{"id":14870,"date":"2017-10-27T23:44:21","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T06:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=14870"},"modified":"2017-10-27T23:48:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-28T06:48:57","slug":"its-a-barbie-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/its-a-barbie-world\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Barbie World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethnography is the study of images and what images mean for a particular culture. Its art 101 mixed with anthropology 101 but tagged with a $50 name. My immediate question is, what\u2019s the point of learning about what images mean? We all already use images intuitively. Is it not enough to just continue to do what we all already do naturally. The frustrating aspect about this field of research is that many people are doing it and have done it without even realizing it. They are capturing pictures that represent who they are personally, their culture, their core values, and their ethos without ever intentionally studying ethnography. Yet despite all that, there is still value in an intentional thorough study, analysis, and reflection of culture and it’s use of imagery.\u00a0The ‘what<\/em>‘ of ethnography might be simple, but the\u00a0‘why’<\/em> is nobler than I expected.<\/p>\n

Why bother with ethnography<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because, if you don\u2019t understand how something works, you cant fix it when it breaks.<\/p>\n

Our culture is breaking and we as the people of God are charged with (among other things) fixing it. We must understand it to fix it! So, what are the core values of our culture? What can inspire a community or even a country into action? What is about our culture or nature that drives us so to be so individualistic and yet so inspired by community-oriented slogans like \u201cthink globally, act locally.\u201d These are things which are ambiguously complex and yet if you push through and understand you can use to communicate a powerful message when the time comes.<\/p>\n

We should be like the Men Issachar. People who understand the times. When you understand the times only then can When you have received spiritual vision from God, and you understand the times you are living in, that is a powerful combination. Ethnography comes into play in this because it\u2019s a tool for the leader to use to communicate directly to the art of its people. It taps into the ethos and primes them to hear your logos.<\/p>\n

I wanted to share with our cohort what I consider a great example of \u201cethnography\u201d from someone who probably has never heard of that word. A young woman who took a step back and could see some of the larger trends happening within social media (which by the way transcends almost all country borders and has a culture of its own). This woman saw the macrotrends happening around her (much like an ethnographer would have studied culture and analyzed photos) and decided to use these trends to get her own message across \u2013 the importance of authenticity.<\/p>\n

I know of this woman only from what she posts on her Instagram page which quickly grew to 1 million followers. although she has since retired from her posting. She appeared to have been someone who was able to see trends and macro-culture happening across Instagram. She pierced into the culture and pointed out the superficiality by showing these same pictures that everyone craves but replaced the selfie subject with a Barbie doll. You can find her on Instagram @SocalityBarbie, but here are a few of my favorite of her posts.<\/p>\n

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And here is her final explanation and retirement photo.<\/p>\n

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Once one understands the times, they can speak to it in a way people will intuitively get. This can be used to present your intended message, or it can be used to easily throw commentary or satire back at the culture that was being observed.<\/p>\n

My point is simple – when you understand a culture and how images are used by that culture you have access to communicate powerful messages very quickly.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, here is an image that our LGP8 culture will understand and love.<\/p>\n

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Ethnography is the study of images and what images mean for a particular culture. Its art 101 mixed with anthropology 101 but tagged with a $50 name. My immediate question is, what\u2019s the point of learning about what images mean? We all already use images intuitively. Is it not enough to just continue to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1062,1035,279],"class_list":["post-14870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lgp8-dminlgp8-pink","tag-dmimlgp8","tag-pink","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14880,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14870\/revisions\/14880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}