Readings and Things: On Virtual Ethnography and the PS Effect

Assigned readings for this week include Christine Hine's article "Virtual Ethnography". She discusses the challenges involved with research such as ours, as well as those of ethnographic study in general.

In thinking on how PostSecret fits into the larger discussion of the Anonymity Project, I found Hine's comments on authenticity to be particularly relevant:

"The question remains then whether interactions in electronic space should be considered authentic, since the ethnographer cannot readily confirm details that the informants tell them about their offline selves. Posing the problem in this way, however, assumes a particular idea of what a person is (and what authenticity is). Authenticity, in this formulation, means correspondence between the identity performed in interactions with the ethnographer and that performed elsewhere both online and offline."

Authenticity proves to be a unique issue in the PostSecret community. In the FAQ section of the main site, one of the questions addressed is whether all of the secrets posted are true or not. Warren responds:

"I think this question is more complicated than it might appear on the surface. Of course, no one could claim that all 200,000 secrets are "true" in the strictest sense or the word.

But I think of each postcard as a work of art. And as art, secrets can have different layers of truth. Some can be both true and false, others can become true over time depending on our choices."

The "layers of truth" to which he refers here apply to the secret-teller and the secret-reader. As these postcards are the only element of an anonymous stranger's identity we see (and thus the only thing upon which to base any assumptions), the relevance of its authenticity may lie only in the secret-reader's perception of, reaction to, or connection with that secret.

Think of Evey's comment in V for Vendetta: "My father used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."

So the question of authenticity here seems to be more concerned with what Warren calls "the secrets we keep from ourselves." In many instances, members of the PS community have said that they did not recognize one of their own deepest secrets until they saw it in a stranger's handwriting.

How, then, might we determine the authenticity of interactions if there are things we might not know about ourselves?

This definitely ties into Hine's later discussion of the boundaries of ethnographic research. The most difficult thing about this project is that we are so deeply within the boundaries of what we are looking into. It is cause for much reflection. We cannot be removed completely.

More on this later...

-Katie