Erkan Saka on Blogging as a research tool
May 22, 2008
The Media Anthropology Network is a mailing list that hosts regular e-seminars. The current one is focused on a paper by Erkan Saka about Blogging as a research tool for ethnographic fieldwork [PDF], with comments by Mary Stevens. Once the e-seminar is concluded the discussion will be archived on the Media Anthropology website.
Remixing Anthropology 
May 29, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I’ve been enjoying the list activity that this particular paper has brought about. At a more meta level, I have become curious about why this particular essay has prompted more discussion on the list than previous essays. I’ve seen more comments that begin like:
This is one reason why I think New Media (and I think we need to start thinking about what this term means, because it gets thrown around so often) is so interesting. There is something about these mediums that compels us in new and interesting ways. It has compelled numerous people to post on a list that recently for one reason or another has had some difficulty generating a critical mass of responses. This essay however has so many responses that I don’t sense a coherent critique or trajectory for Erkan to take post-list discussion. I hope that Mary Stevens attempts to bring things back together for a closing set of remarks, though I do not envy the amount of work that may be.
I think the responses also stress the list-serve forum, because a great many good points have gone un-responded to. Regardless, it has been delightful to see such interest in a topic near and dear to my (and this blog’s) interests.
May 29, 2008 at 3:14 pm
It seems to me that much of the discussion has been more of an educational nature, as new media folks try to explain blogs to those who are less web-savvy. But there have been some excellent substantive discussions as well, many of which are directly relevant to the things we are talking about here. I’m going to have to spend some time picking through it all more carefully when I have time this summer…