Research Design
The design of this micro ethnography of YouTube’s ‘Davidsfarm’ is discussed at length in my blog about the design which you can access from the hyperlink above. The basic research questions are:
- What is Davidsfarm?
- What is a virtual community?
- What would constitute as evidence of a virtual community?
- Is Davidsfarm a virtual community?
As I mention in my blog these are very big questions which I cannot hope to address in a week. However, my aim is to give an overview of Davidsfarm and to suggest elements which could be considered evidence of a virtual community. It was not possible to review in a week the 1000+ videos of Davidsfarm or the hundreds of thousands of comments. The evidence here is selective based on an initial assessment of the types of videos that were being uploaded. This ethnography is a sketch but could form the basis of a more thorough analysis. My role as an ethnographer has been solely as a virtual observer (otherwise known as a ‘lurker’).
Research Journals
I kept an account of my daily virtual observations in Tumblr. The links are below.
Inspiration for representing this virtual ethnography
The following people have inspired me.
Melanie Hundley – See my blog entry on her virtual ethnography – The Bard on a Digital Porch.
Amanda Coffey, Bella Dicks, Bruce Mason, Emma Renold, Bambo Soyinka and Matthew Williams – Ethnography for the Digital Age
