Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnographic Fieldwork- Erkan Saka

Saka's theory and study shows that Blogging can be a new tool for anthropologists to use in field work.  It is something that can be used in the field and out of the field for personal development and insight.  What Saka says is that once a blog is written one becomes public.  'A personal development in the terrain of 'care of the self' (Foucault, 1988) evolves in the eyes of anonymous audiences.  Because of the nature of new media, one can never be sure of his/her audience unless s/he explicitly closes of the site to all strangers.  The site/blog would then become a closed-circuit affair and I guess this is somewhat against the nature of this medium...' (Saka, 2006).

This is what I was just writing about in my personal section on this blog.  Once you open the doors to your blog - anyone can read it .  I do however agree with Saka that it is against the nature of blogging to close-circuit the blog.  But, for people like me who are new to the idea of anonymous readers reading your stuff it is hard to grasp.  As a wanna be anthropologist, this new media can prove to be beneficial to us because we can have access everywhere (almost-everywhere) things are kept in chronological order according to dates and times and can be found easily.  I find this particularly interesting as I am all over the place with information and articles... Blogging makes it easy.

Saka relates blogging to that of a journalistic tradition, and shows the personalization of blogs through world happenings and bridges the gap between personal and worldly.  MacDougal (2005) rites that "whatever their stated purpose, Web logs (or blogs) are funny things.  Like no other communicative form, they blur the distinction between what is public and what is private, between the individual and the group, and between fact and fiction.  But in addition to all of this, and particularly when devoted to political news, blogs open up the potential for a diverse set of perspectives that can broaden the public's knowledge base and essentially flatten the hierarchical feel of traditional, mainstream news outlets" (Saka) 2006).  This is also good for ethnographic work being done. 

Along with blogging comes responsibility to the blogging community and the anthropology field.  This means that having comments written on the blog by the anthropologist and other bloggers, one must stay neutral or passive to certain comments.  Although blogging is a medium for expression it is also a place to be respectful of others.  

Saka uses this tool to network amongst different fields of study and to meet new people -of influence and not- from all different aspects of life.  Saka's idea that blogging keeps the ethnographer motivated to keep writing and stay active in the field.  Writing that keeping track of a blog ads 'real-time insight into the rise and fall of conversation topics and the intensity of that discussion' (Saka, 2006).   Saka mentions that bloggers are sometimes faster and more up to date with current events that that of the news.  With this in mind one can only imagine the idea of a blogger mixing facts with their own opinion and posting it.  Will it have a negative effect on the reporting of real life events or will it just be a piece of opinionated journalistic points of view towards real life events where not one single person will have the right story.  As a journalist or anthropologist one will have to be as unbiased as they can without their opinion getting in the way.