Delving into Ariana Grande- Field Site Mapping

In my previous blog post, I had identified my media niche to be based on my love and interest for Ariana Grande with my main focus on identifying what type of Arianator or tiny elephant I am. This week was all about determining our field sites and discussing how we were thinking of conducting our DAs.

After some careful consideration, I’ve decided that the best method for my research around my Ariana Grande DA is to use the method of auto-ethnography and participant observation to determine my place within the community.

Auto-ethnography is qualitative research method that allows the author to write in a highly personalised style, drawing on their experience to extend understanding about a societal phenomenon (Wall, 2006) while participant observation is defined as Participant observation is the process enabling researchers to learn about the activities of the people under study in the natural setting through observing and participating in those activities. It provides the context for development of sampling guidelines and interview guides (DeWALT & DeWALT, 2002). 

Through conducting my research in this method, I am able to share my passion and love for Grande’s music and the love and respect I have for her as a person with other fans but I will also be able to interact with others from the content I produce. I’ll be using my personal experience to talk about what her music has done to help me. To conduct my research, I will be posting on my TikTok page and observing other fans and their videos to gain an understanding into where I fit in as a fan of hers.

This past week we looked at mapping our field site. Below is the image which is further explained in the video below.

References

DeWalt, Kathleen M. & DeWalt, Billie R. (2002). Participant observation: a guide for fieldworkers. Chapter 1, p1-4, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, viewed 14th August 2021, <https://books.google.com.au/books?id=p1wcO3UNXQ4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false&gt;.

Wall, Sarah (2006) An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5, viewed 14th August 2021, <https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/pluginfile.php/3037105/mod_resource/content/1/Wall%20S%202006%20An%20Autoethnography%20on%20Learning%20about%20Autoethnography.pdf&gt;