Strength and Weaknesses of Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research is used when observational research isn’t enough, and to provide a deeper understanding to a societal problem. Ethnographers study up close and personal, or actively participate in their own study. There are a couple of pros and cons to ethnographic research. One positive outcome is that the study can show us places or situations we don’t normally see or experience. For example, how a street gang functions like the video shown, society in a prison cell, or the complete opposite, the daily life of Mark Zuckerberg. Venkatesh was given an inside look on how difficult being a gang leader is, something that most other would never learn in day to day society. Plus, he learned that poor communities in Chicago had to rely on a street gang to survive, more than the government could do there. Also, he compared the gang members to normal everyday societies. Stating that there are many things in common within both groups such as, race divides, ethnic divides, and social class. Another strength from ethnographic research is the ability to provide a much more detailed depiction than a group of people answering surveys. It’s different when a person claims something is true, but if observed, can be the complete opposite or have underlying meaning.

On the other side, there are weaknesses as well. Researches find it almost impossible to make broad points from the small and local circumstances. Also, the subjects have to be a true representation of the larger audience as possible. Additionally, the researcher must forget all the potential bias he has to carry out the research. Finally, the research can be dangerous depending on what the subject is, like Venkatesh experienced in his study. The gang members didn’t believe that he was a sociologist asking simple questions, they thought that he was in a rival Mexican gang member and kept him hostage under a stairwell for twenty-four hours.

According to the text, causality is central to sociological research. Causation is when an event occurs in a way and that event leads to another, so in turn causes a correlation. Which is when two social phenomena appearing together, happen within each other. For example, the great debate of “do video games create violent people”. If looked simply, others would think of course. There are countless violent acts that players can do in the Grand Theft Auto, such as picking up a gun off the street and killing civilians or throwing someone out of a car to steal their vehicle. However, this would be a spurious relationship. People that buy various shooters are maybe already violent themselves. Inherently, violent people are simply drawn to more violent games. The video games are not conditioning the person to be aggressive or more aggressive than they already are. Correlation doesn’t mean causation in this case. There are several gaming conventions where hundreds of people are promoting and playing video games. If violent video games really caused the population to be aggressive, society would call it an epidemic.

Most of the general population of the world is on social media, so imagine the power they have on you. For example, you make an account on Facebook, add a couple of friends, like certain pages etc. In turn, you believe that you’re in control of your own timeline. Yet, they can still control what they show you, not only for research purposes, they’re doing it currently. Propaganda from the left or right, advertisements for products you’ve search on separate browsers are posted on your timeline, or paid advertisements from a company to promote their product. So, technically Facebook can show you whatever they want to make you feel some type of way or change to their rhetoric. This is when the ethics of research weighs in.

Facebook is an extremely wealthy website, and from the videos shown, Facebook has gotten away with the researches they have conducted. Their excuse was, their terms of service includes consent to any research they want to conduct. Which is scary considering the ethics review board had no control over it. In turn, the public was changed psychologically without knowing or consenting to the research done. Also, anyone can post false claims and the people that see it will believe it without having any sources, or if they have sources, is it a reputable one? Not everything you read on the internet is true, however, you can’t deny everything on the internet. Who are regulating these sites? There are no serious crimes for “fake news”, its only claimed as unethical.