Thursday, October 29, 2009

Questions about Sneijder & te Molder (2009)

"Normalizing ideological food choice and eating practices. Identity work in online discussions on veganism" Appetite 52 (2009) 621–630. 
(I'm looking at p. 623)

"In the first fragment, participant Anne, who categorizes herself as a novice by the activity of introducing herself..."

Perhaps I'm the only one who finds this observation problematic, but it seems to me that Anne could very well have been lurking on the forum for a year or more for all anyone knows. Not sure the activity of introduction categorizes one as a novice the way Sneijder & te Molder want you to think. Seems to me like there was other data in Anne's transcript that would have made a stronger case for her being a novice (as a vegan or as a member of the online community) than the fact that this was an introduction.


"The analysis was performed on the Dutch materials. It informed the translation to the extent that it was designed to capture the social actions found by the researchers in the data. In line with discursive psychological practice to ensure as much transparency on data and analysis as possible, the original Dutch postings are also made available to the readers."

I think this was well done...and makes my argument that "in line with discursive psychological practice to ensure as much transparency on data and analysis as possible", original video and audio recordings should also be made available to the readers in other research projects....

2 comments:

trena paulus said...

How about saying that she was "novice contributor"? Lurkers may be peripheral members of the community, but I'm not sure they are full members if they aren't actively participating. Hm, I think you may disagree with me on this.

Unknown said...

I like the novice contributor idea...but it has IMHO the sense of being a "novice high" or "intermediate low" member of the community. Most online communities that I frequent actually advise n00bs to lurk for some time to get a feel for the culture and netiquette of the group (so as not to make a faux pas like asking a FAQ, etc.) After some time of being a lurker, it is then acceptable to start contributing actively. This makes sense if you see online communities (like the one in Sneijder & te Molder) in terms of their educative value. In that sense, they _are_ actively participating in a way considered perfectly acceptable by an online discursive community. When you "de-lurk", then, the immediate thought is that you are not a "novice" (although I think "novice contributor" sounds truer)...