequently enough to respond in a blogpost.
Why can’t I find a qualitative methods textbook that adequately represents the challenge of doing research in/with/of what we might call the digital, technological, internet, online, or networked? Here’s my short answer.
Remix is a term that came into usage in the late 20th century to refer to the practice and product of taking samples form audio tracks and putting them together in new and creative ways.
Qualitative Analysis as Sensory Performance Annette Markham [addtoany] I am reading about synaesthesia, the blending or blurring of senses that happens when one becomes particularly attenuated to a way of knowing that eludes a single sense. I’ve been thinking about this for years, actually, drawing inspiration from naturalist writers like David Abrams or Diane Ackerman, […]
Particularly in digital contexts, the activities of fieldwork must be so radically adjusted, they hardly resemble fieldwork anymore. How much do we have to shave the square peg of ‘participant observation’ to fit it into the round hole of Twitter? And how can I take seriously someone who doesn’t problematize this practice or the outcomes?
From Network Analysis to Network Sensibilities: Part I Annette Markham [addtoany] (First of a four-part essay on my recent thoughts about using a network perspective in qualitative studies of internet-related contexts) Maybe it’s the pretty pictures generated by big data. Maybe it’s the impulse to unfocus the analytic gaze from location to locomotion. Whatever. The […]
Kenneth Gergen, on the way from Goffman to Method as Ethic. Annette Markham [addtoany] …or, similar song, different decade. Today, in thinking about research methods, I am thinking about symbolic interactionist practices, Goffman and the performance of everyday life, and reading Kenneth Gergen’s Relational Being (Oxford Press, 2009). It seems to me that to grapple […]