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

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

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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. Folklore—Computer network resources. 3. Digital

communications. I. Blank, Trevor J.

GR44.E43F65 2009

398.02854678—dc22

2009026813

USU Press Current Arguments in Folklore edition, 2014

eISBN 978-0-87421-945-6

DOI: 10.7330_9780874219456.c001

Contents

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

Notes

References

About the Author

Current Arguments in Folklore

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

The Challenges and Promise of Folklore in the Digital Age

One afternoon at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Folklore Society in Boise, Idaho—just one month after the release of Folklore and the Internet—I 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.¹ Before I could break into another sentence I was cut off by a veteran folklorist among us who scoffed, "You can’t do fieldwork on the Internet. Leaning forward with a dismissive grin, the scholar asserted: To do fieldwork, you must first have a field to work in, concluding, There is no such thing as true ethnography online."² I wasn’t hurt or surprised by the remarks; I had heard them before.³ Nevertheless, I present this anecdote because it encapsulates the tenor of skepticism regarding folkloristic scholarship on Internet and burgeoning new media technologies that epitomized the time.⁴ 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.⁵ 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