and the nature of our analysis. The study is also situated within our broader interdisciplinary network, which includes a range of approaches and scholarly voices, including critical ethnography, survey research, and design research.
Nodes in a Collaborative Network
The Leveling Up project is part of the broader research agenda of the CLRN, which investigates both the pitfalls and promises of the connected learning agenda. Some CLRN studies conduct research on educator-guided and DML-supported programs explicitly designed to support connected learning (Arum et al., forthcoming; Ching et al. 2015; Larson et al. 2013; Penuel et al. 2015). Other studies investigate a wider range of educational programs in terms of principles of connected learning (Ben-Eliyahu, Rhodes, and Scales 2014; Van Horne et al. 2016). Yet another set of studies looks at settings that are quite distant from the aspirational model of connected learning to identify blind spots and the limits of the model (Livingstone and Sefton-Green 2016; Watkins et al. forthcoming). By focusing on youth-centered online environments with connected learning features, the Leveling Up cases sit between studies centered on environments explicitly designed to support connected learning and studies of more typical environments for youth learning and media engagement.
This book draws from fieldwork and case studies developed by CLRN researchers and researchers from the Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network (YPP). Unlike a more typical edited collection of ethnographic cases, our chapters are written based on cross-case analysis, analyzing themes and topics that have emerged across projects led by different researchers. Findings from individual cases have been published elsewhere (Korobkova 2014; Kow, Young, and Salen Tekinbaş 2014; Martin 2014; Pfister 2014; Rafalow and Salen Tekinbaş 2014), as have analyses of our data in relation to specific disciplinary debates (Martin 2016; Pfister 2016; Rafalow 2015; Ito et al. 2018). Readers of this book are introduced to each online affinity network and an exemplary learner in case summaries interspersed throughout, written by the researchers who led on the individual cases. The core chapters pull findings and patterns together to synthesize the empirical findings, theoretical contributions, and implications for practice across the cases. This format is an effort to provide context for each case while also surfacing cross-cutting patterns.
Researchers from the Leveling Up project have collaborated to take the role of lead author for the chapters, drawing material from varied case studies and researchers. This is a co-authored volume rather than an edited collection of work by individual contributors. This orientation to co-authorship and joint analysis aligns with a commitment to collaborative and interdisciplinary analysis that the MacArthur Foundation’s DML Initiative has embraced for more than a decade. By funding two research networks, other major research projects, and infrastructures for collaboration, the DML Initiative has nurtured research that draws from a varied qualitative corpus and collaboration with quantitative researchers. This book is one among many efforts in the initiative to synthesize findings across varied research projects, with a specific focus on cross-case analysis of in-depth qualitative research in networked settings.
When examining networked forms of culture and social behavior, researchers have struggled to define research settings that involve networks of both local and more far-flung relationships. Ethnographic researchers have tended to reproduce many of the characteristics of traditional ethnography within online spaces by focusing on communities that enable “deep hanging out” and on the development of strong social ties and shared practices (Geertz 1998). These have included studies of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) (Nardi 2010; Taylor 2009), virtual worlds (Boellstorff 2008; Kendall 2002), and specialized online forums (Baym 2000; Hine 2000) that are conducted primarily or exclusively online. Other researchers have pursued a hybrid approach that includes online observations and interviews, as well as participation in physical gatherings and sampling through local communities. For example, in her study of social media use, danah boyd traveled to different parts of the country to interview youth about their social media use rather than recruiting through online means (boyd 2014). In Ito’s study of anime fans, she recruited through both specialized online communities and local fan events (Ito 2012a, 2012b). All of these approaches dip into the stream of highly fluid and networked forms of youth activity that span physical and networked spaces, relationships, and practices.
The collaborative research context of the DML research projects and networks offered an opportunity to take a different approach, to develop a linked set of ethnographic case studies that strategically sample from different populations and forms of social organization. We combine the strengths of in-depth, observational, and contextually attuned case research with a comparative analysis that surfaces patterns and relationships between and within cases. We developed a set of shared protocols so that all the case studies had a common bank of interview and survey questions and shared codes, using both a priori and emergent coding.1 This cultural and practice-based analysis is still interpretive and qualitative in nature, and it does not rest on the kinds of sampling approaches and claims for representativeness characteristic of quantitative research. But it does offer a way of analyzing patterns of social organization and cultural forms that synthesizes across conventional case-based research. It is a form of qualitative “meta-analysis” that draws findings from across varied case research that has asked similar questions.
Case Studies
The Leveling Up project began in fall 2011, with the majority of the fieldwork taking place in 2012 and 2013. The cases include a variety of affinity networks that make use of online spaces, and they employed research methods varying from questionnaires, surveys, semistructured interviews, observation, and content analyses of media, profiles, videos, and other online artifacts.2 When we present ethnographic research in this book, we indicate which of the case studies the example is drawn from. To acknowledge young people as agents, we use the pseudonyms and ethnic and racial categories that our interviewees used to describe themselves. More on each of the case studies can be found in the individual case narratives that punctuate this book. The analysis this book is drawn from includes five case studies conducted as part of the Leveling Up study. We also draw from three other complementary cases of online affinity networks that were conducted as part of other research studies.
Ksenia Korobkova’s One Direction fanfiction case study delved into an online fanfiction community, members of which are connected to each other in two ways: (1) with an online forum and other media outlets, and (2) through Directioner fan art.
The Ravelry.com case study, led by Rachel Cody Pfister, examined an online community and database for fiber crafting (knitting, crocheting, weaving, and spinning). The research focused on Hogwarts at Ravelry, an interest group that combines the interests of Harry Potter and fiber crafting to create a fictional universe.
Two gaming case studies examined the creative culture and practices among both players and industry game developers engaged with LittleBigPlanet 2 and StarCraft II. Adam Ingram-Goble, Matthew H. Rafalow, Yong Ming Kow, Katie Salen, and Timothy Young collaborated on these two case studies.
The professional wrestling fandom case study, led by Crystle Martin, examined fan communities of professional wrestling, with a focus on fantasy wrestling through role-playing narratives.
The anime music video (AMV) community is a case study conducted by Mizuko Ito as part of the earlier Digital Youth Project, and it focuses on a subcommunity of English-language fans of Japanese anime who create and share remixed videos.
The Nerdfighter case study, led by Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, is based on research from the Media, Activism, and Participatory Politics (MAPP) project led by Henry Jenkins at USC and part of the YPP network. It centers on an informal community formed around the YouTube vlog channel for brothers John and Hank Green. Many of the participants are high school and college age, united by a shared identity as “nerds” and a broad common goal of “decreasing World Suck.”
The Bollywood dance case study builds on Sangita Shresthova’s decade-long research on live Bollywood dance communities. This case study explores Bollywood dance as a participatory interest-driven practice in the United States as it delves into the Hindi Film Dance (HFC) competition scene on college campuses.
In selecting