The ethnographer’s job is to immerse himself in the culture being studied and participate in order to get a better understanding of their ways of life. By this definition Prof. Wesch has accomplished a rather unique milestone by summarizing the insights of his work in the digital arena into the short video Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us, which digests this relatively new concept in a way that makes it accessible to those that are not part of the elite (l33t) group at the forefront of the web evolution.
The video, which in less than 2 weeks has been watched almost one million times, owes its sudden popularity perhaps to the fact that not only it provides an engaging explanation, but it turns the message inside out, inviting the viewer to become part of the very same culture being studied. By the end of the presentation almost any viewer realizes she has also being a user (part of the machine) at some point. In my opinion this is the most important accomplishment of this group: create a gateway into a culture to the point that any person is capable of participating.
The Digital Ethnography working group at Kansas State University studies the impacts of digital technology on human interaction. This is the video that brought them into the spotlight:
Updated with the final version released on March 8th, 2007
This is not as clear as it could be:
“By the end of the presentation almost any viewer realizes it has also being a user (part of the machine) at some point.”
Presumably you mean he/she not it.