Environmental Engineering Reference
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spent time with the ethnographer with or without the equipment, mugging and
posing for the camera are not uncommon.
The most significant hazard in using a digital camcorder is the risk of tun-
nel vision. Ideally, the ethnographer has studied the social group long enough
to know what to focus on. The ethnographer may need months to develop a rea-
sonably clear conception of specific behaviors before deciding to focus on them
for a time. The digital camcorder can focus in on a certain type of behavior to
the exclusion of everything else. Thus, the ethnographer may arrive at a very
good understanding of a specific cultural mechanism but achieve little under-
standing of its real role in a particular environment. In addition, the technology
aggravates the problem—inherent in all research—of seeing what one wants to
see. During the history class study, I recorded students in the back of the class
who were sending notes to each other or sleeping and one student in the front
of the class who was horsing around. My colleague compared his written notes
with my tape and said he documented as many students in the same class who
were highly attentive and actively participating in class. This cross-checking
and other techniques, such as asking students and teachers to review the record-
ings, helped refine and validate our work. This experience, however, provided
a useful reminder of how easily we could become wrapped up in recording and
lose sight of the big picture—or even the small picture. Experience teaches
ways to mitigate many of these problems—for example, by sweeping across the
classroom periodically to avoid unintentional overfocusing.
In spite of the distinctions being made between visual media, the lines
between them, especially digital photography and video, are becoming
blurred. I often produce videos consisting of a combination of digital pictures
and video recordings, with a voice track narrating the video and royalty-free
music in the background to convey a culturally appropriate and meaningful
tone (see http://www.davidfetterman.com).
CINEMA AND DIGITAL VIDEO
The use of cinema, or movies, in ethnographic research has been rare until
recently. In ethnography, movies have typically presented finished pictures of
cultural groups; they were not tools that researchers used to compose these
pictures. Cost and the expertise needed to function as a filmmaker and editor
were probably the primary reasons underlying this emphasis. However, with
the advent of digital software such as iMovie, iPhoto, and Windows XP Movie
Maker, any ethnographer can produce videos and high-quality movies. Final
Cut Pro is an even more advanced video software for professionals.
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