Digital selves, material bodies, and participant research tools: towards material semiotic video ethnography
Roberto Santiago de Roock · International Journal of Social Research Methodology · 2019
Analysis of social action has increasingly considered the place of ‘things’ in recent years, including seeing objects (both physical and digital) as co-participants in social interaction, systems, and the research process. This article argues that video ethnography is well positioned to address such considerations including, with some methodological shifts, digital activity. Drawing on the methodology and findings of an 8-month video ethnography in a US classroom, I discuss a material semiotic approach to examining digital practices, including methods that followed interaction across the online and offline, approached laptops themselves as interlocutors, and examined participant interaction with research instruments as part of student meaning-making practices.