Trevor J. Blank - Toward a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Folklore and the Internet

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Toward a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Folklore and the Internet

Trevor J. Blank

A Current Arguments in Folklore selection from Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World with new material

Toward a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Folklore and the Internet comprises chapter 1 from Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World by Trevor J. Blank 2009 by University Press of Colorado, and new material by Trevor J. Blank 2014 by University Press of Colorado.

Published by Utah State University Press

An imprint of University Press of Colorado

5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C

Boulder, Colorado 80303

The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of The Association of American University Presses.

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for the book Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World

Folklore and the internet: vernacular expression in a digital world / edited by

Trevor J. Blank.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-87421-750-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-87421-751-3 (e-book)

1. Folklore and the Internet. 2. FolkloreComputer network resources. 3. Digital

communications. I. Blank, Trevor J.

GR44.E43F65 2009

398.02854678dc22

2009026813

USU Press Current Arguments in Folklore edition, 2014

eISBN 978-0-87421-945-6

DOI: 10.7330_9780874219456.c001

Contents

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Current Arguments in Folklore

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Toward a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Folklore and the Internet

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The Challenges and Promise of Folklore in the Digital Age

One afternoon at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Folklore Society in Boise, Idahojust one month after the release of Folklore and the InternetI went out to lunch with a small group of folklorists. Catching up over an impressive array of potatoes and other local fare, we eventually began to discuss our new and ongoing research endeavors of late. When it was my turn to speak, I excitedly announced that I had been studying Internet folklore, and that I was conducting some ethnographic fieldwork online. But that was 2009. And fortunately, a lot has changed over the last five years.

When Folklore and the Internet was released on September 9, 2009, it became the first edited volume dedicated specifically to the folkloristic analysis of emergent digital technologies. Accordingly, my introduction to the anthology, Toward a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Folklore and the Internet, aimed to bring folklorists up to speed on existing scholarly literature and arguments while working to establish the Internet as a legitimate area for folkloristic inquiry. In an era where some incredulous folklorists were perhaps more inclined to side with the scholar who chided my interests in digital ethnography, the book and its introductory framework managed to break through, and they have held up over time. Indeed, the publication of this very monograph underscores the positive impact those bodies of writing have enjoyed within folklore studies.

In November 2012, Folklore and the Internet was followed by another edited volume, Folk Culture in the Digital Age ( This designedly included stepping back from earlier emphases on issues of privacy and anonymity in online settings; the merits of conducting cyberethnographic fieldwork; and complaints about the disciplinary boundaries of folkloristicsthemes represented heavily in Folklore and the Internets introductionbecause those areas of concern and resistance had substantially waned or been abandoned altogether. Moreover, new sources of discontent took their place. Herein lies the great challenge of collecting and analyzing contemporary folklore.

As digital folklore evolves, so too do the expressive repertoires of its purveyors, thus necessitating a reexamination of how folklorists actively interpret the domain. Time passes quicker than ever in the digital age; praxis

The utilization of cellphones, smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, and other Internet-capable devices for vernacular expression, social networking, and general correspondence exemplifies the remarkable power and reach of technologically mediated communication. These subjects have steadily accrued greater attention in folkloristic scholarship since the 2009 debut of Folklore and the Internet, but there is still work to be done.

It is easy to take for granted how freely information can now be accessed, but the consequential impact on the transmission of folk knowledge is unmistakable. Technologically mediated communication presents a seemingly endless, regenerating corpus of expressive content ripe for folkloristic analysis., 273).

Building the Framework

In his essay Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context, Dan Ben-Amos asserts: If the initial assumption of folklore research is based on the disappearance of its subject matter, there is no way to prevent the science from following the same road (, 302), we too must respond by looking elsewhere when such feelings of impending doom surface in folklore scholarship.

Folklore is a self-conscious discipline, and speculation on the future of folkloristicsthe academic study of folklorehas been pessimistic at best. In a similar vein, Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs note that tradition has been reportedly on the verge of dying for more than three centuries, [yet]... continues to provide useful means of producing and legitimizing new modernist projects, sets of legislators, and schemes of social inequality (, 406). It is time that folklorists look to the Internet, not only to expand our scholastic horizons but also to carry our discipline into the digital age.

The formulation of the World Wide Web network has its roots in the Cold War tensions of the mid-twentieth century. The earliest incarnations were spawned in the form of the US Department of Defenses Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), created mainly in response to the Soviet Unions launching of Sputnik. Beginning in 1958, ARPANET served the military and academic researchers as a means of communication and as a command tool for defense operations. E-mail technology was created in 1970, and by the 1980s people were interacting online through bulletin boards (discussion groups), MUDs (multiuser dungeons), and the WELL (Whole Earth Lectronic Link), a social network composed of Internet users from across the globe; later, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) followed (

The modern Internet emerged with the creation of the World Wide Web in 1989 by English computer scientist Timothy Berners-Lee. The development of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and web browser technology allowed the Internet to expand from an exclusive academic forum into the worldwide phenomenon it is today. In 1992, the Internet was opened to the public domain.

At the beginning of the 1990s there took place a fundamental transformation of the Internet... as the web became the center of the Internet and web browsers became the most common way of accessing it, transformations in the communication processes established over the Internet also took place due to the specific characteristic of the web and its browsers. The web introduced new ways of communicating over the Internet, facilitated the use of the net, leading to its popularization, and, to a great extent, also facilitated and promoted its commercialization (, 73).

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