Knowledge in the Digital World: Research Questions and an update

This reflection blog is part of a joint blog by Mark Dierick, Jules van Iperen, Lindsay Lo-A-Njoe, Manouk Boelhouwers, David Madaj, Pauline Poetto and Aimée Overhof.

---

In order to establish our final paper, we have decided to divide our topics into various sections in which we discuss the different topics of our research. Here, we will pose research questions that we will attempt to answer. Before we will discuss these sections, we will introduce our thesis. Currently, our thesis goes as follows: ‘In what way(s) are the transnational polycentric micro-population of graffiti artists and their culture prominent in Tilburg?’

This is quite a mouthful, but what it comes down to is this; graffiti artists as a population are not as ‘organized’ and ‘coherent’ as other micro populations might be. They cross borders. Not only physical ones, but also borders between the online and offline world.  Furthermore, graffiti culture is polycentric, there is not one blooming centre of graffiti, but it is sporadic and polycentric, which means it can be traced in many places. With this thesis, we will study this micro-population of graffiti artists in Tilburg and we will look into the various ways they, and their culture, are prominent in Tilburg, offline as well as online.

Now on to the division of paragraphs. We found that our topics could be divided into five main categories. The first one being: ‘the offline ethnography of graffiti culture in Tilburg’. In this section we will analyze our fieldwork and discuss this using our ELLA-analysis.

The second one is: ‘the online ethnography of graffiti culture in Tilburg’.  Here we will do more or less the same as in the previous question, but we will look into the online ethnography. We will go deeper into how graffiti artists use the Internet and social media. How do they portray themselves? How do they interact?

Thirdly, we will discuss the data we collected through the interviews we had conducted. We will use Joep van Gassel’s insights and those of other graffiti-insides in order to discuss and compare our findings of the first two paragraphs.

Then, we will dedicate one paragraph to the infrastructures in the graffiti scene. This one is tied to the first two paragraphs as well. We will discuss the infrastructures that graffiti artists use in Tilburg. We will look at infrastructures specific to graffiti artists, like shops, parks, events et cetera. We will also study the online infrastructures used by graffiti-affiliated people. What websites do they use? Where do they interact? Is there an online graffiti network? In this paragraph we will attempt to answer these types of questions.

We will conclude a paper with a reflective paragraph on graffiti artists as a micro population in Tilburg. Here, we will attempt to answer our thesis with the data from the other paragraphs. We will look at graffiti artists. Who are they? Where are they? In what ways are they prominent in Tilburg? In what ways is Tilburgian graffiti prominent online? Did our findings match our expectations?

So far, we have divided the subjects amongst us and have started writing the paper. We have written over 3000 words so far. We still need to add some more information and work on the structure of our paper so that it becomes more coherent.