New Media Synergy’s “Social Media:Scape: by SteelCase / B&OI || DEMO Innovation Summit – May 4, 2010 Seattle, WA (Photo credit: The DEMO Conference)

This site constitutes the official, formal portal for AAD 607 Digital Ethnography. The course itself emerged from graduate students’ expressing interest (or demands) for a methods course focused on digital stuff: a/v technology, software, online spaces, etc. I developed the course in response to the interest and in conjunction with the New Media and Culture graduate certificate at UO. This is an “add on” to any graduate degree at UO that provides both critical theory and practical application training to students working in a wide range of “new media” spaces and approaches. While not a required course for that certificate, Digital Ethnography fills the “method” slot…

I’ve built this class in order to enable students (and myself) to explore a broad set of themes and topics. As such, the structure is still somewhat experimental and “open,” in that I don’t want to predetermine what we’ll examine and discuss. Additionally, in that I expect diverse perspectives, goals, and orientations to the subject matter, I want the class to be useful to students working on thesis and dissertation projects. The assignments, then, contain enough flexibility to enable mapping onto both established and emergent research.