International Ethnographic Research in the Age of Digital & Social Media
The research project has been concluded and has resulted in April 2014, in the founding of the User Research Lab, a spin-off and cooperation partner of the CDC at Leuphana University by Judith Mühlenhoff.
What follows is the original research project abstract. If you are interested in the current User Research Lab, please visit this site.
The User Research Lab consists of researchers with a background in ethnography, design and media theory. Its aim is to generate specialized knowledge for content providers in the age of digital media. The team is conducting user research and prototyping together with research partners.
The central experimental project of the research is the “sleeping network”: an international network of ethnographers in eight countries, who are doing long-term user research. The ethnographers work permanently with a set of core participants and can always be activated to do specific research instantly and simultaneously at a given moment.
The overall aim of the current research is to understand the meaning and the implications of liveness and engagement in the context of media usage and news consumption. For that purpose the international participants document their media behavior in a digital media diary developed by the User Research Lab. The team consists of Lisa Bachmann, Rita Bakacs, Judith Mühlenhoff und Beate Rätz.