Ethnographic Study of a Group of People - Coursework Example

Ethnographic Study An ethnographic study is a research method, where a researcher studies a group of people and the focus of this kind of method is to move beyond what is heard and observed to what is actually intended by the behavior.(Neumann, 2003). The word ethnography itself is derived from its roots – “ethno” means folk or people while “graphy” means to describe something. Therefore, ethnography involves a descriptive understanding of a way of life or a culture. According to Franke (1983:61), “Culture, the object of our description, resides within the thinking of natives.” On this basis, ethnography makes an assumption that people go beyond what is seen and heard outwardly in order to use of their tacit knowledge and understanding of culture’s unspoken signals to make inferences about what is actually being implied. As a result, within a social context, what is being said may carry within it a context of meaning that will not be immediately observable or inferred by an outside observer. This is also the reason why ethnographic studies are very descriptive, taking into account a wide variety of contextual information in addition to the outwardly observed visual and audio signals. Thus an ethnographic study differs from other kinds of research studies in that it does not seek to summarize or standardize data, rather it seeks to capture all the available data so that it captures the widest sense of what has occurred, thus allowing for multiple interpretations to be made. An ethnographic study is a qualitative research method where a researcher is able to observe how a specific group talks and behaves and is able to develop a portrayal of the group in question, so that it becomes possible to describe, analyze and interpret a culture. This ethnographic study seeks to conduct an ethnographic study of a public communication. The subject chosen for this ethnographic study is the TV serial titled “Sex ad the City” and several episodes of this program were recorded in order to permit a detailed examination to be conducted at leisure. The program deals with four professional women in their thirties living and working in New York City and the changes and upheavals that take place in their lives. The research question that is used in this ethnographic study is: Are the goals projected by the Feminist movement in the 1960s being achieved in the present time? Essentially, the goals of the Feminist movement were to achieve equality for women in all spheres, notably in their professional and emotional lives. The program “Sex and the City” is centered in the New York area and since it concerns the lives of four apparently successful professional women, the question is whether this is the kind of equality that was visualized by the Feminist movement, or whether there is still more to be achieved before these goals can be said to have been realized. The method that was used in this ethnographic study was to carefully watch several episodes of this serial which were recorded and to make copious notes on the characters, their dialogues and their actions. The researcher also made notes on the sub text that could be discerned in the taped material and played the role of a totally unseen observer, performing an unseen role, with no requirement for the researcher to be a part of the culture within which the participants in the study, i.e, the characters in the TV show, were operating. After recording all the information that could be gathered in the form of copious notes, this data was coded to discern trends that existed in the data. The major participants in the study were the four female characters, who appear most often on the show. In addition, there are also a number of male characters, who at various times are the boyfriends to these women. The major character is the narrator Carrie, a reporter working for a major media company, and she most often shares her thoughts with her best friend who is a man hater. The other two women also have their distinctive character quirks, for instance one of them is a nymphomaniac and is constantly in and out of sexual relationships with men. Of the male characters, the most important one is the character of Big, who has a now-on-now-off relationship with Carrie. The situations within which the observations were made for this study were mostly in the apartment the women share, which appeared to be the most prevalent location for the exchange of confidences that shed some light on the inner motivations of the characters. Additional locations were fancy restaurants, shoe stores where Carrie shops compulsively for new shoes, the streets of New York where the characters sometimes interact with each other on their way to or from work or other errands. The time during which these episodes were shot were a mixture of both daytime and night time shots. The episodes appeared to cover a fairly lengthy time span of a few years. Communication between the women was largely verbal, although they also communicated physically in some instances through hugs. The major subject of their discussions was their love lives and most of the episodes centered around this subject. Almost all of the episodes that were recorded included this aspect in one form or the other, where the narrator was either discussing her own volatile love life or the friends were putting their heads together to solve the problems which one or the other of them was facing in their love lives. Therefore almost 99% of the shows centered around the women and their relationships, which specifically highlighted the fears that these women were facing in committing to men, or the hurt they were dealing with when being rejected by men. The notes made by the researcher were coded in order to discern trends existing in the descriptive analysis and record of dialogues and actions in the episodes. Various themes emerged from the thorough study of the data. Firstly, all the women were successful professionals, who earned high salaries and had a high purchasing power. Secondly, all the women were experiencing significant problems in their relationships, although each woman was experiencing a different kind of relationship related problem. Thirdly, the women shared a remarkably close friendship among themselves that allowed them independence, yet provided love and support when it was needed and there was a marked reluctance among these women to break up the friendship, despite the misunderstandings and quarrels that sometimes broke out. Although there were also other themes that emerged, these were the most important trends that were relevant from the perspective of the research question. The research question that was posed in this study was whether the objectives of the feminist movement had been achieved. Based upon the observations and data recorded from the tape recorded serials, it may be noted that all the four female characters portrayed in this serial are successful professionals, who are earning high salaries. One of the major objectives of the feminist movement that was initiated by Betty Friedan in the 1960s was to ensure that women were able to get out of the kitchen in order to enter the workplace with men and to stand on an equal economic footing with men in the professional arena. The observations in this ethnographic study clearly demonstrate that on this count, the serial appears to demonstrate that such equality may indeed have been achieved. Women have been able to achieve parity with men in terms of economic earnings and are able to survive without the support of men, an occurrence that would have been achieved only in rare instances during the 1960s when women were expected to marry and devote themselves to home and hearth. But in the serial, all the women are thirty-somethings, unmarried and independent and moreover, they appear to enjoy their independent man-less state. They do not appear to feel the need for a man in order to enjoy economic and societal support. Their independence and unmarried status appears to be well accepted in the society of New York, whereas a woman in a similar situation would have been frowned upon in the 1960s when the feminist movement first set out to achieve equality for women. Another important observation that emerged from the analysis of the data was the close friendship the four women shared and the understanding between them. Their friendship is a bulwark for them in times of trouble and they are able to reply upon each other for understanding and support in such times. It is their friendship that enables them to carry on their lives without needing to depend upon men. In this aspect also, the results of the study suggest that the goals of the feminist movement, which was to empower women, has been achieved to a significant degree. Women have been strengthened not only through the achievement of economic equality but also in an emotional sense, in the support systems existing between these women. In the context of the above, what appears to be the obsession of the women with being in a relationship offers a discordant element that cannot be satisfactorily explained from the perspective of women empowerment as set out in the feminist movement. Despite a string of failures in their relationships with men, these women still continue to pursue relationships with men and are heartbroken and devastated when their relationships fail, although they do rally with the support of their friends. If feminism aims to empower women, so that they are placed on par with men in every aspect and are not likely to be devastated if there are no men in their lives, why are these women so desperately pursuing relationships? Does their failure at their relationships stem from the problems posed by their growing independence and economic strength? Have the expectations of women in regard to men become so great that it is almost impossible for any man to fulfil them? These are some of the questions that are posed through the results that have been obtained. On an overall basis, the research question posed in this study must be answered in the affirmative, because it does appear that the major goals of the feminist movement have been achieved. This serial shows that women have achieved a level of economic strength and parity with men in the professional sphere that would have seemed almost impossible in the Sixties. But there are some disturbing questions that are posed by this study, in terms of whether the emotional needs of women are indeed being fulfilled by their adopting male aggressiveness to too-great a degree. A researcher who is engaged in an ethnographic study uses it as a tool to be capable of describing, analyzing, and interpreting a culture (Creswell, 2002). This study reveals some underlying elements of the feminist movement in terms of its impact on society, which may still need to be addressed. The preoccupation of the women with their emotional needs and their failures in relationships with men point to deeper issues concerned with the feminist movement. The growing independence and economic strength of women appears to pose a threat to men, while at the same time, it also appears to make the women much more demanding in terms of what they are seeking in a mate, deflecting them away from their traditional willingness to adopt the nurturing role in a family. The results of this study suggest that the emotional needs of women are not being satisfied. While it is likely that the emotional needs of women were not being satisfied before the onset of the feminist movement, this dissatisfaction would have taken a different form, in the thirst for independence. While this desire appears to have been satisfied, it would still appear that the emotional needs of women in reference to their male partners are still not being satisfied. The results in this study therefore throw up several deep questions about why these successful, beautiful women in the Sex and the City serial, who are so confident about themselves and so self reliant, are still unable to successfully maintain a relationship such that it is satisfying to all the parties. References: * Creswell, J. W., 2002. “Educational research: Planning, conducting, evaluating quantitative and qualitative research”(2nd ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Publishing. * Neuman, W. L, 2003. “Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches”(5th ed.), Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Read More