Month: July 2013
From SIA: Can You Relate? Themes and the Transcription Center
Meghan
Read about the ways that organizing collections through themes can uncover relationships between materials in the Transcription Center at this post I wrote for SIA Bigger Picture Blog.
Great news! The Smithsonian Digital Volunteers Transcription Center is back up and live!! As you check out the improved features and try your hand at transcription (and reviewing!), consider the ways we may be able to organize existing and future collections. This post I wrote for the Smithsonian Institution Archives Bigger Picture Blog last week suggests several themes. Do you have any other suggestions?
Finally, reorganizing and finding new relationships between materials may also allow us to ask new questions – using the data from the transcribed pages to answer lingering questions and round out new stories. We can also learn more about and provide context for the successes and challenges the scientists, artists, and authors faced; and how these experiences relate to our lives today.
Summarizing Outcomes: Expeditions & Explorers Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
Meghan
This post summarizes the outcomes and experience of the June 21 Expeditions & Explorers Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, co-hosted by Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) and National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) for Field Book Project materials.
We believe the event helped to advance freely available knowledge by harnessing the power of the GLAM-wiki relationship. As a reminder, GLAM stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums and the cultural heritage collections that they steward. The advancing elements of the Expeditions & Explorers event were:
- catalyzing diffusion of knowledge through article creation,
- interlinking of existing articles, subjects, and categories,
- sharing and highlighting the accessibility of GLAM resources, including finding aids and digitized texts and images
- uploading Smithsonian Institution collections images to Wikimedia Commons
These tasks serve to improve Wikimedia projects, Wikipedia, as well as GLAM-Wikipedia relationships in several ways.
First, it offered participants a dynamic experience for experienced and inexperienced editors and civilian and museum professionals to bring a variety of skills and knowledge bases to play in unlocking the power of the crowd.
Secondly, the event activities were focused on learning, playing, and working with cultural heritage and scientific materials. This included an exclusive special collections tour and curated discussion and exposure to electronically available resources which allowed participants to understand the diversity of and relationships between Smithsonian Institution collections.
Finally, participants shared their experiences with others through social media; highlighting the ways in which they were having fun, while working on and exploring Wikipedia and the new transcription center. This can only encourage other to participate in future events.
Event Goals
The event was a success in relation to all of the stated goals. Here are several examples of specific ways in which the five goals were achieved:
1. “To encourage inexperienced editors and show them how they can contribute to Wikipedia”
Event participants included five new, inexperienced editors. Our event focused on showing them how they can contribute to Wikipedia
- through an editing tutorial
- helping them establish a Wikipedia user account
- providing best practice tips
- encouraging open discussion of how, when, and why to perform certain tasks on Wikipedia – as with this slide from the best practice tips
2. “To improve a selection of Wikipedia articles related to scientists and expeditions”
- We identified five existing articles about scientists and expeditions and asked participants to improve these articles.
- We also identified four expeditions and scientists who were not represented on Wikipedia and asked participants to help make articles for them.
- This resulted in expansion of seven existing articles and creation of four new articles, as well as wikilinking between existing and new articles, for a more robust web of knowledge
Updated Articles:
- Theodore Roosevelt
- A. S. Hitchcock
- Mary Agnes Chase
- Edward Palmer (botanist)
- Edgar Alexander Mearns
- United States and Mexican Boundary Survey
- Edmund Heller
Newly created Articles
3. “To make Smithsonian-held materials more openly linked”
- Within our Expeditions & Explorers to-do list, we provided Smithsonian Institution resources and electronic records
- We linked at least 15 Smithsonian Institution materials within and to at least nine articles.
4. “To test a new transcribing tool to make our field books more findable and useful”
We invited participants to test the Smithsonian Digital Volunteers Transcription Center and also gathered feedback and discussed the tool with participants
5. “To increase awareness of the research resources freely available through libraries, archives, and museums”
- We believe we achieved this goal not only through the pre-event work in providing resources for articles and the during-event work of editing from specific GLAM resources,
- But also by tweeting about and sharing progress on our event goals during and after the event, with further reports to follow
See posts by my fellow edit-a-thon facilitators Carolyn Sheffield and Effie Kapsalis for perspectives and observations on the edit-a-thon; the Field Book Project blog and the SIA Bigger Picture blog, respectively. The next steps for my analysis include moving through the work to explore the collaborative production of knowledge occurring around these materials – then developing the next Wikipedia edit-a-thon event.
Remember, you can always participate in Wikipedia edit-a-thons remotely – many events are happening daily and “anyone can edit,” so please join in and help build knowledge where you can.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons (public domain, held with SIA)
DANG: It’s on in Chicago
Meghan
Last week, I received confirmation that the Digital Anthropology group – DANG – panel was accepted for the American Anthropological Association 2013 Conference. As a reminder, I’ll be discussing the necessity of conflict in refining the values and goals of a fandom online. My paper (presentation) is titled “It boils down to respect”: Defining the values of a fandom through conflict online.
My abstract begins: “Increasingly, social media allows users to connect their online behaviors to physical practices in pursuit of collective goals. In these digital public spaces, communities of practice are able to bypass geographic and temporal boundaries. For U.S. Women National soccer team (USWNT) fans, Tumblr offers a digital realm in which multimodal communication unfolds – and quite often, conflict arises. Through online ethnography and discourse analysis, this study examines conflict as essential to refining USWNT fandom values; however, conflict also jeopardizes the participatory practices that define the fandom.”
The presentation is limited in time (15 min!!), which means a very focused and limited scope of discussion. I anticipate presenting a version of the discussion I have already prepared – focusing on the specific ways in which the fandom policies the “USWNT” tag and reinforces attribution or “sources.” These activities are borne out through messaging, anonymous posts, and text posts in the tag. These are really significant moments of productive conflict and help articulate group-defined “appropriate” behavior. Yet these conflicts also threaten archiving and sharing habits; spoiler alert: some fans refuse to continue to share, while others stop using tags which are used to refresh fan knowledge. Therefore, a delicate balance of conflict must be maintained, as too much discord threatens to dry one data stream through which fandom knowledge is developed.
I’ll share more of my preparations closer to November. Get in touch if you are heading to Chicago for AAA 2013, too –
Windy City, here we come!
Doing it well: Communication and Discourse work in the fandom
Meghan
In this post, I summarize specific actions and communication in a fandom in a social networking space, focusing on how discourse work can be seen in their daily activities. This post shifts focus from my recent posts relating to my work in cultural heritage in digital spaces to draw out parts of my ongoing research in the US Women’s soccer team (USWNT) Tumblr fandom.
As alluded to on my landing page, I have been conducting an ethnographic, or netnographic (Kozinets, 2009), study within the social networking and microblogging site Tumblr for the last two years. I perceive Tumblr to be a unique digital space that allows individuals to “opt in” to a community of practice – one that integrates discourses of women’s sport and soccer, media, competition and nationalism, notions of gender and sexuality, and narratives of the USWNT in daily discussions.
When individuals in the USWNT fandom share, consume, and create content, they encourage a shared group affiliation (as “fans”). Their communication occurs in a flexible, asynchronous social realm. Through choices in language, timing, media, and “tone” these fans establish a series of temporary discursive spaces to explore, express, and discuss their feelings.
Communication within the wider USWNT “fandom” project
- actively teaches new users,
- rewards insider knowledges,
- allows for dissension and discussion, and
- offers opportunities for inclusion of fans, who might otherwise be isolated from fan activity
Tumblr’s structure also facilitates distinct techniques of self-expression and specific language selections shared through tags, asynchronous communication, “reblogging,” and “asks.” Fandom activity includes discourse work and content creation.
On Tumblr, USWNT fans do the following*:
- make text post updates from official US Soccer sources
- post original text posts stating feelings or opinions on the team’s performance
- post original text posts stating feelings or opinions about other people/fans in the fandom
- make and answer anonymous questions using the “Ask” feature on Tumblr
- share social media content from players – typically tweets and Instagram pictures
- share images from USWNT training sessions and games
- share images from NWSL training sessions and games
- create GIFs of moments from games
- create GIFs of informal moments from US Soccer official sources (regenerating and reworking discourse)
- create specialized graphical representations with images
- request and provide links – livestreams, presentations, videos
- request GIFs, videos, and other information from other users
- tag posts – categorizing and allowing content to be searched
- police use of the tags – specifically the tag “USWNT” – by messaging and posting “rules” of tagging
- ask for input and opinions on apparel, ticket purchases, game etiquette and moe
- discuss the fandom and their feelings of inclusion and participation in that community
As a part of this study, it has become clear that not only is the USWNT fandom shaped by a number of resources and communication practices – and there are also differences in fandom activities at different times. For example, in February, I compared the variations in language choices some fans make during a game – or when they are “livetumbling” – and in their daily circulation of posts and reblogs.
In reblogging posts, users are clearly making decisions about which components of public meaning and insider knowledge they would like to perpetuate. When a user likes or reblogs a post about Alex Morgan but ignores another post about Amy Rodriguez, they are marking out the space and value of pieces of knowledge for the fandom.
What the USWNT fandom actually discusses and creates are representations of the USWNT, players, other fans, opponents, and other popular culture narratives. As with making knowledge, representations are devised through making choices, where fans work with discourse and other cultural materials from which interpretations may be made. Mediated sport discourse, as well as USWNT fandom Tumblr disourses, provide accounts; neither reality nor clean interpretation of events. Rather, as with discourses of mediated sport, Tumblr discourses present a version of events that speaks to broader social relationships and understandings of sexuality, national identities, gender, and imply relationships of power.
Watch this space for further discussion of the implications of these strategic communication choices in the USWNT fandom.
*This is an on-going and developing list, and certainly not exhaustive at this point!
Free Thinking: Models of Knowledge Construction
Meghan
Just a few quick notes — “free thinking” in the spirit of #showyourwork — and on the subject of the production and construction of knowledge*.
This spring/summer I’ve observed at least three separate types of digital spheres in which engagement and information exchange occur: Tumblr fandom, Wikipedia, and transcription models. I have approached these as “project-oriented” spaces because participants
- are operating independently but with the belief that others can see and share their work/product/material,
- have opportunities to see the work of others and integrate, respond to, or reject that work
- can use the technology to assert information as knowledge, evidence, or fact
- can communicate with [someone else] working on the project, though maybe not always directly with each other.
These spaces have also been home to certain kinds of collaborative or project-oriented communication. In other words, in these spaces people have shared information with or without conditions, been working together to achieve a goal, and/or have worked together to create an agreed-upon outcome (consensus). Finally, these are realms of knowledge production and/or construction.
In the past, I have referred to webs of knowledge and cultural webs in my writing – and often what I am discussing is how individuals come together to share information or existing “knowledge” about subjects. Yet, in these spaces, we can also see nuances of producing or constructing knowledge – two different models of knowledge at play in these spaces.
I have distinguished between these models as “authorized” versus “authenticated” knowledge. I’ve gotten feedback that these definitions sound IT or technologically centered. I briefly considered “control” versus “consensus” but that appears to me too critical of the former – and actually so does “authorized.” Therefore, I am resting my thoughts currently on the following pair:
“Offered” versus “Authored” knowledge
These models of knowledge are distinguished and related to spaces of participatory practices in a few ways.
First, “offered” knowledge is the suggested or preferred way of viewing the body of information – you could perhaps label it official, or curated, or dominant discourse. “Authored” knowledge is a version of information developed through a collaborative and information-sharing process. One way to think of this kind of knowledge is as augmenting or contextualizing “offered” knowledge.
Secondly, In participatory processes, “offered” knowledge can be combined with other knowledge repositories to create “authored” knowledge. “Authored” knowledge, therefore, references and/or builds upon existing “offered” knowledge. As a participant contributes to “authored” knowledge, he or she may reference the discrepancies between these two knowledge bases. He or she might also gain acceptance or earn status in the group by understanding and correctly using (and perpetuating) authored knowledge.
I will jump off here and continue to flesh out the relationship between “offered” and “authored” knowledge – and how it is implicated in sustaining or remaking relationships of power. If you’ve come across these models in other spaces, please share your observations in the comments. I’m curious to learn more about digital places that highlight models of knowledge and where “offered” knowledge is sustained or remade through participatory “authoring.”
*knowledge: “a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique” – merriam-webster.com, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowledge
Image via Flickr Commons – gullevek and Construction Work (2006)