I wasn’t sure how this theory would transfer onto the group I was looking at – YouTube Nirvana / Grunge Rock Group.  I still feel uncertain [and a little uncomfortable] about how much of a ‘community’ this group are. The definition of community is rife with debate, shifting frontiers and not always stable.

I do feel as though the element of RL culture could have a level of impact on the sahpe of an online community, through the provision of an underbelly upon which the virtual might sit.  The level of cultural support required to make this feasible is questionable and something I would like to read more on in the future…

For my micro-ethnography I decided to study a Nirvana/Grunge Rock You Tube community. Access to the ethnography is available here and EDC comments are listed below.

So in thinking about a culture I find my head a-spinning…so much choice.

I was reminded of a blog post that I had read recently. It considered the ramifications and avenues of undertaking an ethnography of robots. What caught my eye about the post was the application of culture to this group…

The Storyteller / Jeff Wall

“The figura of the storyteller is an archaism, a social type which has lost its function as a result of the technological transformations of literacy. It has been relegated to the margins of modernity, and survives there as a relic of the imagination, a nostalgic archetype, an anthropological specimen, apparently dead…such ruined figures embody essential elements of historical memory, the memory of values excluded by capitalist progress and seemingly forgotten by everyone. This memory recovers its potential…parallels the process in which marginalised and oppressed groups re-appropriate and re-learn their own history. This process…and its impact is transforming standard criteria of literacy, creating openings for a newer concept of modernist culture.”

“The Storyteller” in Jeff Wall The Storyteller (Frankfurt am Main: Museum fur Moderne Kunst., 1992)p. 7

Wall’s snapshot captures the essence of the marginality stemming from technological transformation integral within an ever changing cultural landscape. Re-education and re-appropriation in order to access lost literacy runs parallel to the idea of the multimodal structure. Exploration and utilisation of new forms and modes helps to promote maximum literacy and understanding.