WEEK 3 — Collaborative Media Ethnography

▶ BCM240 Media, Audience, Place

Image taken from medium.com

Ethnography is the study of people and their cultures, as well as their habits and customs. Collaborative Media Ethnography however is the idea of people from different cultures gathering together through media to understand each others’ habits and customs from their own culture. Just like the concept of changing ‘reading over the shoulders of natives’ to ‘reading alongside natives’ (Lassiter, 2005).

With ‘reading alongside natives,’ there can still be some potential problems that can arise. Stereotypes play a big part of why problems can potentially arise, let’s take for example the United States. There are people of colour (African American, Mexican, Asians) and then there are the ‘whites,’ usually you hear about ‘White privilege’ in America and that basically means that the people that have white skin in the US have the upper hand in almost everything even as simple as getting an education or a job.

There are still some people that are not open-minded enough of equality amongst all skin colours and all cultures, even when people of different cultures try their hardest to understand those outside of their culture — there will always be instances of misunderstanding or people refusing to accept certain habits of a culture.

References

1. Greenberg, J. (2017, July 24). 10 Examples That Prove White Privilege Exists in Every Aspect Imaginable. Retrieved May 29, 2020, from https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2017/07/24/10-examples-that-prove-white-privilege-exists-in-every-aspect-imaginable/
2. Lassiter, L. E. (2005). The Chicago guide to collaborative ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.