reflection over benkler & hine`

where do i even begin with this? i have so many thoughts racing through my head that i mite sound a bit chaotic...i will try and put some order to my thoughts here :)

starting with benkler i have to say i love the 2 chunks of writing in the epigraph...both encompass an idea that is at the very root of my research (i.e. human nature and the essence of which is the human condition). accounting for the fact that human nature is not something that can be easily categorized and confined is a big part of what we are doing here. it also makes our research exciting in the sense that we are always having to account for the fact that there are many factors pushing and pulling us into the roles that we take on both on and offline.

when it comes to the historical aspect of what we are doing i have to say that i am a bit perplexed at what direction to take. it seems that a study of anonymity throughout history requires an inquiry of identity in a general context. how identity has been established over time and under what circumstances it is relevant/obsolete provides insight into the role anonymity plays. at certain points in time and under different social conditions identity is not as significant as it is today, especially in this globalized village that embraces a western view of individuality and freedom to do/say/be what you want to do/say/be. especially in cultural contexts where this mode of thinking is counterintuitive.

this is a can of worms to be dished out in more detail but in relation to the benkler article it is definitely relevant. although benkler is talking about social ties and how they are affected by the use of the internet the article is still relevant to my research because it discusses what is considered the norm of social relationships today. by starting in the present i can begin to go backwards with clues to look out for. the things that have been associated with social ties over the years (e.g. idea that "intimate human relations are critical to well-functioning human beings as a matter of psychological need") continue to be salient in the literature today, therefore demonstrating a relational thread passing throughout history. if i look at the importance placed upon intimate human relationships and personal/social well-being throughout time and various social settings i should be able to draw conclusions about identity of individuals and groups. from here i can assess the need, or lack thereof, for anonymity.

reviewing the studies on "thickening relationships," "networked societies," and the like i can find parallels throughout time. this will be key in trying to make a link between anonymity then and now. human connection in general is something that can be established via many platforms and it will be interesting to look at this as i go back through time.


on to hine...

this one is INVALUABLE to ALL OF US! i can not emphasize this enough. if you seriously stop and think about the words that are written on these pages you should be straight dumbfounded by the implications. it seems straightforward enough...don't "take your own analytical frameworks into the field" and participant observation as a "constant questioning of what it is to have an ethnographic understanding of a phenomenon," they may seem like obvious thing us anthro kids should know, but the actual ideas encapsulated in them are ground breaking. we MUST think about what this really means for each one of us as an individual and then relate it to what it means for us collectively.

aside from my preaching i also feel this article to be relevant in numerous ways. again, i am not looking directly at the internet so i have to take what it's saying, apply it and then take it back through time. there are areas where hine is discussing the lack of physical travel and face-to-face interaction that i may abstractly apply it to the fact that when looking back through history i not only lack the face-to-face interaction, but the dialogue as a whole. i am solely "dependent on the second-hand account of the ethnographer" as hine so nicely put it. hine also hits the nail on the head under the text, technology and reflexivity section. to think of text as "temporally shifted and packaged forms of interaction" is relevant in my case as well as those who are looking directly at online communities. the idea that "texts are mobile, and so available outside the immediate circumstances in which they are produced" should be at the front of all our minds. this idea penetrates every aspect of our interpretation and development of "an understanding of the meaning which underlie and are enacted through these textual practices".

the question of authenticity also comes into play when relying on text for information. one way i can address this will be to look at multiple sources and compare my findings to draw some sort of solid conclusion. thompson (1995) stresses the importance of combining a view of texts with understandings of the situationality of those texts. once again CRUCIAL in making any sort of usable conclusions for our research.

lastly, i wanted to mention a subject that is not directly related to my research but i find valuable. it goes like this: "rather than treating authenticity as a particular problem posed by cyberspace that the ethnographer has to solve before moving on to the analysis, it would be more fruitful to place authenticity in cyberspace as a topic at the heart of the analysis." something we should consider when trying to describe who the authentic self truly is. are the "pseudo identities" created by users on the internet really fake or are they a portion of the true self that is unable to represented, for whatever reason, in the tangible world we call reality???