张志娟

Understanding Folk Culture in the Digital Age: An interview with Folklorist Trevor J. Blank, Pt. 1
June 30, 2014 by Trevor Owens

Trevor J. Blank, assistant professor of communication at the State University of New York at Potsdam

The following is a guest post from Julia Fernandez, this year’s NDIIPP Junior Fellow. Julia has a background in American studies and working with folklife institutions and is working on a range of projects leading up to CurateCamp Digital Culture in July. This is the first of a series of interviews Julia is conducting to better understand the kinds of born-digital primary sources folklorists, and others interested in studying digital culture, are making use of for their scholarship.

When most people think of “folklore,” they tend to think of fairy tales and urban legends. Trevor Blank thinks of photoshopped memes and dark humor. Folklorist Trevor J. Blank is an assistant professor of communication at the State University of New York at Potsdam, where he researches the hybridization of folk culture in the digital age with a particular focus on emergent narrative genres and vernacular expression. In this installment of theInsights Interview series, I talk with Trevor about his approach to studying folklore on the internet. Tomorrow, in part two of this interview, I talk with Trevor about the implications of this line of thinking for institutions working to collect and preserve records of folk culture in the digital age.
Julia: Why does it make sense to approach the web and communication on the web as a folklorist? What do we gain from this approach that we wouldn’t get from other humanities or social science perspectives? Trevor Owens previously interviewed Robert Glenn Howard about his work onthe “vernacular web”; do you see your work as being largely in the same vein as Robert’s? Or are there significant differences?
Trevor: Let me begin by expressing my gratitude for the opportunity to chat with you about all of this!
Contrary to popular belief, folklore is just as much, if not more, of an agent of the present as it is of the past. As a folklorist, I am interested in vernacular expression; understanding how people forge traditions, share knowledge, and make meaning in everyday life is central to my work. For me, that centrally involves working with new media technologies and observing the ways in which they’re implemented by individuals and groups in everyday life.
It is critical to document the myriad ways in which folk culture adapts, influences, rejects and responds to changing cultural tides, especially amid the exponential growth of computer-mediated communication technologies. Folklorists are uniquely positioned to comment on emergent forms of communicative expression, noting traditionality and innovation in seemingly new material while contextualizing and interpreting the forms and meanings behind its deployment. Whereas other humanities and social science fields may favor statistical analysis, data mining and text collection/comparison, folklorists employ interdisciplinary approaches, often using ethnographic methods, that strive for a more holistic representation of research subjects. At the end of the day, the emphasis remains on individuals and groups– even if they’re united in an online venue.
Now, not all folklorists have always been keen on studying Internet folklore, preferring instead to focus their energies on oral traditions and expressive culture observed in face-to-face communication. For that reason, Robert Glenn Howard’s work on the vernacular web was a revelation to me, and continues to greatly influence my thinking on approaching my own research on folk culture in the digital age. His work on electronic hybridity also directly informed and prompted my own research on the subject. Like Howard, I’m interested in underscoring everyday communication and interaction by analyzing the interconnected webs of meaning and participatory actions that comprise it. Our individual interests have led us to different research projects (and sometimes different conclusions), but I’d say that my work definitely operates in conversation with the framework he has so masterfully crafted over the years.
Julia: At this point you have been studying folklore and the internet since 2007. How has your approach and perspective developed over time? What (if any) changes have you observed in how folk culture objects are created and disseminated online?
Trevor: I was initially drawn to studying folklore and the Internet as a graduate student, precisely because it seemed that only a small handful of folklorists were deeply invested in this area of inquiry at the time (Robert Glenn Howard being one of them). To my eager eyes, it seemed that there was a lot of expressive content and cultural phenomena that had been inadequately chronicled by folklorists to that point. Indeed, many folklore scholars were skeptical of the value of folklore collected in online settings, as I mentioned. Of course, this was nothing new; there was similar angst over the study of photocopylore, or “Xeroxlore,” before the Internet was commercially available. In any case, I saw an opportunity to contribute something new to the folklore discipline, or at least a chance to invite greater attention to this rich yet neglected area of study. Ultimately, that resulted in my editing of the anthology Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World, which came out in 2009 and featured essays written by a number of tremendous folklore scholars.
Whether it was the book or the passage of time, the study of folklore in the digital age–in all of its iterations–has since come to enjoy a far warmer reception among folklorists, and now many more scholars are contributing new and exciting perspectives on the everchanging digital landscape. Back then, my standard approach and perspective was to carefully explain why digital folklore was every bit as legitimate as its face-to-face correlates and passionately advocate for its further study to anyone who would listen. As a result, most of my early publications end with a rant about the need for folklorists to jump into the digital fray! Fortunately, that is no longer necessary these days, which is a big deal. I now focus my energies on developing new anthologies, special issues of peer-reviewed journals and my own independent cases studies and theoretical research aimed at broadening the scholarly literature on folklore in the digital age as well as its profile.

Example of a Demotivational poster. Adversity by user cadsonline on Flickr.

Since 2007, I’ve noticed definite shifts in how folklore and various elements of folk culture are created and transmitted online. For one, there has been a greater shift towards “visuality,” meaning that a greater part of the folkloric content we find in circulation online tends to have some kind of eye-catching component that renders it traditional in the context of vernacular expression. Image macros (what most folks simply conceptualize as “memes”), humorous Facebook posts, de-motivational posters, etc. all utilize the online medium’s increasingly proficient ability to host and share visual data quickly and effectively.
By the same token, Vine and Snapchat have also spawned new expressive modes– something that wouldn’t have been feasible a short time ago (even in the YouTube era). What we see now are people adapting to the new expressive tools they have at their disposal. These new tools haven’t displaced older ones necessarily, but they have undoubtedly drawn greater attention to a burgeoning trajectory in the dynamics of technologically-mediated communication. Another example of a popular and developing genre of Internet folklore comes from “creepypastas,” or short horror stories, often paired with a corroborating image or two, that are shared with the intent of gleefully creeping out readers. Here again, many of the stories and visuals echo expressive genres and patterns found in oral traditions, only this time they’ve made it to the digital realm. I think this powerfully speaks to the medium’s adaptive capabilities when it comes to contemporary folklore.
Julia: In your most recent book The Last Laugh: Folk Humor, Celebrity Culture, and Mass-Mediated Disasters in the Digital Age, you focus on the concept of “hybridization.” You define hybridization as “the blending of analog and digital forms in the course of their dissemination and enactment,” which you argue helps people “adapt to the progressing culture by merging the old and familiar with the emergent capabilities of a new medium.” Can you expand a bit more on hybridization in a folklore context? Why is it such an important concept for you?

“Snapchat silliness” by user jessycat_techie on Flickr.

Trevor: Sure! Folklore thrives through the process of repetition and variation, meaning that certain expressive patterns or traits continuously and consistently “repeat” over time (demonstrating/establishing traditionality) and they will also “vary” or undergo some adaptive modification in the course of their dissemination, usually to suit a new context. This is how and why so many people can recall legends or ghost stories that share many similar motifs yet contain components that render them distinct from other versions.
Take the legend of “Bloody Mary,” for example: most versions of the narrative also entice listeners, usually children and adolescents, to carry out a ritual involving a mirror, though the consequences of completing the task range from a friendly apparition appearing to being disemboweled by said apparition. While the themes are related, the specific details of the story change from teller to teller, context to context. My point in mentioning this tale is to draw attention the adaptive capabilities of folklore. As communicative beings, we tailor our repertoires to befit a particular context and look for opportunities to maximize our abilities to convey information effectively.
In the context of vernacular expression on the Internet, individuals rely on their oral/face-to-face/analog conceptualizations of language and communication to inform their corresponding actions in the digital realm. No matter how hard you stare at an abstract body of text online, you won’t always be able to see if the words were infused with the hint of a smile, a sarcastic crack, or genuine anger. As a remedy, people started incorporating emoticons or initialisms like “LOL” to convey laughing out loud or a lighthearted chuckle in online settings. Then, curiously, some folks started exclaiming “LOL” (phonetically as one word, not L-O-L) or “lulz” out loud, in face-to-face communication settings, to convey mild amusement among peers.
These kinds of happenings, which are quite common, reveal the hybridization of folk culture. Because technologically-mediated communication is so ubiquitously and integrally rooted into everyday life (for most individuals), the cognitive boundaries between the corporeal and virtual have been blurred. When we send text messages to a friend or family member, we typically think “I’m sending this text” instead of “these glowing dots of phosphorous are being converted into tiny signals and beamed across several cell towers before being decoded and received on a peer’s phone.” The message is perceived as an authentic extension of our communicative selves without much thought over the medium in which it was sent.
On a more nuanced level there are obvious differences between oral and electronic transmission, but both formats are often equally relied upon and valued for everyday communication while simultaneously shaping each other’s forms. This hybridization is incredibly important because it entails the reciprocal amalgamation of tradition, innovation and adaptation of folk culture across face-to-face and digital venues. As technology continues to improve at exponential rates and more sophisticated opportunities for electronic transmission and digital expression become available, this boundary blurring hybridization will become increasingly pronounced and will continue to complicate existing notions of face-to-face communication and folk culture. This isn’t automatically a bad thing, but it does stress the need for continued monitoring in order to more accurately capture the bustling dynamics of contemporary folklore.
Part two of this interview appeared on July 1, 2014.

张志娟

Preserving Folk Cultures of the Digital Age: An interview with Folklorist Trevor J. Blank, Pt. 2
July 1, 2014 by Trevor Owens

Trevor J. Blank assistant professor of communication at the State University of New York at Potsdam

The following is a guest post from Julia Fernandez, this year’s NDIIPP Junior Fellow. Julia has a background in American studies and working with folklife institutions and is working on a range of projects leading up to CurateCamp Digital Culture in July. This is part of an ongoing series of interviews Julia is conducting to better understand the kinds of born-digital primary sources folklorists, and others interested in studying digital culture, are making use of for their scholarship.

Part One of this interview appeared on June 30, 2014.
In the first half of my interview with Trevor Blank, we learned about the kinds of Photoshopped memes and online interactions that make up the vernacular web of digital folklore. Today, in this continuation of ourInsights Interview,I am excited to explore where the records of digital folklore are and what roles libraries, archives and museums might play in ensuring long term access to those records. Folklorist Trevor J. Blank is an assistant professor of communication at the State University of New York at Potsdam, where he researches the hybridization of folk culture in the digital age with a particular focus on emergent narrative genres and vernacular expression.
Julia: In a recent NPR interview, you point out that “you have to rely on institutions in order to express yourself in the digital medium”, and that people use those commercial institutions for folk expression.  You also recently asked on Twitter, “Can folk culture circumvent institutional constraints?” What do you think is the answer to that question? What role do institutions and individuals each play in creating a folk culture online?
Trevor: Great question! Fundamentally, we rely on institutions for a number of aspects of everyday life: we look to our government to protect us and keep us moving forward as a society; we expect children to learn something valuable when they go to school; we look for law enforcement to ensure that citizens play by the rules, just to name a few. Folk culture–the informal, unofficial expressive dynamics that constitute everyday life within a group–resides outside of these institutions yet it is inherently aware of and shaped by them. The two unavoidably intermingle in the context of modern American life. For instance, connecting to the Internet requires navigating through an institutional barrier, like a cable company or Internet service provider, before one can even begin to engage in vernacular expression online.
To follow that thread, dynamic folk discourse can take place in the comment sections of institutional websites like YouTube. Or, an individual can publish beautiful, original prose (essentially folk expression) on their blog, which may have been built from a template provided by WordPress (which is institutional). The point is that folk expression and institutions are not inherently antagonistic; in fact, they frequently play off one another or become hybridized in the process of generating folklore. A good, illustrative example can be found in the emerging digital tradition of crafting and publishing humorous, fake product reviews on Amazon.com (I have a forthcoming article in the Journal of American Folklore about this very phenomenon!).

Image of Three Wolf Moon t-shirt, which became an internet phenomenon through its rating and reviews on Amazon. From user jimgroom on Flickr.

Amazon, the world’s largest retailer, is a huge corporation with significant institutional power and influence, and they partner with independent companies to make countless products available for purchase by consumers. One major, institutionally crafted feature of Amazon comes in the form of product reviews, which are meant to allow regular people (decidedly non-institutional folks) to provide their own feelings and opinions about a given product following a transaction. The idea behind the system is to make consumers feel as though they have a stake in the Amazon community, which is meant to feel outside the institutional boundaries of the site. In theory, by virtue of being  composed by individuals who are unaffiliated with Amazon, the reviews appear to benefit other customers more than they directly benefit Amazon; in practice, they invariably influence consumers to buy a given item through Amazon’s marketplace. Regardless, the popular “vernacular” review feature has become a ubiquitous part of purchasing something from the “institutional” site.
Some crafty individuals soon realized that they could use the familiar format to write incredibly vivid product reviews that ruthlessly mocked certain items for sale, building narrative repertoires through collaborative engagement. The expressive patterns emblazoned in many of these faux reviews arose from their widespread performance and vernacular deliberation online. So, this creative arena was essentially born out of folk culture circumventing the institutional constraints and participation expectations imposed by Amazon, using the site’s official structure to stake out a means for vernacular expression to come through. Amazon is only one example of this back-and-forth, of course, but I’d say it demonstrates that folklore–as it has always done before–will find a way to rise above institutional constraints in the digital age. Identifying how that is accomplished is a particularly compelling aspect of studying contemporary folklore.
Julia: In the same interview, you argue that the internet can be a means for preserving folklore. While born digital content may seem ephemeral, you note that “it is nevertheless able to be archived in a very vibrant way.” What makes a particular archive “vibrant”?
Trevor: I think the criteria is probably subjective from one individual to the next. Personally, I find the most vibrant archived folklore on (and from) the Internet to stem from vernacular discourse that proliferates in response to an event or phenomenon that has been widely covered in the mass media, such as natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and celebrity  scandals, among others. In the digital age, practically every form of social media constantly beckons individuals to contribute new content based on their own thoughts about what’s going on in the world (both locally and globally). As you might suspect, many folks happily oblige, posting pictures, sharing news stories, uploading video clips, writing personal updates and perpetually commenting on their peers’ (and their own) offerings. Thus, when a news event attracts excessive media coverage, we start to see jokes, stories, rumors, rants, memes, conspiracy theories, etc. fly through the digital ether right away. Coming across archived discussion forums, virtual community deliberations, circulated image macros, old listservs or even long abandoned tweets reveal so much about a salient moment in time where people turned to one another to process the gravity of their living contexts.
But beyond archived vernacular discourse, I’m also very interested in tracing the evolution of vernacular expression in online settings in order to demonstrate the traditionality of emergent forms and patterns. So, for example, I see special value in looking back at how something like visual parodies made in response to the 9/11 Tourist Guy hoax seem to be thematically present in the creative manipulations of the famous Obama Situation Room photo in an effort to get a better sense of how people use folk knowledge about popular culture and existing digital parody traditions to artfully rebrand how a powerful image is subsequently perceived in the present.
Julia: If librarians, archivists and curators wanted to learn more about approaches like yours what examples of other scholars’ work would you suggest?
Trevor: I’m glad to say that there are a number of folklore scholars out there who are doing really great work in studying folklore and folk culture in the digital age. Robert Glenn Howard, of course, has been prolific. Anthony Buccitelli is another scholar who is heavily invested in the study of folklore and new media. Ever the renaissance men, Simon Bronner and Bill Ellis have each contributed provocative and important research in this and numerous other areas as well. I’ve never read anything by Lynne S. McNeill that I didn’t absolutely love. Andrea Kitta has also introduced really insightful scholarship on risk perception and public health concerns with an eye towards the influence of technologically-mediated communication. Merrill Kaplan recently authored a fantastic essay about the curation of tradition online for Tradition in the Twenty-First Century: Locating the Role of the Past in the Present, which Robert Glenn Howard and I edited. Tok Thompson and Elizabeth Tucker have each published several excellent think pieces. Russell Frank certainly shares my interest in documenting the relationship between digital folklore and mass media institutions. Outside of folklore studies, I’d say that the work of Nancy Baym matches up well with my approaches and interests. The open access e-journal New Directions in Folklore is another source that has published a number of thoughtful articles emphasizing digital culture in recent years.
Julia: Could you tell us a bit about the kinds of digital primary sources folklorists are using to study culture on the web? Do you have a sense of how they are likely collecting and organizing these materials? I ask, in part, because many folklife collections in archives are built around acquiring “ethnographic field collections” and I am curious to learn a bit about what the born digital equivalents of those might be in contemporary study of the web.
Trevor: Folklorists use a variety of sources to study the Internet, but I’d say most approach finding and engaging primary sources the same way they would with face-to-face communication settings. That is, they gravitate towards communities (from those centered around fandom to Christian fundamentalists who congregate to passionately discuss shared and contrasting religious beliefs) and other major intersections of vernacular expression, including narrative-based wikis; hoaxes, rumors, and legends spread by email and social media; and even the comments posted in response to articles and videos (not to mention their own newsfeeds on Facebook).
Ethnographic methods are often generously utilized. Those of us who primarily specialize in the study of Internet folklore often use each other as sounding boards for interesting texts and websites we come across. Two websites that I (and several other folklorists) frequently visit are Snopes.com, the urban legends reference page, and KnowYourMeme since they are both such excellent databases for comparing and contextualizing new and recycled narratives and visual folklore circulating online. I also really like examining Twitter feeds and public posts on Facebook to gather general (and occasionally specific) ideas of the major themes and impressions individuals choose to performatively share with peers.
Julia: I realize collecting and preserving content isn’t your area, but from your perspective as a folklorist, what kinds of online content do you think is the most critical for cultural heritage organizations to preserve for folklorists of the future to study this moment in history? It’s a really broad question, so feel free to take it in any number of directions. Are there particular kinds of digital content you think need to be focused on? Are there particular sub cultures or movements that aren’t getting enough attention?
Trevor: I think that the first major hurdle has already been passed just by simply getting the majority of folklorists to accept the study of folklore and technologically-mediated communication as a valuable area of inquiry. There is also no longer any controversy over whether the Internet should be conceived as a “field” in which legitimate fieldwork can take place. In this context, it’s easier for folklorists to meaningfully contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage as it manifests online. As you pointed out, ethnographic field collections are always sought after when organizing folkloric material for curation. Folklorists are collectors, and I am hopeful that the growing interest in chronicling the changing dynamics of vernacular expression in the digital age will yield a greater collective commitment to the process of preserving cultural heritage.
What that will entail remains to be seen, although it’s clear that things like memes, virtual communities (broadly conceived), creative narrative text genres and the websites/ threads that host them likely present the richest possibilities for expansive collection and annotation. Then again, remembering the overarching aesthetic trends that graced the web domains of yesteryear shouldn’t be neglected either (the Internet Archive Wayback Machine helps on that front). There’s always a chance that subcultures and movements may slip through the cracks, especially against such an everchanging, hybridized backdrop. The real challenge for folklorists will be to keep up and stay motivated, allowing individuals and communities to guide their scholarly gazes to the emically important dimensions of contemporary folk culture.

沙野

很多民俗在数字媒体中图文并茂，可以省去田野之劳？