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The object of this master’s dissertation has been to investigate one-person enterprisers’ (OPE) experiences of conducting both personal identity and brand at social network sites (SNS). The purposes of this research have been to elaborate on sociological theories of brand and identity in a network society context and to present hypotheses on how SNS can be developed to empower all OPEs. Since this field is rather unexplored in sociological research, and because it is the experiences of the OPEs that are the focus of the research, ethnographic methods, i.e. qualitative interviews, were chosen. These interviews were then analysed, primarily through Erving Goffman’s theory of self-presentation, Manuel Castells’s theory of identity, and the sociological concept of life-conduct deriving from Max Weber. The findings provoked both theoretical and empirical conclusions. The theoretical hypothesis is that Castells’s and Goffman’s respective theories should be used as back and front end interpretations of everyday life conduct. The empiric hypothesis provoked is that some OPEs have a strategic (as opposed to a sincere) approach to SNS. These OPEs are experiencing alienation and anomie. To manage this, SNS need to focus more on tools for social communication and less on methods for making SNS ends in and of themselves.

Designers e profissionais de diversas áreas de conhecimento têm utilizado a Etnografia com o intuito de aproximar a teoria da realidade na qual pode ser aplicada. No processo de design, a Etnografia propõe uma forma empática de abordar pessoas em seu ambiente de vivência, auxiliando o designer a conhecer a realidade do grupo da forma mais natural possível. Assim, o designer torna-se mais propenso a compreender melhor o comportamento das pessoas e identificar necessidades reais a serem atendidas. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo elaborar um Framework para auxiliar o designer na realização da pesquisa com usuários, utilizando métodos que partem de uma abordagem etnográfica para identificar as necessidades de um grupo de pessoas. Para tanto, a revisão de literatura abrangeu o estudo da Etnografia e sua aproximação com a disciplina de Design, concentrando-se, em seguida, nos métodos de pesquisa com usuários. A partir disso, foi possível estabelecer categorias de métodos que se baseiam em diferentes formas de participação do usuário na pesquisa, incluindo métodos comumente aplicados em pesquisas de Marketing, métodos provenientes da Etnografia e métodos com influência do Co-design. Após a revisão de literatura, deu-se início ao desenvolvimento do Framework para Pesquisa com Usuários, realizado em três momentos. Inicialmente, foram definidas as etapas que compõem a pesquisa com usuários; em seguida, foram definidos os manuais e livros utilizados como fontes de referência; por fim, realizou-se uma triagem para selecionar os métodos de pesquisa com usuários. A triagem foi dividida em quatro etapas (listagem, mapeamento, agrupamento e seleção), abrangendo 337 métodos retirados das fontes de referência. Ao final, foram selecionados 45 métodos caracterizados a partir de uma abordagem etnográfica e agrupados de acordo com as categorias estabelecidas. O resultado deste estudo é composto por sugestões sobre importantes aspectos a serem considerados durante a pesquisa com usuários e pelo “Framework para Pesquisa com Usuários”, estruturado em três etapas (Planejar, Coletar, e Organizar), que contém as sugestões elaboradas de forma resumida e os métodos passíveis de aplicação, em conformidade com o objetivo de cada etapa. / Designers and professionals from various fields of knowledge have been used Ethnography in order to bring the theory for the reality in which it can be applied. In design process, Ethnography proposes an empathic manner to approach the user in its context, assisting the designer to know people’s life in the most natural way as possible. Thus, the designer becomes more likely to better understand people’s behaviour and identify real needs to be addressed. This research aimed to develop a Framework to assist the designer in conducting users research, using methods based on an ethnographic approach in order to identify real needs of a group. For such purpose, the literature review covered the study of Ethnography and its approximation with Design discipline, focusing then on methods for users research. From this, it was possible to establish categories of methods that are based on different forms of user participation in research, including methods generally used in Marketing research, methods from Ethnography, and methods influenced by Co-design. After the literature review, the development of the Framework for Users Research was performed in three moments. Initially, the steps of user research were defined; then the manuals and books used as reference sources were defined; and finally, a screening for select methods of user research was carried out. The screening was divided into four stages (listing, mapping, grouping, and selection) including 337 methods taken from reference sources. A whole of 45 methods were selected and characterized from an ethnographic approach, then they were grouped according to the established categories. The result of this study is composed by suggestions about important aspects to be considered during the user research; and by the “Framework for Users Research” structured in three stages – Planning, Collecting, and Organizing, that contains the suggestions briefly and the methods that can be applied in accordance with the purpose of each stage.

Designers e profissionais de diversas áreas de conhecimento têm utilizado a Etnografia com o intuito de aproximar a teoria da realidade na qual pode ser aplicada. No processo de design, a Etnografia propõe uma forma empática de abordar pessoas em seu ambiente de vivência, auxiliando o designer a conhecer a realidade do grupo da forma mais natural possível. Assim, o designer torna-se mais propenso a compreender melhor o comportamento das pessoas e identificar necessidades reais a serem atendidas. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo elaborar um Framework para auxiliar o designer na realização da pesquisa com usuários, utilizando métodos que partem de uma abordagem etnográfica para identificar as necessidades de um grupo de pessoas. Para tanto, a revisão de literatura abrangeu o estudo da Etnografia e sua aproximação com a disciplina de Design, concentrando-se, em seguida, nos métodos de pesquisa com usuários. A partir disso, foi possível estabelecer categorias de métodos que se baseiam em diferentes formas de participação do usuário na pesquisa, incluindo métodos comumente aplicados em pesquisas de Marketing, métodos provenientes da Etnografia e métodos com influência do Co-design. Após a revisão de literatura, deu-se início ao desenvolvimento do Framework para Pesquisa com Usuários, realizado em três momentos. Inicialmente, foram definidas as etapas que compõem a pesquisa com usuários; em seguida, foram definidos os manuais e livros utilizados como fontes de referência; por fim, realizou-se uma triagem para selecionar os métodos de pesquisa com usuários. A triagem foi dividida em quatro etapas (listagem, mapeamento, agrupamento e seleção), abrangendo 337 métodos retirados das fontes de referência. Ao final, foram selecionados 45 métodos caracterizados a partir de uma abordagem etnográfica e agrupados de acordo com as categorias estabelecidas. O resultado deste estudo é composto por sugestões sobre importantes aspectos a serem considerados durante a pesquisa com usuários e pelo “Framework para Pesquisa com Usuários”, estruturado em três etapas (Planejar, Coletar, e Organizar), que contém as sugestões elaboradas de forma resumida e os métodos passíveis de aplicação, em conformidade com o objetivo de cada etapa. / Designers and professionals from various fields of knowledge have been used Ethnography in order to bring the theory for the reality in which it can be applied. In design process, Ethnography proposes an empathic manner to approach the user in its context, assisting the designer to know people’s life in the most natural way as possible. Thus, the designer becomes more likely to better understand people’s behaviour and identify real needs to be addressed. This research aimed to develop a Framework to assist the designer in conducting users research, using methods based on an ethnographic approach in order to identify real needs of a group. For such purpose, the literature review covered the study of Ethnography and its approximation with Design discipline, focusing then on methods for users research. From this, it was possible to establish categories of methods that are based on different forms of user participation in research, including methods generally used in Marketing research, methods from Ethnography, and methods influenced by Co-design. After the literature review, the development of the Framework for Users Research was performed in three moments. Initially, the steps of user research were defined; then the manuals and books used as reference sources were defined; and finally, a screening for select methods of user research was carried out. The screening was divided into four stages (listing, mapping, grouping, and selection) including 337 methods taken from reference sources. A whole of 45 methods were selected and characterized from an ethnographic approach, then they were grouped according to the established categories. The result of this study is composed by suggestions about important aspects to be considered during the user research; and by the “Framework for Users Research” structured in three stages – Planning, Collecting, and Organizing, that contains the suggestions briefly and the methods that can be applied in accordance with the purpose of each stage.

Designers e profissionais de diversas áreas de conhecimento têm utilizado a Etnografia com o intuito de aproximar a teoria da realidade na qual pode ser aplicada. No processo de design, a Etnografia propõe uma forma empática de abordar pessoas em seu ambiente de vivência, auxiliando o designer a conhecer a realidade do grupo da forma mais natural possível. Assim, o designer torna-se mais propenso a compreender melhor o comportamento das pessoas e identificar necessidades reais a serem atendidas. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo elaborar um Framework para auxiliar o designer na realização da pesquisa com usuários, utilizando métodos que partem de uma abordagem etnográfica para identificar as necessidades de um grupo de pessoas. Para tanto, a revisão de literatura abrangeu o estudo da Etnografia e sua aproximação com a disciplina de Design, concentrando-se, em seguida, nos métodos de pesquisa com usuários. A partir disso, foi possível estabelecer categorias de métodos que se baseiam em diferentes formas de participação do usuário na pesquisa, incluindo métodos comumente aplicados em pesquisas de Marketing, métodos provenientes da Etnografia e métodos com influência do Co-design. Após a revisão de literatura, deu-se início ao desenvolvimento do Framework para Pesquisa com Usuários, realizado em três momentos. Inicialmente, foram definidas as etapas que compõem a pesquisa com usuários; em seguida, foram definidos os manuais e livros utilizados como fontes de referência; por fim, realizou-se uma triagem para selecionar os métodos de pesquisa com usuários. A triagem foi dividida em quatro etapas (listagem, mapeamento, agrupamento e seleção), abrangendo 337 métodos retirados das fontes de referência. Ao final, foram selecionados 45 métodos caracterizados a partir de uma abordagem etnográfica e agrupados de acordo com as categorias estabelecidas. O resultado deste estudo é composto por sugestões sobre importantes aspectos a serem considerados durante a pesquisa com usuários e pelo “Framework para Pesquisa com Usuários”, estruturado em três etapas (Planejar, Coletar, e Organizar), que contém as sugestões elaboradas de forma resumida e os métodos passíveis de aplicação, em conformidade com o objetivo de cada etapa. / Designers and professionals from various fields of knowledge have been used Ethnography in order to bring the theory for the reality in which it can be applied. In design process, Ethnography proposes an empathic manner to approach the user in its context, assisting the designer to know people’s life in the most natural way as possible. Thus, the designer becomes more likely to better understand people’s behaviour and identify real needs to be addressed. This research aimed to develop a Framework to assist the designer in conducting users research, using methods based on an ethnographic approach in order to identify real needs of a group. For such purpose, the literature review covered the study of Ethnography and its approximation with Design discipline, focusing then on methods for users research. From this, it was possible to establish categories of methods that are based on different forms of user participation in research, including methods generally used in Marketing research, methods from Ethnography, and methods influenced by Co-design. After the literature review, the development of the Framework for Users Research was performed in three moments. Initially, the steps of user research were defined; then the manuals and books used as reference sources were defined; and finally, a screening for select methods of user research was carried out. The screening was divided into four stages (listing, mapping, grouping, and selection) including 337 methods taken from reference sources. A whole of 45 methods were selected and characterized from an ethnographic approach, then they were grouped according to the established categories. The result of this study is composed by suggestions about important aspects to be considered during the user research; and by the “Framework for Users Research” structured in three stages – Planning, Collecting, and Organizing, that contains the suggestions briefly and the methods that can be applied in accordance with the purpose of each stage.

Public memory of "the Asylum" in contemporary American culture is communicated through a host of popular forms, including horror-themed entertainment such as haunted attractions. Such representations have drawn criticism from disability advocates on the basis that they perpetuate stereotypes and inaccurately represent the history of deinstitutionalization in the United States. In 2010, when Pennhurst State School and Hospital, a closed Pennsylvania institution that housed people understood as developmentally/intellectually disabled, was reused as a haunted attraction called "Pennhurst Asylum," it sparked a public debate and became an occasion for storytelling about what Pennhurst meant to the surrounding community. I apply theoretical perspectives from memory studies and disability studies to the case of "Pennhurst Asylum" in order to understand what is at stake when we remember institutional spaces such as Pennhurst. More specifically, this case study uses narrative analysis of news stories and reader letters, ethnographic observation at the haunted attraction, interviews with key storymakers, and historical/cultural contextualization to examine why this memory matters to disability advocates, former institutional residents and employees, journalists, and other community members. The narrative patterns I identify have ramifications for contemporary disability politics, the role of public communication in the formation of community memory, and scholarly debates over how to approach popular representations of historical trauma. I find that Pennhurst memory fits within contemporary patterns in the narrative, visual, and physical reuse of institutional spaces in the United States, which include redevelopment, memorialization, digital and crowd-sourced memory, amateur photography, Hollywood films, paranormal cable television shows, and tourism. Further, this reuse of institutional spaces has been an occasion for local journalists to take on the role of public historian in the absence of other available authorities. In this case study, the local newspaper (The Mercury) became a space where processes of commemoration could unfold through narrative--and, it created a record of this process that could inform future public history projects on institutionalization in the United States. In the terms of cultural geographer Kenneth Foote (1997), disability advocates attempted to achieve "sanctification" of the Pennhurst property by telling the story of its closure as a symbol of social progress that led to the community-based living movement. Paradoxically, since this version of the Pennhurst story relied on a narrow characterization of Pennhurst as a site of horrific abuse and neglect, it had this in common with the legend perpetuated by the haunted attraction. In contrast, other community members shared memories that showed Pennhurst had long been a symbol of the community's goodwill, service, and genuine caring. In short, public memory of Pennhurst in 2010 was controversial, in part, because the institution's closing in 1987 had itself been controversial. Many still believed it should never have been closed and were thus resistant to the idea of sanctifying its story as an example for future change. When the State abandoned the Pennhurst campus, it left an authority vacuum at a site about which there was still as much public curiosity as there had been when it first opened in 1908. Indeed, this easily claimed authority is part of what "Pennhurst Asylum" is selling. Its mix of fact and fiction offers visitors the pleasure of uncertainty and active detective work--something usually missing at traditional historic sites. Visitors get to touch a mostly unspecified, but nonetheless "real" past mediated by an abundance of historical and contemporary public communication that all attach an aura to Pennhurst as a place where horrific events happened. Rather than suggesting historical amnesia, the strategic fictionalizations made to create the Pennhurst legend show exactly what is remembered about "the Asylum." The legend distances the story away from American history and sets it in a deeper past beyond most living memory. From my observation at the haunted attraction, it appears that the problem isn't that the American public has forgotten "the Asylum"; it may be that we remember too well. Overall, the relationship between institutions and their communities is one of intractable complicity, ensuring that the public memory of "the Asylum" will continue to be deeply fraught. News archives show that for decades local newspapers reported on adverse events at Pennhurst including fire, disease outbreak, accidental death, violence, criminal activity, and a series of State and Federal probes into mismanagement and abuse. This is especially significant because the power structures that allowed the institution to function remain mostly intact. Indeed, the "Pennhurst Asylum" relies not only on our previous knowledge of Pennhurst and the mythic figure of "the Asylum;" it also relies on our fear of medical authority, bodily difference, and most of all, our collective vulnerability to the social mechanisms that continue to define and separate the "normal" and the "abnormal." Even among disability advocates, the act of remembering threatens to recreate the hierarchy of the institution. Some of the same people who had authority at Pennhurst continue to have the authority to tell its story today. Finally, the usefulness of the ghost story as a memory genre reflects both rapid change and surprising stagnation in the role of institutionalization in the United States. / Media & Communication

Embedded in the quilt top, the fabric patches are relays, time pathways to stories and memories of their former owners. Through the quilts, the voices of the past survive. The stories trace a path of connection between oral traditions, storytelling, the invention of meaning, and the preservation of cultural memory. The theory and method described herein use the quilt patchwork metaphor as the basis for a web interface for designing and modeling knowledge-based graphical, narrative, and multimedia data. More specifically, the method comprises a digital storytelling and knowledge management tool that allows one or more users to create, save, store, and visually map or model digital stories. The method creates a digital network of a community's stories for digital ethnography work. Digital patches that represent the gateway to the stories of an individual are pieced together into a larger quilt design, creating a visual space that yields the voices of its creators at the click of a mouse. Through this narrative mapping, users are able to deal with complexity, ambiguity, density, and information overload. The method takes the traditional quilt use and appropriates it into a digital apparatus so that the user is connected to multiple points of view that can be dynamically tried out and compared. The hypertextual quilting method fulfills the definition of a deconstructive hypertext and emancipatory social science research methodologies by creating a collaborative, polyvocal interface where users have access to the code, content and conduits to rewrite culture's history with subaltern voices. In this digital place of intertextuality, stories are juxtaposed with images in a montage that denies the authority of a single voice and refuses fixed meaning. In dialogue, contestation, and play, the digitextuality of the Digital Story Quilt provides a praxis for critical theory. The Digital Story Quilt method concerns itself with questions of identity, the processes through which these identities are developed, the mechanics of processes of privilege and marginalization and the possibility of political action through narrative performance against these processes.

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