Why You Need a Macroscope To See Everyday Authority Online: Qualitative Network Analysis for Internet Forum Discourse
Rob Howard, University of Wisconsin Madison

This talk will explore the example of online discussions about vaccines to demonstrate how a computational method can augment online ethnographies of forum users. So doing, this talk will see to accomplish four things. First, it will suggest that the concept of "vernacular authority" can help explore how the power of the informal and everyday communication occurring in participatory media. Second, it will suggest that, while irreplaceable, ethnographic methods are necessarily limited in their ability to discern the large-scale processes of vernacular discourse. Third, it will outline a computational method developed to address this limitation - a variation of what has been called a Wfolklore macroscope" by Timothy Tangherlini. And fourth, it will look at the vernacular discourse surrounding vaccines on in a specific online forum to demonstrate the potential of a computational approach for this kind of research. So far, this method can offer two findings as examples of its potential utility. First, the extreme claims that draw our ethnographic attention in this forum do not actually dominate the vaccine discourse here so much as does a pervasive distrust that lingers in the background, shaping the perception of vaccines more quietly. Second, even in this tightly bounded communication enclave where belief seems monolithic, individuals expressing flexibility in their beliefs may be afforded a specific kind of authority. However, that specific form of authority seems to come at the cost of the ability to shape the aggregate opinion of the group.