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Digital ethnography

In case you haven't noticed, BoardBuzz has recently showed (here, here and here) a renewed interest in "Web 2.0," and let our inner geek flag fly, but we have failed to provide a primer for those who may still be trying to grasp the concept. So who better to help us understand than the man dubbed "the explainer" by Wired magazine. Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist and media ecologist exploring the impacts of new media on human interaction (wonder what he majored in in college). He currently leads a digital ethnography working group, a team of cultural anthropology undergraduates at Kansas State University exploring the impact of digital technology on human interaction and human interaction on digital technology. His blog entry, Getting Started with Web 2.0, is an excellent tutorial for everyone. To facilitate this collaborative research on technology and human interaction , Wesch leverages new media. He writes:

During the first month of the semester the Digital Ethnography class of 2008 has been hard at work trying to leverage various online tools to improve our collaborative research efforts. We have managed to pull together a number of free tools into a single research platform that I think is going to work out very nicely.

Check out his Mediated Cultures: Digital Ethnography dashboard to learn more. Wesch owes his fame to a video project last year which is only a part of his broader efforts to pursue the possibilities of digital media to extend and transform the way ethnographies are presented. Millions have viewed his 2007 video explorations of technology, education, and the information revolution. His Web 2.0 video was viewed over 4.8 million times just on YouTube alone. Today, we hope to grow that number. So sit back and enjoy The Machine is Us/ing Us. We also highly recommend watching Information R/evolution and A Vision of Students Today.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on March 07, 2008 (boomark / email).