For the final project, you will design and complete a media ethnography. The project must focus on what a particular/specific community “do” with media as an integral part of their everyday daily lives. The ethnography should focus on issues of social justice, community building, or the negotiation of meaning.

Requirements:

60% of final grade:

8-10 written pages, double spaced, 12pt font. (“Pages” does not include images, graphs, table or any visual text, work cited list, transcripts of interviews, or field notes. A reasonable and justifiable number of direct quotes from interviews and field notes may be used in a relevant manner within the text.)

Must include a significant visual element. This can be done through images, screenshots, maps, videos, graphs, etc. All visual material must be properly attributed to its creator.

20% of Final Project Grade: 

Must include a useful and accessible online element. The ethnography maybe entirely or partially online and able to be accessed by the community it studies. The online element maybe supplementary such as an archive of relevant text and digital materials, or a photo gallery with captions and appropriate source recognition. The online element must include an ability for the community members studied to respond to the content.

Choose a focus: Select a specific cultural group or community that you are interested in studying. The community should be “accessible” (either by location geographically, or through direct relationships or close social network) and your ability to be “participant observer” secured before you begin.

2. Immersion: Spend time getting to know the community by observing their everyday activities, participating in their events, and engaging with community members.

3. Data collection: Use various research methods such as interviews, surveys, participant observation, and document analysis to gather and record relevant data about the cultural group.

4. Analysis: Analyze the collected data by identifying patterns and themes that emerge from your observations and interviews.

5. Reflections: Reflect on your experiences during the research process and critically analyze your own biases and perspectives as an observer.

6. Reporting: Present your findings in a comprehensive report or presentation that includes a description of the community studied, analysis of data collected, and reflections on your research experience and the knowledge gained from your project.

There are many ways to report your findings. Traditionally, researchers write journal articles or books. The problem is that many of these types of ethnographies are not accessible, or not readily accessible, to the communities the study is about. This creates a problem of uneven and benefits of knowledge creation and social equity that contemporary ethnographic ethics promotes. New ways researchers are reporting their work is through more narrative styles like films, videos, and online blogs. For this assignment, you will want to consider alternative ways of reporting your findings that include access to them by the community you studied.

In general, to organize an ethnographic research report, you can follow these steps:

1. Introduction: Begin with an engaging introduction that provides background information about the research topic and clearly states the purpose of your study. The introduction should tell the reader exactly what you wanted to study and how you went about studying it. Address what questions you were attempting to answer and what others knew about this culture before your study.

2. Literature Review: Conduct a review of existing literature related to your research topic. This will help you situate your study within the broader scholarly conversation and identify any gaps or areas for further exploration. A Literature Review also helps you identify different ways to study your community and different questions to ask.

3. Methodology: Describe your research design, including the methods and techniques used for data collection (e.g., participant observation, interviews, surveys). Explain why these methods are appropriate for studying your chosen topic.

4. Data Analysis: Present and analyze the data you collected during your fieldwork. Use relevant quotes, examples, or anecdotes from your observations or interviews to support your findings.

5. Findings/Results: Summarize and discuss the main findings of your research. Your interpretation of your findings should be grounded in the data collected and connected back to relevant literature. Think of the questions, “Says who?” If you cannot point to a specific source, you maybe speculating outside your findings.

6. Conclusion: Provide a concise summary of your study's main points, including its implications and potential avenues for future research. In this section, all discuss what we learned from your project.