虛擬民族志：網路社群的另一種打開方式
《海外新媒體》課程系列作品-1
Virtual Ethnography
虛擬民族志
一
虛擬民族志又可以稱為網路民族志，它是基於對線上田野工作的參與式觀察，其建立在虛擬社區的實踐基礎之上。萊茵戈德首次描述了在線交互需要些什麼才能夠成為社區：
「People In virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage In Intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends and lose them, play games, flirt, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk. People in virtual communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave our bodies behind. You can"t kiss anybody and nobody can punch you in the nose, but a lot can happen within those boundaries.」
「人們在虛擬社區中，用屏幕上的文字來交換意見和爭辯，參與到知識分子的話語中，進行商業活動、交流知識、分享情感支持、制定計劃、集體討論、閑話，世仇、墜入愛河、找到朋友和失去他們、玩遊戲、調情、創造一點高雅藝術和閑聊。虛擬社區中的人們幾乎可以做到人們在現實生活中所做的一切，但我們卻把我們的身體留在了現實生活中。（在虛擬社區）你不能親吻任何人，也沒有人可以用拳頭打中你的鼻子，但在這些界限內可能會發生很多事情。」
二
Social aggregations means that the topic should focus on collectivity.「Enough people」means that he number of people in the virtual community we study should be among 150-200. Robin Dunbar thinks that if the number of people of online communities is much larger than this figure, we should separate this community into smaller parts.
社會聚合意味著這個話題應該聚焦於集體。足夠的人意味著我們研究的虛擬社區中的人數應該在150-200之間。羅賓·鄧巴認為，如果在線社區的人數比這個數字大得多，我們應該將這個社區分成更小的部分。
Here is the operating procedures of network ethnography:
以下是網路民族志的操作程序：
1.Define research issues, social networking sites and survey topics.
1.定義研究問題，社交網站和調查主題。
2.Identify and select communities.
2.識別並選擇社區。
3.Community participant-observation and data collection.
3.社區參與式觀察和數據收集。
4.Data analysis and interpretation.
4.數據分析和解釋。
5.Compose and show the findings.
5.撰寫並顯示調查結果。
From the procedures we can know that participant-observation is a vital method to do network ethnography. All ethnographers face dilemmas in deciding how to be an effective participant observer in a particular culture. There is a spectrum between full participant and full observer, and each ethnographer has to find an appropriate way to be present for their own field site (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). This is an example:
從上述程序我們可得知，參與式觀察是一種做網路民族志的重要方法。所有民族志學者在決定如何成為特定文化中有效的參與觀察者時都面臨困境。在完全參與者和完全觀察者之間有一個範圍，每個民族志學者必須找到適合他們自己的出現在現場的方式（哈默斯利和阿特金森，1995）。以下是一個例子：
This article can be found on Henry Jenkins』 blog. Henry Jenkins has been devoting himself on Fandom culture study and he also leads some young researchers to do more studies on it. William Proctor is a member of Star War project. He thought that journalists have misrepresented fan objections of the film. He got this conclusion by participant observation.
這篇文章可以在亨利·詹金斯的博客上找到。亨利·詹金斯一直致力於粉絲文化研究，他還帶領一些年輕的研究人員對此做更多的研究。威廉·普羅克特是《星球大戰》項目的成員。他認為記者誤解了反感這部電影的粉絲。他通過參與式觀察得出了這個結論。
三
Besides participant observation, research planning and 「entering」 is also important to network ethnography research. Robert V. Kozinets (the author of ) had chosen a totally wrong way to enter a community when he was a young researcher. He posted on a forum, telling the members of the community who he was and his study purposes, to request the members to help him on that research. But what Robert didn』t know was that that forum had been researched for several times before him. So that time, most members lost their enthusiasm and patience, and that few people were willing to offer help.
除參與式觀察外，研究計劃和「進入」對網路民族志研究也很重要。羅伯特·V·庫茲奈特（《如何研究網路人群和社區：網路民族志方法實踐研究》的作者）在他還是一位年輕的研究人員時選擇了一種完全錯誤的方式進入一個社區。他在論壇上發帖，告訴社區成員他是誰和他的研究目的，請求成員幫助他進行研究。但是羅伯特不知道的是那個論壇在他之前多次被研究過。在那時，大多數成員失去了熱情和耐心，很少有人願意提供幫助。
So doing some planning and know about how to enter a community is necessary. Here are some tips can be used as reference:
因此，做一些規劃並了解如何進入社區是必要的。這裡有一些建議可以作為參考：
1.Know about the focus of the research.
2.Read related researches and even get in touch with other researchers in this field.
3.Choose a proper virtual community: you had better not choose those websites which have been recently researched.
4.Be familiar with the website you want to research: know about their members、language and interests.
5.Improve your questions again and again.
1.了解研究的重點。
2.閱讀相關研究，甚至與該領域的其他研究人員取得聯繫。
3.選擇一個合適的虛擬社區：你最好不要選擇那些最近被研究過的網站。
4.熟悉你想研究的網站：了解他們的成員，語言和興趣。
5.一次又一次改善你的問題。
四
Ethics is a focus issue which has intrigued violent controversary. Online research has tended to be construed as human subjects research, and thus to fall within existing frameworks requiring that subjects be provided with information to enable them to make an informed decision whether to participate or not (Frankel and Siang, 1999).
倫理是一個引起激烈爭議的焦點問題。在線研究往往被解釋為人類受試者的研究，因此屬於現有框架，要求向受試者提供信息，使他們能夠作出明智的決定是否要參與其中（弗蘭克爾和司尚，1999）。
Some researchers threw out these suggestions:
一些研究人員提出了這些建議：
1.informed consent: this means that the researchers should let the members of online communities know they are researchers and their study purposes. Researchers can only carry out their study plan after they get the members』 agreement.
1.知情同意：這意味著研究人員應該讓在線社區的成員知道他們是研究人員和他們的研究目的。 研究人員只有在得到成員的同意後才能執行研究計劃。
2.Signature: this means online aliases should be treated as real names. Some members of online communities post their works on that, their copyright should also be well protected.
2.署名：這意味著在線昵稱應被視為真實姓名。一些在線社區的成員發表了他們的作品，他們的版權也應該得到很好的保護。
3.Avoid harming people in the community.
3.避免傷害到社區人員
五
Ao3 is a fandom community whose full name is 「Archive of our own」, fans of movies, novels, real people etc. can post their fan works (most are slash fictions). In order to do network ethnography on this online community, I need to know about it and obey its rule firstly. As an example, slash fiction focuses on the depiction of romantic or sexual relationship between fictional characters of the same sex, so it is a little improper to post too many romantic stories between a boy and a girl. The members of Ao3 usually regard this as a consensus, but outsiders may hardly understand this rule.
Ao3是一個粉絲社區，全名為「我們自己的檔案館」，電影、小說、真人等的粉絲可以在這個網站發布他們的粉絲作品（大部分是同人文）。為了在這個網上社區做網路民族志，我需要先了解它並遵守它的規則。舉例來說，同人文側重於描繪同性人物之間的浪漫或性關係，所以在這裡發布太多男孩和女孩的浪漫故事是有點不合適的。Ao3的成員通常認為這是一個共識，但局外人可能很難理解這個規則。
（The picture is the screenshot of Ao3 home page 圖為Ao3網站首頁截圖）
The number of members of Ao3 is beyond 10000 (in fact there are still over 30000 people waiting online to get an Ao3 account)，which is far bigger than 200, so we had better separate it. It has a 「movie」 part, and in 「movie」 part there are also many sub-sector. Movie 「Avengers」 is an instance, it has enough fans and adequate discussion, so it is proper for virtual ethnography. Through the messages left under a post and the author』s reply, researchers can have a better understanding about fandom culture.
Ao3的成員人數超過了10000人（實際上仍有超過30000人正在在線等待獲取一個Ao3賬戶），遠遠超過了200人，所以我們最好將其分割開。它有一個「電影」板塊，而在「電影」板塊中也有很多子板塊。電影「復仇者聯盟」是一個實例，它有足夠的粉絲和充分的討論，所以非常適合虛擬民族志研究方法。研究者可以採用虛擬民族志，並通過對留言和作者回復等內容的分析，更好地了解粉絲文化。
Reference materials:
參考資料：
[1]羅伯特· V· 庫茲奈特.如何研究網路人群和社區：網路民族志方法實踐研究[M].重慶：重慶大學出版社，2016
[2]Henryjenkins. How Do You Like It So Far? Podcast: Episode 3 William Proctor and Lisa Granshaw on Star War Fandom Responds to the Last Jedi[EB/OL]. http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2018/2/24/how-do-you-like-it-so-far-podcast-episode-3-billy-proctor-and-lisa-granshaw-on-star-war-fandom-responds-to-the-last-jedi
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