|
W. Gordon West, Feb 2, 1997
I. Topic:
Pursuing some of the issues I raised from a critical (neo-Marxist/interactionist position) in the text/paper in first term
as a series of epistemological/technical issues regarding the
claims of photoelectric representation, but I am now attempting
to formulate an initial exploratory demonstration of how critical
qualitative research might be done/re-presented on the WEB.
Digital imaging/re-imaging in a cybernetic world knit into the
WEB fundamentally undermines not only traditional empiricist
claims from photography/film, and also ethnography, it
furthermore seriously challenges traditional notions of "design"
and "aesthetics" developed regarding both still and moving
images. We have only begun to realize that digital media, as all
new media, both challenge and undermine older ways of presenting
images and messages, and also offer new unprecedented
possibilities to be explored and developed. In this project I
want to explore some of these possibilities.
II Scope:
In a small Web presentation, I seek to define some of these
issues (especially in the tensions between evolving aesthetic
considerations, and the critical social research ones). I want
to specify (through visual and sound imaging) some key issues
(such as "empiricism" versus "virtual reality", "linear rational
logical theorizing" versus "hypertext [literary] narrative",
"cultural relativism" versus "globalization (through the Web)",
etc. One side of these binaries represent central tenets of
(critical) ethnography, the other some emerging (aesthetic)
tendencies in Web discussions. The second half of the work will
attempt to provide an initial tentative effort towards resolving
these issues through a case study in "ethnodigitography" (my
apologies for neologizing, but in the heady world of the web, I
do feel we need to radically reconceptualize our orientations,
etc.)
II The Nature of the Problem:
While I have formulated the topic in terms of my own particular
interests from fine arts and social ethnography confronted by
digital (particularly Web) technology, I sense the issues are
much more profound and widespread. Commercial advertisers and
corporations, mass media outlets, and governments, for instance
are all equally racing to continue to represent their past (mass
media) interests through this new (interactive, and hence
individulized) media, finding that many of the old assumptions,
methods, and techniques are not longer relevant. While the
popular press is full of articles on commercial and state issues,
and the "professional" advertising and technical media have
attempted to deal with such issues from the viewpoint of their
particular constituents, there has been very little grappling
with such by social scientists, nor policy-makers. The social
research electronic journals I have found to this point on the
Web (eg, Sociological Research Online) remain essentially text-based edited e-mail (wonderful in terms of speed of distribution
of research results, somewhat disturbing or dubious in terms of
editing, but fundamentally just getting the traditional journal
format out more quickly.) A very occasional "anthropological"
film raises and deals with some of these issues (e.g., "Re-Assemblage".) I thus believe my little exploratory project
illustrates a much wider problem in "dealing with the Web"
experienced by traditional institutions (including social
science!)
The much more immediate and specific problem for me personally is
how to express such "abstract" issues in basically non-textual
forms on a Web site! (I must also admit that one basis of my
infatuation with traditional social research and its textual
expression has been the "clarity" offered by written language.)
And indeed, my own formulation (here!) of these issues may be
criticized for originating in fundamentally verbal formulations;
perhaps a fundamentally visual origin would be more productive;
hopefully others more versed in such media can respond,
furthering the discussion/exploration. (As I compose this in
text, it occurs to me that providing an initial more visual
website might be more appropriate and personally challenging!)
Nonetheless, I am very enthralled in my now 12 month encounter
with digital, and my 4 month encounter with the Web; perhaps my
novice status may also provide some different insights.
More specifically, I will use some of my "older" photographic
(and hopefully video/film) images of "anthropologically exotic"
folks in Nicaragua and Western Samoa in combination with more
immediate "sociologically unwashed" in Cabbagetown, Toronto, in
combination with text and sound in producing the Web
installation. (I may need to focus on just one of these
potential "data bases".) I next need to plan and design the site
(specifying its relation to the Production course site.) In
terms of programmes, although I am relatively familiar now with
Photoshop, fractals, Printhouse, SAW and SAW 6, plus Hotdog and
Homepage for HTML, I will be racing to learn some facility with
Premiere, 3-d Studio, Illustrator/Quark, and Director
(fortunately [?], all required in other courses as well!)
Although excited about this project, I certainly will be
challenged!
Action Research Electronic Reader (email:
I.Hughes@cchs.su.edu.au)
C. Affron, Cinema and Sentiment. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. 1982.
American Photo Special issue: "Is Photojournalism Dead?" May-June 1996.
R. Ascott, "Implicate Art", Leonardo Electronic Almanac", vol 4,
no 8. Aug 1996. http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/LEA/articles/ascott6.txt.
R. Ascott, "The Architecture of Cyberception", Leonardo
Electronic Almanac vol 2, no 8. Aug 1994. http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/LEA/articles/ascott2.txt
R. Ascott, "From Appearance to Apparition: Communications and
Consciousness in the Cybersphere", Leonardo Electronic Almanac
vol 1, no 2, Oct 1993. http:www-mitpress.mit.edu/LEA/articles/ascott.txt
H. S. Becker, Sociological Work: Method and Substance Chicago:
Aldine, 1970.
K. Burnett, "Scholar's Rhizome: Networked Communication Issues".
http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/cmc/text/burnett.93.txt
J. Collier, Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research
Method. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1967.
L. Devereaux and R. Hillman (eds.), Fields of Vision: Essays in
Film Studies, Visual Anthropology, and Photography. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press. 1995. (Esp articles by
Marcus, Devereaux, Huppauf, MacDougall, Ginsburg)
Electronic Journal of Sociology (through
http://www.ualberta.ca/~jrnorris/qual.html)
M. Epstein, "Hyper in 20th Century Culture: The Dialectics of
Transition from Modernism to Postmodernism", in Postmodern
Culture v. 6 n2 (jan 1996).
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/issue.196/epstein.196.html
M. Featherstone and R. Burrows, (eds.), Cyberspace, Cyberbodies,
Cyberpunk. London: Routledge, 1995.
J. Fiske, Introduction to Communication Studies, 2nd Edition.
London: Routledge. 1990
T.R. Flynn, "Foucault and The Eclipse of Vision" in D. M. Levin,
(ed.), Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press. 1993.
M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish. London: Vintage. 1978
F. Ginsburg, "Mediating Culture: Indigenous Media, Ethnographic
Film, and the Production of Identity", in L. Devereaux and R.
Hillman (eds.), Fields of Vision: Essays in Film Studies, Visual
Anthropology, and Photography. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press. 1995. (See also articles by Marcus,
Devereaux, Huppauf, MacDougall)
E.C. Hughes, The Sociological Eye Chicago: Aldine. 1971.
F. Jameson, Postmodernism: or, the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 1994.
M. Jay, "Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and the Search for a new Ontology
of Sight", in D. M. Levin, (ed.), Modernity and the Hegemony of
Vision. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 1993.
C. Jencks, (ed.) Visual Culture. London: Routledge. 1995.
(Esp articles by Jencks, Hebdige, Morley, O'Neill, Phillipson,
Slater and Smith.)
Journal of Urban Life and Culture.
Journal of Visual Anthropology.
M. Joyce, "Hypertext Narrative"
http://noel.pd.org/topos/perforations/perf3/hypertext_narrative.html
E. Keller, "Cinematic Thresholds: Instrumentality, Time, &
Memory in the Virtual", Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Vol 3, no 7.
July 1995. http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/LEA/articles/keller.txt
R.M. Lee and n. Fielding, "Qualitative Data Analysis:
Representations of a Technology: A Comment on Coffey, Holbrook,
and Atkinson", in Sociological Research Online. vol 1. No 4.
Http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/1/4/lf.html
D. M. Levin, (ed.), Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 1993. (Esp
articles by M. Jay, Flynn, and Romanyshyn.)
K. Marx, AIntroduction@ to Grundrisse. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin (1858/1973.) K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology. New York:
International (1846/1977)
S. Meiselas, Nicaragua. c. 1983.
H. Melehy, "Images Without: Deleuzian Becoming, Science Fiction
Cinema in the Eighties", Postmodern Culture v.5. n2 (jan, 1995)
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/issue.195/issue.195/melehy.195.html
M. Miles, and A.M. Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis. Newbury
Park, CA, USA: Sage 1984.
W. J. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era. Cambridge, MA/USA: MIT Press. 1992.
J. O'Neill, "Foucault's Optics: the (In) Vision of Mortality and
Modernity", in C. Jencks, (ed.) Visual Culture. London:
Routledge. 1995.
S. Penny, "Critical Issues in Electronic Media", Leonardo
Electronic Almanac vol 3, no 4. April 1995. http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/LEA/articles/critical.txt
S. Penny, "From A to D and back again: the emerging aesthetics
of interactive art", Leonardo Electronic Almanac Vol 4, no 4.
April 1996. http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/LEA/articles/a_to_d.txt
D. Sayer, "Method and Dogma in Historical Materialism,
Sociological Review. 1975, 23 (4), pp. 779-810.
S. Seidman, "The End of Sociological Theory", in S. Seidman,
(ed.), The Postmodern Turn: New Perspectives on Social Theory.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 1994. (See also
articles by Rorty, Bauman, Brown)
G. Simmel, ed. K.Wolff, The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York:
Macmillan. 1958.
Sociological Research Online email socres@soc.surrey.ac.uk
A. Solomon-Godeau, "Winning the Game When the Rules Have Been
Changed: Art Photography and Postmodernism", in Exposure, 23.1
Spring 1985.
M. Spinelli, "Radio Lessons for the Internet", Postmodern Culture
v. 6, no2, Jan. 1996.
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/issue.196/pop-cult.196.html
J. Spradley, Participant Observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston. 1980.
J. Squier, "Art, Community, and the Colonization of the
Internet".
http://gertrude.art.uiuc.edu/ludgate/the/place/soapbox/colonization.html
P. Stalker, ACan I Take Your Picture?: the Strange World of
Photography@, New Internationalist, No. 185, July 1988, p.3-6
Symbolic Interactionism (Journal) Under Fire 1983 (?) Release, United Artists [re the murder of ABC
journalist Bill Stewart in Managua, 1979]
W. G. West, "Participant Observation in Canadian Classrooms: The
Need, Rationale, Technique and Development Implications",
Canadian Journal of Education 2(3), 1977: 55-74.
W.G. West, "Phenomenon and Form in Interactionist and Neo-Marxist
Qualitative Educational Research", in L. Barton and S. Walker,
(eds.) Social Crisis and Educational Research, London: Croom
Helm, 1984, pp. 256-87.
W.G. West, and H. Walker-Lorrain, "Estrategias de Investigacion y
Participacion Popular: Fundamentando la Investigacion
Participativa en Observacion Participante y Etnografia Critica"
["Strategies of Investigation and Popular Participation:
Grounding Participatory Research in Participant Observation and
Critical Ethnography"](with H. Walker Larrain) Cuadernos de
Formacion #2, Dic. 1984, pp. 15-36.
W.G. West, "El Terror Internacional en Nicaragua" [International
Terror in Nicaragua] Poder y Control [Power and Control], 1987,
1: 195-204. edit: PPU/Promociones Publicaciones Universitarias,
Barcelona, Espana.
W.G. West, "La Retorica del Sr.Reagan: la Decadencia del
Imperio, el Terrorismo Norteamericano, y la Presentacion
Ideologico de la Tortura en Nicargua" [Reagan's Rhetoric:
Imperial Decline, American Terrorism, and the Ideological
Presentation of Torture in Nicaragua] in Memorias: IV Encuentro
Latinoamericano de Criminologa Critica/II Seminario Sobre
Control Social En America Latina La Habana, Cuba, Septiembre de
1986. Ministerio de Justicia, La Habana, Cuba. Junio de 1987b.
pp. 91-97.
W.G. West, "Courts, Congresses and (Media) Cajoleries: Reagan's
Rhetoric and American State Terrorism in Nicaragua" Proceedings
of the 1987c Conference of the Canadian Law and Society
Association. York University/YULL Publications Microfiche.
I. Wexler, "Anyone for Postmodernism?" Upfront. 1996(?)
P. Willis, Learning to Labour. Westmead, Farnborough, Hants, UK:
Saxon House/Teakfield. 1977.
L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.1922. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
C. Zimmer, ATech in the Jungle@, Discover, August 1990
E. Zwingle, and R. Hart, William Albert Allard: The Photographic Essay. Boston: Bullfinch/Little Brown. 1989. |