3.2 Research Design
3.2.1 Hermeneutics and ethnography in a new media environment
constituting a cultural and relative physical proximity of contributors) gives rise to a scenario that is particularly well suited to an adaptation of ethnographic research models.
Terre Blanche and Durrheim, 2002: 399), thereby including both the empathetic ‗first person‘ perspective and the more critical ‗third person‘ interpretations of the text.
Traditional ethnography, with its roots in anthropology and sociology, involves the researcher immersing herself completely in the cultural group to be studied, with the purpose of the ―description and analysis of culture‖ (Saville-Troike, 1989:1). Time and financial constraints, however, place this type of genuine ethnographic research out of reach of most emerging researchers. The new media environment of the Facebook newsgroup that constitutes the social setting of my research, however, is more accessible as a site of cultural and linguistic inquiry than physical spaces of social interaction, offering a new and increasingly ‗concrete‘ space for interaction and sharing of contributor‘s views.
In the early stages of this research, I had intended to engage with contributors on the newsgroup by going ‗under cover‘ into the newsgroup and providing stimulus to generate responses to certain types of behaviour in the environment of the virtual community. On further reflection, however, I could not reconcile the ethical compromise such a course of action would require to the research ends that I wished to achieve, and without this
justification I did not feel comfortable proceeding with such a means of data collection. If I were to approach the group as a researcher, this would be likely to have an impact of the naturalness of the discussion.
In The Scattered Members of an Invisible Republic: Virtual Communities and Paul Ricoeur's Hermeneutics, Burnett (2002) considers that ―a virtual community is a
cooperative, if inherently unstable, experiment in what it might mean to be a community in the absence of physical proximity‖ (Burnett, 2002: 157). Given the physical size and cultural diversity of South Africa as a whole, the fact that most contributors to the newsgroup are South Africans, means that in terms of physical proximity, the users can nonetheless still be considered as ―scattered‖.
Levy (1998) states that "each new system of communication and transportation modifies ... the pertinent space for human communities" (Levy, 1998: 31, in Burnett, 2002: 157).
Hence, Burnett (2002) argues that in order to explore the existence of a given community it is important to understand the ―mode of interaction and … the conditions within which such interaction must take place‖ (ibid: 157). The aim of hermeneutic methodology in this type of study is that of illustrating ―how language use both reflects and influences culture in a virtual community‖ (Burnett et al: 2003).
A great advantage for engaging in ethnographic research of an online text is that the effect of observer‟s paradox (elsewhere referred to as observer effect) does not taint the data. Since the contributors came to the newsgroup of their own volition and without the knowledge that their comments would become the subject of academic investigation, the communicative event unfolds naturally, as it would without the presence of the researcher to in any way influence what is said (written) in the discussion. Given the similarly heterogeneous origins of critical discourse analysis and ethnography, with the depiction and exploration of culture and language as their primary aims, these methods combine well in such a research design. Hermeneutics, as a branch of theory and research methodology, has been defined as ―the basic human ability to interpret words, text, cultures and life itself‖ (Fourie 2007: 327), hence it may be conceived as a branch of ethnography associated with the in depth analysis of texts.
By exploring the language contributors use to express South African societal issues on this platform, which is strongly linked to the 2009 general election, this research aims to explore how the use of language and the airing of perspectives link to wider South
African cultural systems. Since ―the way in which language intersects with and reinforces phenomena like prejudice, discrimination, and racism (amongst others), goes by
unnoticed, or at least remains underexplored‖ (Painter, 2010: 17), this research will attempt to build on existing work in the field. The picture of South Africanness which is built up in the text and the elements on which it is based, will offer a particular insight into the culture of the newsgroup. To the inexperienced ethnographic researcher, Saville- Troike (1989) cautions ―This makes the ethnography of communication a mode of
inquiry which carries with it substantial content‖ (Saville-Troike, 1989: 3). For this reason, the full text of the analysis is reproduced in appendices ii and iii, while the summarised findings and discussion are presented in chapter four.
Ethnography is often associated with explorations of ‗exotic‘ cultures, those ‗foreign‘ to the researcher, however there are several practical advantages to engaging in
ethnographic study of one‘s own culture. One of the challenges of this type of research, however, is to identify and limit the researcher‘s own subjectivity in the investigation.
As discursive studies can never be entirely objective, this should be a self-reflexive exercise and the use of a journal to recognize and come to terms with certain aspects of the researcher‘s own culturally ingrained subjectivities is recommended in several ethnographic methodological guides. Hence, I have adopted this measure and the journal will be available in the additional resources at the MECS Department, Pietermaritzburg campus, UKZN.