Open AccessHOUSEHOLD DIGITAL MEDIA ECOLOGIES - METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS FOR FOSTERING RESEARCHER-PARTICIPANT TRUST
Author(s) -
Jenny Kennedy,
Rowan Wilken,
Bjørn Nansen,
Michael Arnold,
Martin Gibbs
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2019i0.10995
Subject(s) - ethnography , participant observation , citizen journalism , process (computing) , data collection , software , computer science , point (geometry) , knowledge management , mobile device , work (physics) , order (exchange) , sociology , participatory action research , data science , citizen science , public relations , business , world wide web , social science , engineering , political science , programming language , operating system , mechanical engineering , geometry , mathematics , finance , anthropology , botany , biology
In this paper, we describe a research methodology we have developed, based upon digital ethnography approaches, and which used mobile devices, digital ethnographic software and creative data collection activities. Our approach, refined over the course of a number of interconnected research projects, addressed these difficulties through a staged process – utilising traditional ethnographic techniques, but augmenting them with something more novel: the “domestic probe”. In essence, the domestic probe comprised a box of equipment given to the household to use in order to record and interpret their use of domestic technologies. In more recent work, we extended our participatory approach through the use of digital media, such as by using iPad minis pre-loaded with a data collection software tool, Ethnocorder. As we argue in this paper, these approaches carry three specific trust-related methodological benefits (and challenges): the foster trust in us as researchers; trust in our participants as co-researchers; and, as a result of this mutual researcher-participant trust, insight and a productive point of entry into discussing participant "domestication" of, and trust in, various household technologies.