Critical Review #4

Chapter 6 of “Shadows in the Field” focuses on the effect new advances in technology have had on the processes of fieldwork, stressing this relatively new concept of virtuality, defined as “the technological mediation of human interaction, and also technologically communicated and constituted realities” (90). Katherine Meizel tells of her experience collecting field-notes regarding her research on the television show “American Idol”. She admits that she had unknowingly been consumed by the virtual field, utilizing websites, message boards, and forums to facilitate her work. Though she did not condone it as a replacement to physical fieldwork, she did realize that virtual field, so to speak, kept her in check and “allowed her to gauge” what she discovered in the physical field. Timothy Cooley seems a bit hesitant to utilize much of the virtual field, but one form of “mediated communication technology” he seems to be more lenient with is the telephone. He believes that the telephone provides easy access to international interviews, though cannot substitute for face-to-face conversation. An interesting point that Nasir Syed brings up is that this new virtual world allows us to learn virtually as well, “virtually learning face-to-face from one specific guru at a time from any number of masters--online” (103). He admits that these online videos have greatly augmented his study of the sitar, yet does not believe that it replaces “the traditional master-apprentice relationship”. One aspect of fieldwork that all three authors can agree on is that technology provides new openings and enhancements to the metaphorical field, but they also agree that accessibility does not always constitute reliability.

Discussion Question: In an age when technology facilitates the accessibility of countless music cultures, to what extent does the overall quality of research suffer within a specific music culture, due to the increased quantity of music cultures now available to us? Is there a threat of ethnographers being spread too thin?