Bridging the Gulf Between Mainstream and Diasporic Public Spheres
The ethnographic approach is suitable because, according to (Miller, 1998), it “allows for the observation not only of people’s discourses (what people say in an interview context), but also of their practices (what they actually do in their everyday lives” (ibid). The latter entails ethnography of communication, that is, communication from the standpoint of BMEs. The researcher will conduct a focus group of up to eight young black teenage participants including gathering information about their personal profile, appeal of the project, their motivation for contributing comments and producing content; their views on the parallel public spheres; and their evaluation of the digital projects in reducing alienation among BMEs. This approach is suitable because it enables the researcher to investigate the “circulation of meaning” (Silverstone, 1999) which occur “together with the other moments that constitute the mediation process, namely media production, the media texts, the media technologies and objects and the social and cultural context” (Madianou, 2009). Additional method is textual analysis of the UGC components. These methods will yield data to design best practice guidelines to reduce alienation.