#methodical field note

[kkatot]

What color eyes do these boobs go with?

I'm working on a conference presentation (for ESA) / book chapter on visual narrative analysis. I'm surrounded by sheets of graph paper with scribbles on them and I'm quite satisfied with the skeleton of it.  So this morning I've been looping the piano soundtrack, going over my 'body <--> identity' reading notes, to kind of anchor the whole thing in terms of 'when I say visual narrative analysis is a good way to research the construction of the embodied self, then by self and embodied I mean ...'.

And an idea rolls through my head, bright like an orange (yes, I stole the metaphor from a children's book, don't judge me!) If only I knew a good sketching artist, who'd be interested in helping out, I could ask my participants to play a game with me.  Some of them have shared their faces with each other but many haven't, yet are well acquainted with the visual-textual-hypermedia story offered to followers via their blogs.   This usually means many first-person accounts of experiences (sexual and not), everyday happenings, dreams, fears, emotions, desires,  countless images of the bloggers bodies / body parts; their music; third party images that they like etc. So A LOT of information.

Now imagine if I could ask some of them to imagine and describe what their online peers faces look like  based on all that. And would ask the sketch artist to sketch it.  The faces of the bloggers based on the sadness and the joy, the loneliness and the latest song they can't get out of  their heads, on stories of their children and pictures of their boobs.

You have no idea how much I wish I could do that.

So you know, if you're a sketch artist ... be my friend? For science? :)

sketch by ~sjf9687 on deviantart

[kkatot]

Uma, Jenna and Georgina

For obvious reasons I'm not using any blog handles or people's real names in any of my research.  Initially I just recoded everyone into letters (A - X) and this is how I remember them. But when writing articles I needed to name them again. So I did ... and now I keep smirking and thinking of whether Participant U would like the fact that she is Uma. And Participant J Jenna.

Also ... I will totally have to call Participant X  Xavier, because I don't know any other boy names that start with X. And that is so Doom Generation.

[kkatot]

Field notes ... I've decided I need to apply some of my mildly *cough ... cough* OCD-ish research management tendencies to them.  And for that I am grateful to a friend and his blog post here. So far I have been taking field notes at random times and I've systematically copied our stuff from my researcher dashboard + copied out 'ooh this is interesting' stuff. But it will just end up being a huge pile of stuff. But I think I might give old school a try: Chiseri-Strater & Sunstein's (1997) list of what should be included in all fieldnotes: Date, time, and place of observation Specific facts, numbers, details of what happens at the site Sensory impressions: sights, sounds, textures, smells, taste (this one will have to be substituted for the general category of 'feels' for cyber stuff) Personal responses to the fact of recording fieldnotes Specific words, phrases, summaries of conversations, and insider language Questions about people or behaviors at the site for future investigation Page numbers to help keep observations in order And then there are the 4 kinds of fieldnotes - jottings (I need to do more of these, I think I will commit to 'jot while I lurk and browse at least twice a week); 'description of everything I can remember' (do that once every 1-2 weeks); 'analysis of what you learned in the setting re: your question' ( I still need to think about this one); and 'reflection on what you learned of a personal nature' (those go in the 'do that once every 1-2 weeks pile). image: Tsunami notes by BirdSophieBlack on deviantart

[kkatot]

World domination, A Plan (not even best laid) (of mice)

So ... last year I created this matrix of articles that I plan to / should write based on the data I had collected / planned to collect, the analysis methods I wanted to use and the general research questions. Plans are, obviously, just a way for yo to see how things change. After having actually analyzed sections of my data for various purposes it's become obvious that instead of every article planned I could write 3. And there were about 7 in the original plan. So that would be a 21 article dissertation. Which even I understand is undoable and bonkers. So now I need to adjust my plan to make sure I don't end up in a situation where I have the necessary AMOUNT of articles by the time I need to defend, but that they are kind of random in terms of the material, research questions etc they cover. The original plan kind of went like this (and I just counted them and it seems that I was planning 9.  9 articles. not a normal person). 1. Bloggers’ identity narratives – how is online experience informing our sense of sexual self? - book chapter, analysis of 10 representative (of experience types) interviews in full.  Narrative analysis. Narrative identity POV. This one counts towards my PhD and I am quite happy with it in terms of depth etc. 2. "Profiling the sexual self - identity narratives of NSFW bloggers on tumblr." - this one was for a conference and then conference proceeding and will not really count towards my PhD because of the ranking system. It is also not too deep, kind of a skim-the-surface overview of different sexuality narratives on NSFW T.  Thus ... I should probably redo that.  In a deeper way. Combining it perhaps with an analysis of other material than interviews. 3. No crazy, militant, hateful heterosexuals from this point forward, NSFW bloggers from a post-subcultural perspective. - this one I still want to do. 4. Sex, Blogs and Rock’n Roll, music’s role in NSFW blogs. - this one I wanted to do with Andy Bennet, who doesn't seem to have time for it and I will not do it alone, it doesn't feel crucial from the POV of explaining identity in relation to a NSFW online experience. 5. Working title:  Teaching others, teach yourself? Lesson’s learned from an online research methods course. - this one I can do later, it won't count towards the PhD anyway. 6. A Dirty Blog is Rarely Dusty - a methodological overview - this one I have written and I like it, but it currently reads more like a methods chapter of a dissertation and not an article. So I will probably keep it for that purpose but plan a more narrow, more focussed methods article that has a nugget of newness to it. If I can. I guess it's not life or death. 7. Working title: “Bringing Sexy Back – why sexually explicit blogs? Why self pictures?” - this was planned as a combination of the visual analysis of images,   interview analysis and cyberethnography and I think I should still do it, although I need to find a clear focus otherwise it will be unmanageable. 8. Working title: “Welcome to the Amazon – online community of meaning on tumblr.” - this was planned based on cyberethnographic field notes and probably still needs to happen. 9. Working title: “I am what I reblog – the collectively constructed reality of an online community and how it informs one’s identity” - this was meant to combine all the data analysis and be all kinds of deep and conclusive. And probably still needs to happen. Now right now I am writing an article on 'self-images as an embodied performance' with Edgar Gomez-Cruz and it is based on the analysis of interviews with only the female self-shooters in my sample.  And it is huge.  I mean there is material left over in just that to write another one. And then if I add male self shooters there would be another one there (actually two more - one on just men and one on men-women combined perhaps). Then there is the analysis of the actual images (not just analyzing what people SAY about their self-shooting in the interviews) and analyzing the captions and the fieldnotes re: reblogging patterns etc. But I feel I need to not separate that out, so if I do write more on embodied identity and self shooting (and I should) I need to combine data there. I also thought of writing a case study based article on exploring polyamory online (because someone sent me CfP). So basically this is becoming one of those seven headed fire breathing dragons that grows two heads instead of each one you chop off. And I kind of feel I need to just sit down and make a concept-driven map that kind of maps what I think are important aspects in explaining how an online experience is constructed into one's identity and then try and make sure I have articles that cover that.  Kind of : 1. identity <-> body (and gender?) // embodied identity // self-images (but interactions, community, norms, peer pressure, body-normativity, body narratives of T also) 2. identity <-> sexuality // social norms // new social reality // embodied practices // community (but interactions, community, norms, peer pressure, sexual practices, OSA, T-specific sexuality narratives and sexual practices, sexual community of practice (dissemination of BDSM? also) 3. identity <-> interactions // community And already from this (the stuff in the brackets) it is clear that they all massively overlap. *headdesk*

[kkatot]

I dare you to find a cooler category name than 'I am not a performing seal'. Also, side note - looking at this specific subset of my data from this specific angle kinda makes my inner Militant Feminist raise it's head. I didn't even know I had one.

[kkatot]

Note to self

I am a paranoid coder, I code everything under 6+n categories. Just in case. And because it's relevant and meaningful. But still. It's a real pain to clean up.

[kkatot]

Conferences

Just realized that I missed the CfP deadline for 'Extending Play' and I so wanted to send an abstract for that. 

And I even have a file of deadlines. I guess that is what happens when you (a) get sick for an extended period of time; and (b) don't transfer the deadlines from the word file into your calendar.

Oh well  ... given that the doctoral school has just announced that they're cutting the amount of money one can apply for per year anyway, perhaps this was meant to happen.

Next deadline is December 10 and that is for BodyProjects and I am not 100% sure I'll do an abstract for that, although I have a cool idea. 

And then January comes filled with deadlines for CAIS; IAMCR and ConsoleingPassions.

Plus ICWSM13 CfP will probably be out soon and I want to try for that. Full paper deadline Feb 7,  abstract deadline January 30. 

As well as ESA 2013 CfP is apparently out but I haven't looked at it yet, the deadline is Feb 1.

And then there's a methods workshop at the University of Liverpool in march.

And I want to apply for this.

Otherwise I'm getting ready to dive into my data for the visual anthropology article on self-pictures that we're thinking of writing with the brilliant Edgar Gomez-Cruz. I'm really excited about that.

And the  group interviews are done - 3 groups + we're doing an asynchronic email based rolling convo with 4 people who couldn't make their consecutive groups. And the stuff I am getting / got from the groups is pure gold. Then again everything I've gotten from the interviews has been pure gold because my participants are awesome like that.

Oh and - the proceedings for the Communication Graduate Caucus Conference Proceedings: Profiles are out! I just got my copy in the mail today :)

[kkatot]

This, that and that too

So last week I had to present the draft of my first academic article (well it’s a book chapter) for peer reviewing. This is the first thing that will actually be a part of the mandatory compendium of things I need to do to get my PhD.

All in all it went fine, people said it read well and was interesting and my adviser called my meta-structure ‘perfect’. Obviously I need to do more work on it, but none of the comments were disruptive or of the ‘scratch all that and start over’ nature. I just need to structure the analysis bit a bit better (I was a tad overwhelmed from all the good stories you told me) and leave one section out to conserve space.

For that article I used 12 out of my 24 interviews (worry not I will use them all and repeatedly), and I used Bamberg’s narrative identity approach. So the findings are presented via three dilemmatic spaces in one’s sense of self and identity formation narrative (sounds fancy, doesn’t it).

So that needs to be cleaned and worked on by the end of May or something like that.

In the mean time I’m starting new projects, which, as per usual, means that I’ve spent a large chunk of today frantically grabbing things to read.  The Canadian conference I went to are putting together a proceedings paper journal, so I should really write a paper for them. Although I feel a bit stingy about using a part of my research for something that won’t ‘count’ for my PhD, I mean I’ll get credit, but it won’t serve as my one out of three (or four) that I need. But I still think I will do it if I will manage time-wise.

Then in less than two weeks my adviser is organising a seminar and Andy Bennett is coming.  My adviser is a sub culture researcher. Initially I thought I’d do a presentation on how the 16-18 year olds’ see the ‘don’t come here if you’re under 18’ signs on our blogs, kind of do a presentation on how they’re shunned from the designated sexy place and where are they to go with their raging hormones. But then I thought that I might as well look at my existing data from a sub-culture point of view, so if my adviser gives it a green light I’ll do a presentation on our little Pornblrverse as a neo-tribe. I’m quite exited about that. I’m considering this presentation like a pilot of a possible additional direction where I can take my research. Plus Andy Bennett, you know. Perhaps he’ll have some words of wisdom.

And then I have some school-girl things to do, a Hungarian professor Andrea Petö came and taught us gradstudents about intersectionality for two days. So I have to write an essay for her on how the intersectional analysis could be used for my research topic. This should be interesting as it is a concept stemming from feminist and race related oppression research, so not a direct match. But I have to make it work, as I really liked her and it was very interesting (although those two days nearly fired my brain). And then I have to write another essay for my borders’ seminar, about the analytical concept of borders and my research topic.

Oh and then there’s the small matter of my 40 + students who’ll all be presenting their work in the coming two weeks and I’ll have to grade it.

So this, so this, so this, so this is month of May.