Tania Lewis

Larissa Hjorth

Heather Horst

John Postill

Sarah Pink

Jo Tacchi

Lecturers, request your electronic inspection copy This sharp, innovative book champions the rising significance of ethnographic research on the use of digital resources around the world. It contextualises digital and pre-digital ethnographic research and demonstrates how the methodological, practical and theoretical dimensions are increasingly intertwined. Digital ethnography is central to our understanding of the social world; it can shape methodology and methods, and provides the technological tools needed to research society. The authoritative team of authors clearly set out how to research localities, objects and events as well as providing insights into exploring individuals’ or communities’ lived experiences, practices and relationships. The book: Defines a series of central concepts in this new branch of social and cultural research Challenges existing conceptual and analytical categories Showcases new and innovative methods Theorises the digital world in new ways Encourages us to rethink pre-digital practices, media and environments This is the ideal introduction for anyone intending to conduct ethnographic research in today’s digital society.

Principles and Practice

Digital Ethnography

June Lennie

Evaluating Communication for Development presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating communication for development (C4D). This framework combines the latest thinking from a number of fields in new ways. It critiques dominant instrumental, accountability-based approaches to development and evaluation and offers an alternative holistic, participatory, mixed methods approach based on systems and complexity thinking and other key concepts. It maintains a focus on power, gender and other differences and social norms. The authors have designed the framework as a way to focus on achieving sustainable social change and to continually improve and develop C4D initiatives. The benefits and rigour of this approach are supported by examples and case studies from a number of action research and evaluation capacity development projects undertaken by the authors over the past fifteen years. Building on current arguments within the fields of C4D and development, the authors reinforce the case for effective communication being a central and vital component of participatory forms of development, something that needs to be appreciated by decision makers. They also consider ways of increasing the effectiveness of evaluation capacity development from grassroots to management level in the development context, an issue of growing importance to improving the quality, effectiveness and utilisation of monitoring and evaluation studies in this field. The book includes a critical review of the key approaches, methodologies and methods that are considered effective for planning evaluation, assessing the outcomes of C4D, and engaging in continuous learning. This rigorous book is of immense theoretical and practical value to students, scholars, and professionals researching or working in development, communication and media, applied anthropology, and evaluation and program planning.

A Framework for Social Change

Evaluating Communication for Development

Thomas Tufte

This book offers a fresh set of innovative and creative contributions related to the role of communication in processes of change. Given the current fast pace of social-economic, political and technological change across the globe, and the central role of communication in this, there is a growing need to reconceptualize how we approach communication and change that provides entry points to help us expand and enrich our scholarly and practical work. This collection presents 14 concepts from a multi-disciplinary collection of internationally leading and emerging scholars, from 13 countries on 5 continents. They come together around three meta-topics: citizenship and justice, critiques of development, and renewing thought (from and for the margins). The short chapter format ensures that authors get straight to the nub of their ideas, providing readers — students, scholars and practitioners alike — with accessible, engaging and innovative ways to think critically about communication and social change, in new ways.

Concepts to Think With

Communicating for Change

Esta obra es el resultado del rico e innovador trabajo que realizan los miembros del Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) de la RMIT University, Australia. Un trabajo agudo e innovador que defiende la creciente importancia de la investigación etnográfica sobre el uso y las implicaciones de los recursos digitales que moldean la forma en que vivimos hoy en día. Contextualizan la investigación etnográfica digital y predigital y demuestran cómo las dimensiones metodológicas, prácticas y teóricas están cada vez más interrelacionadas. La etnografía digital es fundamental para obtener una comprensión bien informada, contextualizada y conceptualmente fundamentada de nuestros nuevos mundos digitales; lo que condiciona y obliga a repensar la metodología y las herramientas tecnológicas necesarias para investigar en estas realidades. Este experto equipo de investigadoras e investigadores despliega una nueva sensibilidad y expone claramente cómo investigar situaciones, objetos y eventos; proporciona ideas para explorar las experiencias, las prácticas y las relaciones vividas por los individuos o las comunidades. Una obra que: Define los conceptos centrales en esta nueva rama de la investigación social y cultural. Desafía las categorías conceptuales y analíticas existentes. Presenta métodos nuevos e innovadores. Teoriza el mundo digital de nuevas maneras. Nos anima a repensar las prácticas predigitales, los medios de comunicación, las redes sociales y los entornos digitales. Un volumen repleto de buenos y claros ejemplos de investigación y perspectivas teóricas claras, lo que le convierte en una obra fundamental y desafiante para cualquier persona interesada en comprender la diversidad y complejidad digital en la vida cotidiana y que pretenda realizar investigaciones etnográficas en la sociedad actual.

Jo Tacchi

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