Ethnography
Start Date : 9th November 2019
Ethnography is the study of people’s lives and their culture through observations made on them. Ethnographic research often involves the person who is carrying out the research living with the group of people they are observing. This is so that they can observe their cultural practices as well as interview members of the community about aspects of their life. Ethnographic research is a good method for collecting primary data as it involves direct interaction with the community.
In relation to media studies, ethnography can be used to study how people interact with media. An ethnographic project conducted about online users is usually conducted in a different manner, as most of the interaction with participants happens online rather than be conducted in person.
There can be a lot of ethical issues involved in an ethnographic study such as ensuring that every participant being observed in the study is fully informed on all of the data that is being collected.
Whilst researching ethnographic research projects, I found an ethnographic project conducted on ‘Drinking Youth Culture’ This study involved the researcher observing British and Russian young people on a night out.
Personally, I feel that ethnography is one of the best research methods for collecting primary data. However, I probably would not carry out an ethnographic research project because it is very time consuming and there are a lot of ethical issues involved.
References –
Lingel,J., Gray,M.L. (2018) ‘Ethnography’. in The Craft of Criticism. Ed.by Kackman, M., Celeste Kearney,M. New York: Routledge, 169-180
Briggs, D., Gololobov, I., Ventsel, A. (2015) Ethnographic Research Among Drinking Youth Cultures: Reflections From Observing Participants [online] available from <http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol61/youth_culture.pdf> [9 November 2019]
