Here I present to you my field site for my autoethnographic research into the Old School Runescape community. I may have gone slightly overboard as I began to include motivations, inspirations, and content ideas for my own DA, but I guess there is nothing wrong with getting enthusiastic about your niche.
My field site is constructed based on where the extent of my OSRS community participation and will take place. I started by taking into consideration the mediums I would use to conduct this research, using the category ‘Access’ to define my entry points to other players. I not only sited the way I will be accessing the source material, but also the ways in which I play OSRS as partaking in the community will involve also engaging in the game itself hoping I may find secondary assets for my study. I personally use RuneLite, a third-party program, as well as the mobile app to play the game itself.
Next, I listed the ‘Places’ in which will act as my main field site in terms of interacting with the OSRS community externally from gameplay. This includes the official social medias for the franchise (Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, Instagram & Facebook) , community curated wikis and as well as the official Runescape forums. This is where I also broadly noted the ways in which I will be interacting with the content to conduct my autoethnographic exploration through the category of ‘Agency’; These interactions are necessary as while following the community may be a good start to my investigation, it is important to intercept to ignite experiences and epiphanies that may be lost otherwise.
‘People’ was the category I struggled the most with as I wasn’t quite sure what differed ORSR community members from the public besides playing the game. I also included developers as they frequent the social medias listed and I’m hoping I’ll be able to learn a lot from their interactions with their community, perhaps providing more tip-offs to other sources or information. I recognise that I need to do a better evaluation on the people involved with the community to establish my own content and I hope to do so through my exploration of the ‘Places’ referenced.
Finally, I’ll briefly reflect upon my motivation and inspiration for conducting my analysis. While these may not be commonplace for a field site, I realise for ethnographic research that it is critical not to become completely absorbed by the community you’re studying, hence why I found this category important to note. The main reason I am conducting my research upon the OSRS community is to hopefully reflect upon the epiphanies I come across to make OSRS more accessible to the ignorant. Additionally, I observed two YouTube channels I wish to draw inspiration from in terms of content (J1MMY) and format (Izzzyzzz).
I hope this post will help assist in deciphering the way in which my mind has constructed my field site.
References:
drawoncedrawtwice 