Digital ethnography group panel analyzes online political speech, its origins

On Friday, the Rutgers Digital Ethnography Working Group (DEWG) hosted an online discussion titled "DEWG: Election Edition!" moderated by Caitlin Petre and featuring Brooklyne Gipson, Fenwick McKelvey and Francesca Tripodi.

The panelists introduced their academic experiences, areas of interest in digital ethnography and the gaps that need to be bridged. The discussion and subsequent question-and-answer session centered around how digital ethnography, or the research methods used to study the way people interact and create communities online, can help further analysis of the spread and origins of political content and speech, with a focus on the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Gipson, an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies, talked about the lack of understanding of Black subcultural spaces and underlined the need for community involvement in research through the recognition of the nature of Black cultural discourse influenced by class and geographic location.

Petre, an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies and a member of the DEWG steering committee, initiated a conversation on big data following Gipson's perspective on the need for adopting better research practices and spoke about situated vantage points in online spaces.

"There was a sort of shared idea, definitely in big tech spaces … which (said that) if you have enough data, you actually don't need to worry about mechanisms," said Petre. "You can actually start to make decisions or have findings based on just that."

In response, McKelvey, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University, talked about how big data is not just a resource to be tapped into but rather comes with a responsibility to tell the stories of the communities that are being researched, crediting this perspective to Indigenous collaborators.

Tripodi, an associate professor in the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill, spoke of her experience using Wikipedia data to research editors who wanted to close gender gaps on the website and how ethnographic observations and questions guided the data analysis.

Petre then pivoted to the 2024 election, wanting to understand their takes on the dissemination of media in the realm of memes and disinformation.

"I think when we think about the vibes elections, we're thinking about 'Kamala is Brat.' We're thinking about coconuts. This is like the mainstream stuff," Gipson said. "But Black folks are talking about an AKA being in the White House, a woman who is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority … and there's a lot of misogynoir mixed in that."

Following this, Tripodi highlighted the work of scholars Shannon McGregor and Meredith Clark to reference the use of artificial intelligence in memetic culture. She explained that the cat and dog memes circulating after the presidential debate furthered a certain racialized agenda.

"And I actually think that meme and memetic culture is a way for us to really anticipate how artificial intelligence is going to be used," said McKelvey.