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Ethnography of Communication

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Ethnography of Communication
CHAIM NOY
Ashkelon Academic College, Israel

Ethnography of communication (EC) is a multidisciplinary research approach that

employs ethnographic accounts of actual communication events and occasions, in
order to understand distinct cultural and contextual dimensions of communica-
tion. EC supplies both rich theoretical foundations and detailed methodological
procedures to the analysis and understanding of discoursal and other communi-
cation sign systems in everyday interactions and mediated rituals. Contrary to the
seemingly general meaning that the term possesses (addressing all matters con-
cerning ethnography and communication), EC is a distinctive approach in how it
addresses the elements that comprise communication as practice, means, and media
of communication, participants and participation structure, and communication
environments and contexts. EC (sometimes abbreviated EoC) originated with the
work of North American anthropologist, folklorist, and linguist Dell Hymes in the
1960s, and has since been productively employed in a number of scholarly fields and
disciplines.
Hymes (1962) initially coined the term “ethnography of speaking,” but noted that
speech and speaking “are surrogates for all modes of communication,” and that “a
descriptive account should be generalized to comprise all” (p. 24). In subsequent pub-
lications a broader conceptualization was advanced, namely EC (Gumperz & Hymes,
1964, 1972). From its inception, EC aimed to study language and communication in
actual occasions and interactions, the diversity that these events—and the elements
that comprise them—evince, the social and cultural contexts where language is so
used, and the dimensions and effects of the different types of uses. The value of EC and
its rich impetus rest on the approach’s interdisciplinary blend of theoretical knowledge
and methodological rigorousness, which together offer a holistic view. The holistic
view centrally builds on ethnographic sensitivities and sensibilities, which aim at
macro-level conceptualization and theorizing, while offering a clear and detailed grid
of what needs to be attended to when studying actual instances of communication (the
SPEAKING heuristic—more on this later).
Historically, EC was initiated partly as a response to Chomskyan linguistics, with its
stress on abstract (mentalist or cognitivist) and universalist conceptualizations of lan-
guage, and partly as a reaction to rule-governed Saussurean structuralism. EC sought
to replace neat and orderly theoretical contemplations with descriptions of actual and
“messy” communication events and occasions. The assumptions underlying EC dif-
fer radically from previous linguistic approaches, as well as from earlier studies on

The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods. Jörg Matthes (General Editor),
Christine S. Davis and Robert F. Potter (Associate Editors).
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0089
2 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N

language in anthropology. In seeking to advance a humanistic, empirically grounded,

rich and holistic research approach, Hymes and his associates and students propelled
what Duranti (2003) calls the second historical paradigm in the development of a “lan-
guage as culture” view within U.S. anthropology. The assumptions underlying EC are
reflected in four dimensions.
First, scholars pursuing EC view language as an important and integral part of social
life and cultural activity. Hymes (1962) stated that “there is no question but that speech
habits are among the determinants of non-linguistic behavior, and conversely. The
question is that of the modes and amounts of reciprocal influence” (p. 17). Moreover,
EC holds that the tight reciprocal interrelations between language and sociocultural
domains of life rest on the fact that language appears as an activity. Indeed, Hymes’
initial contribution was published in an edited collection titled Anthropology and
Human Behavior, pointing at the praxis-oriented view of language he held. The
term “speaking” and later, in a more encompassing way, the term “communication,”
intently point at and designate a broad variety of human behavior. For Hymes (1962),
behavior is not only learned and acquired through language, but also “expressed
through language” (p. 13). At stake are actual linguistic and communicative activities
and practices, or “la parole,” rather than more static and abstract views of language,
or “la langue” (where the focus is on the linguistic code rather than on how codes
emerge in-and-through activity). “The ethnography of speaking,” Hymes (1962)
noted, “is concerned with the situations and uses, the patterns and functions, of
speaking as an activity in its own right” (p. 101). Hymes further developed this
view, when a few years later he addressed speaking through a specifically expres-
sive framework, outlining the performative characteristics and effects of different
communication genres in his well-known “breakthrough into performance” essay
(Hymes, 1975).
Second, EC holds a universal view of language and communication in the sense that
these are essential and pervasive human activities and features. Yet, and akin to the
disciplines that shaped it (mainly anthropology, folklore, and rhetoric), the way these
universals are arrived at is empirical and comparative. EC stresses firstly the diversity
and variety in human communicative activities and contexts, and only then arrives at
similarities and resemblances. The emphasis on heterogeneity emerges from an up-close
study of different cultures, societies, and actual contexts and events, stressing variation
in the practices as well as in the sign systems. While studies taking an EC approach
typically focus on predominantly one cultural context, they do this “with an eye towards
cross-cultural comparison” (Keating, 2001, p. 290).
Third, EC emerged and has since flourished as an inter- and multidisciplinary nexus
of knowledge and methods. Hymes himself studied anthropology and folklore, to grad-
uate in linguistics (from Indiana University in 1950). Scholars that influenced his think-
ing came from a range of fields, such as sociolinguistics, rhetoric, literary criticism, and
ethnomethodology. From this perspective, EC illustrates the potentially rich blend of
scientific and humanistic approaches, drawing eclectically on the humanities and the
social sciences and creatively bridging disciplinary divides. Since the 1980s, EC has been
successfully adapted to and integrated into communication studies, mostly through the
works of Philipsen (1987) and his students. These works further expand the approach,
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N 3

stressing the sign system, or the code, that is used for communication, and adding a
rigorous emphasis on empirical findings (more on this later).
Fourth, as a result of the praxis-orientated view that EC promotes, ethnography
is the preferred methodology for observing and depicting sets of naturally occur-
ring communicative activities. In a moment that preceded, yet fueled, the “turn to
ethnography” in the 1970s and 1980s, EC was an early bird that highlighted the prolific
potential of ethnographic studies for a cluster of fields and approaches that explored
the use of semiotic modalities and communicative practices in everyday life (including,
but not limited to, language and social interaction and sociolinguistics). The reference
to the word “ethnography” addresses a comprehensive methodology and not merely
a method, attempting an overall appreciation of discourse and communication. The
marriage between communication studies and ethnography proves productive due to
four main ethnographic sensitivities: (i) Ethnography is a praxiological methodology,
and if the use of sign systems and media is an observable (and recordable) human
phenomenon, then directly observing and partaking in communicative events affords
a rich and empirically grounded source of knowledge. (ii) Ethnography is a situated
engagement which takes place at the site it studies. For this reason, ethnography is
ideally suited for supplying a “thick description” not only of communicative practices,
but also of the material and spatial settings—the media ecology—within which
communication transpires. Viewed ethnographically, the notion of practices refers to
patterned activities that are embodied, enmeshed in, and shaped by techno-material
affordances of participants, communities, and institutions. (iii) Related, as a situated
form of inquiry, ethnography is well geared towards exploring naturally occurring
communicative events, or events that are not stimulated by those studying them.
Unlike other methods that are frequently used in the social sciences (interviews,
focus group, surveys), EC focuses on events and rituals that are part of the culture
that is studied. (iv) In line with Hymes’ contemporaries (notably Garfinkel), EC seeks
to understand participants’ ways of understanding. This is a reflexive approach to
social life and communication, where reflexivity is seen as present in and shaping
social interactions, and as manifest in ongoing behavior. In this way, description and
conceptualization move away from an “etic” mode, which designates categories that
are produced by the researcher, to an “emic” mode, which seeks categories that are
produced and used by members.
These four dimensions reflect the ambitious scholarly aspirations that EC promotes,
and the type of research that is conducted by scholars who pursue it. These dimensions
highlight EC’s stress on observable practices, on the situated nature of communica-
tion, and on the special cultural aspects of communicative events and rituals. They also
account for the rich spectrum of social practices and cultural sites that have been studied
during the last half-century. While studies in EC typically begin by patient exploration
of participants’ practices and experiences, observations and other data nourish concep-
tual richness and theoretical developments. Much of what EC scholars study sheds light
on cultural forms of integration and ritualization of communication in everyday life in
different (sub)cultures, societies, and organizations.
4 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N

The SPEAKING heuristic and core concepts

One of the characteristic features of EC, which contributes to its scholarly appeal, is
the combination of practical research recommendations and conceptual apparatuses.
Hymes’ well-known SPEAKING acronym illustrates the former. The SPEAKING
acronym manifests the careful consideration that different elements of communication
should receive by those who study them, highlighting the overall complexity of
mundane and seemingly trivial interactions. It was initially designed for the analysis
of culturally demarcated speech events, but can be and truly has been employed in
relation to a wide spectrum of communication rituals.
Hymes (1974) offered the acronym SPEAKING as a memory aid that includes eight
main components: S designates Setting or Scene, which refers dually to the relevant
physical aspects of the environment (including time: durations, intervals, synchronic-
ity), and also to psychological settings and cultural definitions pertaining to the event.
P designates Participants and Participant identities, ranging from the social categories
that are being constructed and used within the encounter such as age, sex, and social
status, to relationships between participants. Participation is not viewed as a given,
and the process by which degrees and qualities of participation are accomplished is
examined (often with the help of Goffman’s (1981) studies on footing and framing).
E designates Ends, seeking the goals and outcomes of communicative events, and of
individual participants and organizations. Ends suggest that social behavior is often
purposeful, or at least it is understood as such in the eyes of those conducting it. A
refers to Act sequence and Act topic, which concern the structure and unfolding of
communication as well as of the topics and themes that are being communicated. K
refers to Key or tone, which are the ways or manners that the communication is framed.
This point concerns the fact that the key or the tone, though immensely important
in understanding the message, are often not explicitly coded and therefore not eas-
ily captured. I represents Instrumentalities or the linguistic code, referring to language
and dialect as well as to other modes of signification such as indexicality and iconicity
(more on these later). Importantly, Instrumentalities also address the communicative
channel (such as face-to-face interaction and technologically mediated communica-
tion). N designates Norms and refers to rules of interaction and interpretation, directing
attention to whether the communication at hand is pursued by participants in line
with common rules and norms (formal and informal), and whether participants are
aware that these exist or that they pertain to the events in which they participate. G
refers to Genre, which concerns the literary-stylistic type of communicative events and
actions. Following Bakhtin (whose writings were translated in the 1970s), Hymes (1972)
observed that “all speech has formal characteristics of some sort as manifestation of gen-
res” (p. 65). From a digitally tweeted “selfie,” through a poetic recitation or the telling
of a fable, to police interrogation, communication is necessarily genred and the ques-
tion concerns the means and meanings of these genres and how they are performed.
Furthermore, in actual social exchange genres often intersect intertextually and inter-
discursively, amounting to intricate hybrid and multimodal genres of communication.
The SPEAKING acronym offers a heuristic grid that serves as means and not as ends.
It is commonly taught in undergraduate and graduate classes, where it is a helpful tool in
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N 5

organizing and focusing research projects (which, especially in ethnographic contexts,

are an inherently “messy” endeavor). The dimensions that the acronym refers to can also
be viewed as variables that can possess more than one value, and which are overlapping
and at times even interchangeable. As a helpful tool to “think with” (“not a system to be
imposed, but a series of questions to be asked,” Hymes, 1962, p. 25), Hymes’ SPEAKING
acronym illustrates EC’s rigorous and comprehensive program when addressing aspects
of communicative events, practices, and sites, and the complexity of the (emergent) sign
systems that are being used. EC emerges as a holistic approach that stresses activity and
a processual appreciation of actual, situated, and naturally occurring communicative
practices and texts.
A number of additional concepts comprise the theoretical core of EC, and comple-
ment the heuristic merit of the SPEAKING acronym. These include communication
event, means of communication, speech or communication economy, and speech com-
munity. A communication event is a discernable occasion where communicative activity
is centrally pursued. Communicative events can range from popular televised inter-
views and appearances in talk shows in North American culture (see Carbaugh’s (1988)
study of the American Donahue Show), to studies on young children’s exchanges of
secrets in the Israeli culture (Katriel, 1990). Studying these events sheds light on larger,
common, and often unnoticed sociocultural rituals that involve constellations of dom-
ination and resistance within a given society at a particular sociohistorical time. These
rituals also include a range of medial technologies, shedding light on the roles and
meanings of changing forms of mediation and communication. Hymes (1962) adds that
“One good ethnographic technique for getting at speech events … is through words
which name them” (p. 24). He stresses in this way that, whether formally or colloqui-
ally, participants, communities, and organizations use common terms to designate and
frame communication rituals (this approach was revised and elaborated by Carbaugh
(1989)). Hence the study of communication events fosters a reflexive view, where how
the event is framed constitutes part of its sociocultural and organizational meaning. The
questions that arise then refer also to who accomplishes the framing of these events, or
who possesses—and who does not—the authority to do so.
Two other concepts, means of communication and communication economy, are
interrelated and codependent. The first addresses the resources that effective commu-
nication requires and the different communicative styles that are used, as well as the
meanings of the means or media that participants employ. The second term refers to
all communicative activity that is relevant to a structural analysis of a community or an
organization, and where the value of these behaviors is determined. These two concepts
are interrelated and codependent because together they account for communicative
features and variations on an individual level (micro), while also drawing attention
to larger sociocultural schemes within which individuals communicate (macro).
In other words, what counts in different cultural, social, and organization contexts
as effective communication, and where communicative repertoires are evaluated,
concerns communication economy.
A speech economy consists of communicative activities, where communication
is not viewed as a matter of mere delivery of content (the “transmission” view
of language and communication). Rather, language and communication carry
6 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N

symbolic value in and of themselves (a point which the French sociologist Bourdieu
later highlighted in his famous work on language and symbolic power). The very
act of communicating—speaking, texting, posting, tweeting, and so on—has an
exchange value within communities’ and institutions’ sociocultural marketplace or
communication economy. This system of exchange value is not static but dynamic,
and can best be conceived as a set of ongoing relationships (rather than predetermined
values), where communication is continuously negotiated and evaluated. In this way
a communication economy supplies communicative coherence in social realms, and
its study promotes a coherent view of social hierarchies, the (uneven) distribution
of communicative means/resources, and what it takes for individuals to be able to
participate in social life. Johnstone and Marcellino (2010) conclude that, “speakers
acting in a speech economy accounts for the contextual, relational and socially-judged
aspects of speech. By according speech economy equal status with means of speech,
Hymes can frame utterances as being meaningless outside of a particular macro-social
context and set of relationships, subject not just to decoding but also to aesthetic
judgment from members of the speech economy” (p. 60).
In addition to the SPEAKING model, and to the notion of communicative event,
the related concepts of means of communication and communication economy supply
further ways to study how communication is evaluated and appreciated by its produc-
ers and users, over and above the referential meaning (content or message) that is being
communicated. Finally, these concepts evoke the notion of speech community, which too
is central to EC. The term designates a group of people who share cultural norms and
resources of and for communication, which are oftentimes implicit. While the notion
speech community focuses on shared sign systems, it also emphasizes interactions and
practices where these sign systems are actually used. This is a structural–functional
view of society, which is balanced and complemented by critical accounts that high-
light diversity, heteroglossia, and the unevenness of communication economy at given
communities and organizations.

Current directions for EC in media and communication

studies

EC emerged and prospered during the past half-century as an interdisciplinary

approach, which creatively brings together theories and methods from anthropology,
folklore, linguistics, rhetoric, and other fields across the humanities and the social
sciences. The freshness of the approach remains tied to scholars’ ability to adapt to and
integrate changes in contemporary communication landscapes, as well as in proximate
fields of inquiry and emerging theoretical and methodological configurations. For
the field of communication, EC’s multidisciplinary nature plays an enriching role as a
hub where knowledge and methods are exchanged with related fields and like-minded
scholars. The focus that EC puts on process and on patient observations of actual
practices and environments, its commitment to an emic view that marries broad
cultural dimensions with specific occasions and actions, and the rich set of concepts it
offers, all promise prolific future contributions. This is specifically true in relation to
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N 7

rapid changes in contemporary new media. EC highlights the materiality and means
of communication (affordances and values), which are studied holistically as part of an
overall communication economy, and which suggest that EC is especially apt to deal
with highly technologized and mediated communication rituals.
The remaining space is dedicated to current engagements and opportunities that
EC faces, in enriching and contributing to media and communication studies. Three
points are highlighted: (i) the study of semiotics in new media communication; (ii)
EC and proximate emerging fields of research; and (iii) maintaining and stressing EC’s
critical orientation.
First, as more and more communication events are technified, and interactions are
increasingly mediated, proliferating media technologies are reshaping everyday prac-
tices and habits, identities and relationships. New media and digital mediation tech-
nologies offer growing opportunities and occasions where large numbers of people are
co-present in a given (virtual) space, intimacies and participation are performed across
geographical distances (telepresences), and new sign systems emerge, which are typi-
cally multimodal: iconic and highly visual. Research taking a Hymesian approach has
addressed new media since the late 1980s, attuning to interactional, coordinated and
“real-time” mediated events. Yet with the wide spread of new media, EC, which has
emerged as ethnography of speaking and then as an ethnography of communication,
turns to incorporate technologies and symbolism associated with mediation seriously
as an ethnography of mediation. In this “moment” or “turn” in the innovation and expan-
sion of EC, it centrally addresses and conceptualizes the emergence of new sign systems
(new media codes), material and technological semiotics, and participatory structures.
The ethnographic emphasis remains on the settings, participants, and practices involved
in the situated production of meanings, identities, and relationships in and through
communication. Yet the rapidly shifting landscape of new media both requires and
stimulates adequate concepts and research methods.
New media brings with it new sign systems. Katriel (2015) points out that sign sys-
tems should be creatively viewed by EC scholars as emergent, highly contextualized,
and improvisational, rather than as an already-existent set of agreed-upon signifiers.
The question currently before EC is not only how, when, and by whom sign systems and
messages are produced and received, but that new sign systems are emerging and are
being shaped in line with new media practices and affordances. “The rapidly changing
techno-social settings of today call attention to the encoding of new patterns and norms
of communication as a process-in-time, including its precoded moments of indetermi-
nate meanings and potentials for action” (Katriel, 2015, p. 456).
Entextualization and entextualization rituals are useful concepts for designating the
materialization of inscription contexts and practices of new sign systems in new-media
environments. The exploration of new and multiple sign systems and encoding prac-
tices, accords well with the agenda of EC, as Hymes (1972, p. 63) specifically called for
“accounts of the interdependence of channels in interaction and the relative hierarchy
among them.” An emphasis on the study of micro-entextualization events highlights
not only the material practices involved in writing activities (defined broadly), but
also the way language is communicatively structured so that “chunks” can be detached
and put into circulation: from oral proverbs and the Grimm Brothers’ folktales to
8 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N

multimodal digital memes of babies and kittens. Studying entextualization suggests

a preference for remediation over mediation, or the reuses and recirculation of units
of discourse. It also fosters a view of the multiplicity of communicative events and
sites, and the channels through which they are connected, and directs research into
intertextuality and interdiscursivity (Bartesaghi & Noy, 2015).
Emerging new sign systems are shifting from a predominantly symbolic mode of sig-
nification toward an iconic mode (emojis, smileys), where, as Peirce suggested, the sig-
nifier denotes the signified according to similarity rather than convention (1991). With
the wide-ranging visual turn in communication studies and nearby disciplines, and
the shift to screen-centered (tele-)communication, multimodality, and multimodal sign
systems have become prevalent. The conceptualization of these sign systems in EC is
augmented by recent advancements in multimodal theory. On a larger scale, the turn to
multimodal communication signals not only a shift away from a symbolic or referential
mode of signification, but also the end of single modality or single-channel communica-
tion. The turn to multimodality also complements an earlier focus on an indexical mode
of signification, where signification builds on physical association between signifier and
signified (following Silverstein’s (1976) early work on indexes). EC’s contribution in
studying communication up-close and multimodal sign systems concerns communi-
cation economies and the interrelationship between different sign systems. In current
communication environments, modal-switching and codeswitching (code-mixing) are
prevalent, and intersecting modalities and hybrid sign systems bring different meanings
into interaction. EC’s praxis-oriented focus suggests that semiotics can never be reduced
to, or contained in, the sign system alone. Meanings are communicated over and above
signs, and different media, media choices (and media switches), and media ideologies,
bear meanings that are not coded or are not yet coded (they are “pre-coded,” Katriel,
2015). Holistic accounts of communication events address semiotics as accounted by
the participants themselves, in relation to a sign system but also to entextualization
practices and communicative possibilities more generally. As current work in linguis-
tic anthropology teaches, focusing on the sign system at the expense of contexts and
channels of communication risks decontextualizing the meaning it serves for those
participating in the communication event.
Finally, multiplicity of channels and sign systems, and the continuous tension
between private and public spheres and accesses to social media suggest new and
intricate participatory structures. These call to mind Goffman’s production format
conceptualization (Goffman, 1981). Studies in EC, with its diverse “toolkit” and
emphasis on ethnographic observation and participation, attend to emerging produc-
tion and participation formats in nuanced ways, addressing new forms of collaborative
authorships, and of audiencing and overhearing over the Web and mobile media.
Second, proximate emerging fields of research. During the last couple of decades,
EC has inspired and interacted with a number of fields of inquiry, including (but not
limited to) new literacy studies, linguistic ethnography, and microethnography. These
fields promise interesting overlaps and productive intersections. New literacy studies,
for instance, take a critical perspective on the study of literacy as situated performances,
and stresses ethnographic approaches to writing (and reading) practices—both inside
and outside formal learning institutions and contexts. Developed in the United
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N 9

Kingdom, the new literacy studies approach offers a view of literacy events and prac-
tices that merges cultural and contextual dimensions, rejects dichotomies between oral
and literate individuals and communities, and stresses the pluralities and multiplicities
of literacies (over a single hegemonic notion of literacy). The question of multiple
literacies extends the sites and events under examination beyond such artifacts as books
and notebooks, and such environments as schools and classrooms. EC intersects with
yet other fields (North American writing studies), as well as with new ethnographic
approaches to new media and the study of entextualization and remediation in relation
to digital literacies. Like linguistic ethnography and microethnography, the field of
new literacy studies illustrates the dynamic scholarly landscape surrounding and inter-
secting with EC, with its potential for further mutual collaboration and enrichment.
Third, maintaining EC’s critical orientation. The emphasis that new literacy studies
and other post- and neo-Hymesian revisions put on a critical orientation to language
and communication is in part a response to the sometimes vague critical sensibilities of
those pursuing EC. These developments invite EC scholars to revisit and refocus their
critical orientation, as well as its adaptation to current projects including the study of
new media, digitization, social networks, and Big Data ethnography. It is occasion-
ally noted that EC is not a critical approach (Keating, 2001, esp. pp. 294–295), and
admittedly, the critical agenda that EC exercises does not rely on “isms” (Marxism,
Feminism). It is set, instead, in a committed humanistic agenda that doubts accepted
views and norms, and hegemonic truths. Among the critical sensibilities that EC sus-
tains is, centrally, a counter-hegemonic orientation that challenges established views of
language and communication. For instance, some research asks how language and dis-
coursal resources are socially and culturally mapped into functions, and why and how
it is that one language variation is set to be a standard to be taught in schools while
another is not. Also, with its insistence on detailed descriptions of naturally occurring
interactions, EC seeks to complicate, rather than simplify (reducing complexity) social
interaction and the social sphere more generally. Furthermore, EC helps to reveal how
large-scale oppressive structures and organizations actually accomplish their work. The
move from structural and functional approaches to an underlining critical orientation
is sometimes designated by a neo-Hymesian view.
The technification and increasing mediatization of communication, emphatically
within the current economic zeitgeist, characterized by neoliberal capitalism, height-
ened consumerism, and excessive privatization, requires a matching, rigorously critical
agenda. As the notion of hegemony oscillates between the state (and its institutions)
and global financial organizations, EC studies are turning to address uneven distribu-
tion of resources and accesses, and sites of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic power.
In addition, in a historic review of the study of language-as-culture in the United States,
Duranti (2003) notes that while “Hymes expected ethnographers of communication
to concentrate on what was not being studied by ethnographers and grammarians”
(p. 333, emphasis by the author), today EC scholars engage in sites that are already
being studied by scholars in other fields. The critical study of nationalism and national
identity, as pursued by commemoration agents and museums, is a case in hand (Noy,
2015). This wave of studies highlights large-scale enterprises through critical and
detailed ethnographic explorations of discourse and communication at different levels.
10 ETHNOGRAPHY OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N

SEE ALSO: Critical Discourse Analysis; Critical Ethnography; Discourse Analy-

sis; Emic Approach to Qualitative Research; Ethnography/Ethnographic Methods;
Ethnomethodology; Observational Methods; Qualitative Methodology; Textual
Analysis

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J. Lofland, & L. Lofland (Eds.), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 285–301). London: SAGE.
Noy, C. (2015). Thank you for dying for our country: Commemorative texts and performances in
Jerusalem. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Further reading

Manning, P., & Gershon, I. (2014). Language and media. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J.
Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 559–576). Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Noy, C. (2016). Participatory media new and old: Semiotics and affordances of museum
media. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(4), 308–323. doi:10.1080/
15295036.2016.1227865
Philipsen, G., & Coutu, L. (2005). The ethnography of speaking. In K. L. Fitch & R. E. Sanders
(Eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction (pp. 355–380). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Rampton, B. (2007). Neo-Hymesian linguistic ethnography in the United Kingdom. Journal of
Sociolinguistics, 11(5), 584–607. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00341.x
Saville-Troike, M. (2003). The ethnography of communication: An introduction (3rd ed.). Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Chaim Noy is an associate professor of communication at the Ashkelon Academic

College, Israel. His research interests include critical approaches to language and social
interaction, discourse analysis, medium studies and medium theory, technology and
material culture, writing practices, narrative approaches to identity, ethnography and
qualitative methodologies, and tourism studies (museums, amusement parks, and
travel narratives). His recent works include Thank You for Dying for Our Country:
Commemorative Texts and Performances in Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2015),
“Writing in museums: Towards a rhetoric of participation,” published in Written
Communication (2015), and “‘My Holocaust experience was great!’: Entitlements for
participation in museum media,” published in Discourse & Communication (2016),
and “Participatory media and discourse in heritage museums: Co-constructing the
public sphere?,” to be published in Communication, Culture & Critique.

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