Media Ethnography

Media ethnography as a field of study is influenced by both humanistic and social scientific inquiry. In general, media ethnography refers to the application [Page 211]of theories, concepts, and research methods from the field of cultural anthropology to the study of media texts. The field of media ethnography encompasses two broad areas, including ethnographies of production and audience ethnographies. Ethnographies of production examine the dynamics that take place in the making of media texts. Ethnographies of production are used in the study of journalism, film, television, and online content. The second broad area of study involves audience ethnographies, also called reception studies. Audience ethnographies examine how people consume media, in which contexts, and how their understandings of media have changed over time. Media ethnographers tend to prefer qualitative rather than quantitative research methods to investigate questions of the influence of media and culture. Ethnographic methods, such as participant observation and interviews, may provide what Clifford Geertz calls a “thick” description of how individuals and groups understand media, integrate media into their everyday lives, and form communities based on their media consumption. While there are several critiques of media ethnography, most notably that media ethnography is limited in terms of its scope, it is a growing field.

Media ethnography emerged as a response to dominant media effects research that supported a transmission view of media. The transmission view argues that media have direct, linear effects on audiences. Media effects research emphasized social and cognitive psychology, studying audiences' changes in attitudes and behaviors as a result of media exposure. Media ethnographers were critical of media effects research because it did not account for the contexts in which audiences consumed media. Ethnographic methods require researchers to study people's engagement with media in their own settings. Questions that are explored by media ethnographers include how audiences make meaning of media texts, the situations in which people view media, and the uses of communications technologies in the home.

The first broad area of study is ethnographies of production. Ethnographies of production examine how different forms of media, including news, film, television, and online content, are produced. For example, Michael Schudson's study of the newsroom used a sociological lens to better understand the occupational routines of journalists, the relationships between reporters and their subjects, and the ways reporters understand the professional rules and values in the newsroom. More recent research has examined the production of news in new media environments, such as blogs.

Ethnographies of film and television are a newer area of research and fall under the general heading of production studies. Production studies shift focus away from an analysis of the product of media to better understand the processes that media producers encounter as they create media. Production studies scholars argue that creativity is not an isolated experience but instead is embedded in a complex web of economics, politics, and culture. Influenced by cultural studies, production studies scholars look at the ways in which culture both constructs and reinforces power relations. Areas of inquiry include organizational practices and the political economy of media production, or how economics have influenced the context of production. For example, production studies scholars are interested in how outsourcing of labor might influence media teams or how media ownership might influence the content of media.

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