Mathemagenic

Just a quote. Profgrrrrl:

Let's say I'm studying the development of a blog over time. I don't need to follow it while it is developing. Reading the archives later on yields just as much information. Ditto for studying, say, a court case. I'll just get the transcripts/records later on. (Nope, sorry. Misses all of the perceptual data that should be recorded in field notes. In the case of the blog, what if there were a controversial post that was up for 3 days and then deleted. Won't show in your archives. In the case of the court case, how will you know who was in the room, how they reacted, how long pauses were, etc.)

See also: Archaeology and ethnography in weblog research

This post also appears on channel weblog research