Digital Ethnography

The present study presents an analysis of the digital version of an ethnographical archive, focusing on the ways in which digital technologies can re-structure the methods of classical ethnography and offer new tools and solutions to ethnological sciences. The research topic is the Cluj Archive of the Folklore Society from the Faculty of Letters, Babeş-Bolyai University (Romania). The development of new media in the last decades has direct impact on the ethnographical data. Once digitized, the manuscripts of an ethnological archive can be uploaded on a specially designed website. In this new medium, the archival fund can be illustrated by placing in parallel video and audio data. At the same time, the written documents can contain links towards other websites with relevant data. Compared to a classical archive, the websites have a series of advantages: they can be easily updated and are a flexible and interactive environment that can be efficiently explored. By using the internet as a platform, the ethnographer of the digital era can upload text, images, documents, audio files and other types of data in a unique medium and can connect them in flexible ways. All links can be labeled and annotated, and analytical commentaries made on different levels can be added directly to data sources. Moreover, descriptive metadata, bibliographical references, glosses, commentaries can be uploaded.