Why the Next Generation of Journalism Depends on Ethnography

Adam Gamwell [00:00:00]:
Hey everybody, I am Adam Gamwell.

Emily Kennedy [00:00:02]:
Hi, I'm Emily Kennedy.

Adam Gamwell [00:00:04]:
And we are happy to be here with you today on the pod. And one of the things that's fun is that, you know, if folks have known me and Emily, that, you know, I've run a podcast for a number of years called This Anthro Life. And while this is not a specific episode of that podcast, it is of course in that lineage, both because we're trained anthropologists and journalists and working in that space, but also 3 years ago on, on TAL, Emily joined me on the pod when, after I had met her at an applied anthropology conference. And she told this interesting story about journalism institutes kind of reinventing anthropology without knowing it. And there was like grant-funded local news research that was in North Carolina that, you know, she was looking at and it seemed like they were doing ethnography, but they didn't call it that. And what's kind of cool is that that conversation, you know, between us and between her own work too, like kind of built together and merged and expanded. And now there's like a partnership where we're working together. She founded a center, the Center for Anthropology and Journalism, of which I'm one of the founding partners.

Adam Gamwell [00:00:57]:
We've done a workshop series together and we just published a research note in the Facts and Frictions journal. And, you know, we basically wanted to find a way to help formalize the conversation that we are seeing engaged journalists and journalism doing ethnographic work or things that really echo a lot of ethnographic work. So let's dive into some of the kind of behind the scenes of what we found here and what we're trying to put together in the puzzle of ethnography and engaged journalism.

Emily Kennedy [00:01:21]:
Yes. article came out in the special issue of Facts and Frictions dedicated to engaged journalism. Facts and Frictions is this open access journal mainly covering journalism and journalism education. It's published by J-Schools Canada, so it is a Canadian publication, academic publication. And what I think is really interesting about Facts and Frictions is that, of course, they have got scholarly articles that are peer-reviewed, but they also have works of journalism And actually everything gets peer-reviewed, which is pretty interesting, I think. So what we pitched and then had accepted and published was called a research note. So it wasn't a full-blown scholarly article, and it also was not a work of journalism. It's kind of like a— my best understanding is almost like hitting pause on your research and sort of just discussing where you're at or what you've found so far.

Emily Kennedy [00:02:17]:
And so So yeah, that's what we did. And the article is titled Ethnographic Reporting Meets Engaged Journalism and Offers Untapped Resources.

Adam Gamwell [00:02:30]:
And what's funny is that was not the original title that we were trying to think through of like, how do we, how do we frame this, this conversation? Because, you know, it's funny coming at this as an anthropologist, you know, I was always somewhat nervous. I'm like stepping into the journalism space. I'm kind of like, am I allowed to be here and offer into this conversation? But it's interesting because, you know, both you convinced me and then by doing this research too, and then kind of getting to know the work and especially around engaged journalism specifically, that we came to see that was, I think, both surprising at the same time that one, your hunch was correct that like, you know, we are seeing a lot of methods happen, especially through engaged journalism that echo ethnography or ethnographic methods. But then the, as we kind of were, you know, hitting pause on the research and then kind of seeing what was happening in the conversation and wanting to share a kind of like a white paper almost. That the literature supports that argument, right? That there are folks kind of talking through these conversations. Like, they've been kind of few and far between. And that's something else that you brought to light, Emily, that was helpful, is that we've seen these conversations kind of pop here and there between the '80s, 1980s and now, but there wasn't a ton of them, right? And now it's this interesting question of like, why did that renewed kind of interest seem to be happening? I mean, aside from our work with the center, you know, but like there was this other piece happening though, that like there, as, as we had conversations with folks and we would see interest in journalists from workshops when we talked about using ethnographic methods and what they can be and why they're useful for, for this kind of, you know, community-oriented or engaged journalism.

Emily Kennedy [00:04:01]:
Yeah.

Adam Gamwell [00:04:01]:
Um, so I don't know, that stood out to me as something that was, that was, I don't always expect a literature review to help us kind of solidify an argument, you know, in the way of like knowing that, oh, this is backing up actually what we think we're seeing on the ground. Like that was, that was nice, I guess a nice surprise for me to see that.

Emily Kennedy [00:04:17]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and like you mentioned, the title was not our original suggestion, but that's actually pretty common in journalism. Your suggested headline is almost always changed by an editor. I think our suggested title was something like Journalism Doesn't Have to Start from Scratch. Um, and I mean, I think we'll kind of circle back to how we came up with that other headline, but yeah, we were, as we Did, you know, some research under the center and even just things like as we prepped resources or we were prepping like workshops, we would come across stuff in the literature that would be talking about the benefits that journalists could see if they borrowed ethnographic methods. And it just, yeah, came up so often that I think you and I both started to feel like, oh, well, everyone must know this, or this must just be—

Adam Gamwell [00:05:10]:
Yeah.

Emily Kennedy [00:05:11]:
well understood. And pretty quickly we realized there was not really a nice broad kind of coming together of all of this literature in one place. And that's really why we decided to pitch this piece, which is essentially a literature review.

Adam Gamwell [00:05:31]:
Did like— I mean, I'm thinking about that. I'm curious your take on 2 that we both saw the early conversations around calls for ethnography or ethnographic methods in journalism. Again, this was like in the '80s, you know, folks, Susan Allen, Elizabeth Bird, that you had brought to the table for us to think about. But then really after the '90s, we didn't see a lot of the conversation, you know? And so there is this interesting quietude, right? And you had written about this before too, actually.

Emily Kennedy [00:06:01]:
Yeah.

Adam Gamwell [00:06:02]:
when we first started talking about the anthropology and journalism crossover and that there even was official, I forgot the name now, the center of, you know, there was like an earlier center of anthropology journalism that like also closed that you got the blessing of to kind of reopen in that case. But it's like this interesting piece that like the trail went cold, you know, for 30 years.

Emily Kennedy [00:06:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was called the Center for Anthrojournalism and then it later changed its name slightly to include more science communications aspects.

Adam Gamwell [00:06:30]:
Right.

Emily Kennedy [00:06:30]:
And yeah, when I asked people about it, like the researchers from the '80s and '90s and the people involved in the center at that time, they told me it was really just that people, you know, moved on to other things and it was being kind of pushed forwards more by individuals. And when those individuals stepped away, it sort of fizzled. And some said also it was that anthropology and journalism were trying to make a case for their own disciplines as, you know, ones that should be respected. And so by partnering with another discipline was sort of then diluting their own sort of, you know, their place. But, but otherwise, like, why the trail went cold, which I think is a great way to put it, I'm not really sure. It's still a question that I have. I'm not sure. Not sure what the answer is there.

Emily Kennedy [00:07:20]:
But did you find that doing the literature review Did anything come up? Like, did you notice anything that sort of began to support why it fizzled? Because I think we know why it restarted.

Adam Gamwell [00:07:32]:
Yeah. I mean, that's, and I think that's, that's the interesting question. So I guess, I mean, the, and this is a little bit of kind of thinking through both how we put the argument together and why we did. And, you know, to, to give a little bit more insight into what the paper does or is, is, you know, covering is that We, you know, on the one hand, set out to kind of make a broader argument of like different, how can different kinds of ethnographic methods, you know, like community, like embedding oneself in a community, like doing deeper listening sessions, some methods that will sound familiar again, both to ethnographers and journalists. We originally set out to kind of say, how do we put those together in conversation with engaged journalism? But then both working with the editors and like kind of going through the arguments themselves and something that you brought to the table too, Emily, was around this idea of the reckoning that journalism is facing now in this has to do with, I mean, a number of factors, you know, but like one of the major catalysts was the murder of George Floyd and how the story was covered. And then just, you know, kind of breaking down a number of sort of pillars in terms of like, how is journalism? Like, is there kind of the objective view from nowhere kind of idea? And like breaking that down, you can't not be part of a community. Like there is kind of no neutrality in one sense where it's like, you know, always kind of taking a stance on the one hand, but then also like, how is journalism kind of reckoning with both the idea of ways that it as an industry has dealt with things like racial representation and power inequalities, like in the name of being both objective and— I'm not hating on journalism, just saying this is what we kind of talk about in conversations. And it's working through these processes of how it is thinking about and working on its relationship with society.

Adam Gamwell [00:09:06]:
How do journalists work with communities and vice versa? And how do they feel about them? And then like, does it feel like it's an extractive kind of industry? And what's interesting is as we were talking about these ideas and seeing what it's wrestling with, you know, a lot of this may sound somewhat familiar to anthropologists as they think about the own, like the discipline's own history too, in that it came from a, you know, colonial enterprise and has an extractive and colonial past that like, you know, is worse, you know, but also did things like, you know, dehumanize people kind of talking about them in certain like primitive or different languages, basically just misrepresented who they were, right? And kind of used the tools of empire to—

Emily Kennedy [00:09:41]:
Right.

Adam Gamwell [00:09:42]:
classify and work for the quote unquote state. And, you know, again, the interesting piece is then like recognizing that those two, there, there are some levels of, of conversation that, you know, I'm using the word parallel carefully here because I don't mean to say that's exactly the same, but like there was conversations that echoed each other between anthropology having to reckon with those parts of its past.

Emily Kennedy [00:10:03]:
Mm-hmm.

Adam Gamwell [00:10:04]:
Which for anthropology happened starting in the '80s most explicitly, but there was really good and powerful, you know, critiques and contributions from indigenous scholars and folks from the global south, as well as from folks in the global north, rethinking it like most famously, like George Marcus's Writing Culture that basically made the argument that we have to bring positionality into the conversation of who the anthropologist is and like their own role in race and sex and power differentials and how they are telling the stories of the people and who has the right to represent. And What's interesting is like, you know, so that was in the '80s, then like that began to pick up more steam in the '90s. And that was like at the same time then that we saw these conversations of ethnography in journalism kind of die out that we were saying, you know, only to get picked up again later in the 2020s. And so, you know, again, we don't know why it went away, but like part of it I think was disciplinary insularity, which we're kind of pointing towards. But at the same time, there was this idea that like the anthropology was reckoning with itself, you know, at that time. And so I think it was a little bit less of like, let's, let's look outside and we need to kind of do some internal work and try to figure out who we are as a discipline. And so I, I actually, I, I think part of it was that of why, like, we just saw a little less of that call. And so anthropologists were literally less on call for journalists because they were trying to figure their own stuff out.

Adam Gamwell [00:11:16]:
And then, you know, it kind of got forgotten, I guess, in that regard too. So I don't know. I don't know. Again, like, I'm speculating a little bit, but—

Emily Kennedy [00:11:21]:
No, it's a great observation.

Adam Gamwell [00:11:23]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Kennedy [00:11:23]:
And we didn't put that in the paper. We're, you know, more so focused on that turning point. that reckoning as connector between the disciplines. And like you said, the turning point in 2020 with George Floyd and a lot of racism in the broader industry too, and journalism having to, yeah, really take a hard look at itself and its methods and who was allowed to tell stories, who was allowed to pitch stories. And that, like we've mentioned in the article, is a big gap between when journalism really begins to do that and when anthropology had started on that journey. I think we, from the research, we saw like a 30-year gap there. So anthropology's got almost like a 30-year head start in that area, which then comes back to why we originally pitched the title that journalism doesn't have to start from scratch.

Adam Gamwell [00:12:22]:
Yeah, that's, that's right. You know, we opened with the idea of a title here.

Emily Kennedy [00:12:27]:
Yeah.

Adam Gamwell [00:12:27]:
But yeah. And so that's, you know, I think that was, it's interesting too, because it's like, we began with that framework and then it's like, yes, it is not from scratch, but then we realized that there was actually such this deep and rich history. And like, actually to your point, the reckoning moment gave us this really rich set of conversations that like also pointed out why it's, we're not just trying to, you know, say ethnography is neat.

Emily Kennedy [00:12:48]:
Right.

Adam Gamwell [00:12:48]:
But like for journalism, which I mean, we think it is, but it's like, there's actually really this like deep well of history and work that anthropology has done and is still doing. This is what we both clear in the paper. And we're saying here that like this work, the reckoning work is not done for anthropology. There is still, you know, things to work with in terms of, you know, both colonial past, but then also dealing with exploitative research methods and typical, you know, bigger problems with higher education in general and research, but from a Western perspective. But it's interesting just to note this too, right? That it, began these processes of reckoning again, yeah, 30-ish years before journalism had to. And there's some interesting reasons for that too. We kind of go and think about a little bit in the paper in terms of like industry orientation, right? Academia is typically nonprofit oriented, right? Where journalism is usually, I know there's both, there's nonprofit, but primarily like the main industry is for profit. Timelines are totally different.

Adam Gamwell [00:13:38]:
As you know, stories get up and research has to be done a lot faster. And so there's, there's, different kinds of insularity that journalism was able to work with. But it is to our, like what we found too interesting to us is like, it still happened though, right? Like society is still asking questions about like, how is representation happening? How are relationships, you know, acknowledged or not in, in when we're writing about people? And so that's, that's something that is interesting. And so I guess one thing I want to get your take on too is like, we read a lot for this paper, both because it was a lit review and there was a lot to kind of think through, but it's like, was there anything that stood out to you as like a breakthrough piece of literature or something that said, oh, this, or like this quote, this idea, this source, like really helped us kind of unlock our thinking of how these, these histories can be in conversation together?

Emily Kennedy [00:14:23]:
Yeah, for sure. There was one that the editors of this suggested that we look at a book by Candace Callison and Mary Lynn Young. And the book is titled Reckoning: Journalism's Limits and Possibilities. But they had this, this kind of view of journalism that included anthropology. So even though it was a book that was mainly about journalism, they were already weaving anthropology into it. And one thing that they mentioned was how in the '80s, it was a time of experimental thinking in anthropology, and how that was kind of The response that journalism could be adopting. So they right there kind of called it out. They draw on the work from anthropologists Marcus and Fisher, and they talk about how anthropology had put forward— and this is what they wrote— a reckoning with how much the terrain for describing and comparing the world had changed, and proposed listening to voices outside of academia, some of whom were sharply critical at that time of the usually Western white gaze imposed by anthropology.

Adam Gamwell [00:15:34]:
Right.

Emily Kennedy [00:15:37]:
anthropologists. So they basically argued that this same reorientation could be directly applied to journalism while it's in this crisis that started in 2020.

Adam Gamwell [00:15:53]:
Yeah, that was really interesting to see because it was like getting a sense that people are connecting the dots, they're thinking through how these are happening. But like, it was interesting too, because like why Reckoning was like a really helpful piece versus something else was because it, you know, again, thinking about the audience of this paper was primarily journalists, right? And that's typically who reads Facts and Frictions. And so, you know, we obviously have a social science crossover, but it's like basically bringing ethnography into the journalism conversation versus the other way around.

Emily Kennedy [00:16:22]:
Yeah.

Adam Gamwell [00:16:22]:
And so Reckoning was really helpful to see that like we are getting a nice historical view of how experimentation was happening. at a time of great change, right? In terms of for the industry and for society. And like that requires a kind of rethinking of how people explore and tell their stories, you know, through, through journalism. And, um, but just one of the things that I came away from that was getting the sense of like why we are seeing the ethnographic impulse kind of emerge in journalism. And so I think Allison Young gave us some important social context in that regard. We are seeing that like ethnography is is a discipline or a set of methods that fields tend to reach to. This is their hypothesis, tend to reach towards ethnography during, you know, under pressure or, you know, when there's, when a different kind of social or economic pressure is happening. And that's interesting because if I unpack that in my head, you know, what I, what I'm reading that as is that there is, you know, great social change or some other kind of big change happening in that we need to understand what's happening on the ground.

Adam Gamwell [00:17:19]:
Like the, basically the old models or ways of doing things are breaking down. We don't yet have an understanding of what to do or what to go with next. And so To me, it makes a really nice case for the generative power of ethnography, right? Like, if you understand what's happening on the ground, then you can get local models and you can then see where's the disconnect between like, here's how the economic system is supposed to work, or here's how the journalistic, you know, system is supposed to work, where you don't share your stories with informants ahead of time, where you, you know, have to get under X deadline, you know, make sure that you don't anger this person or that person. Like a lot of these systems were breaking down. And so then ethnography is a way to say, well, what is happening on the ground? How do I actually move forward? So anyways, I mean, it was an interesting piece too, to kind of think through that. We didn't, we don't dive into too much of that in the paper either. So I'm sharing it here kind of as a background thing to think with that. Like, I like the idea of ethnography as a pressure cooker method.

Adam Gamwell [00:18:09]:
Yeah.

Emily Kennedy [00:18:09]:
Yeah. You know, well, we do go through, I mean, although the reckoning connector piece, I think is the most valuable and important that came out of our literature review. We do go through the, like you were talking about, kind of these ethnographic impulses that we're seeing run through journalism. And we do try to pull out and highlight where we're seeing them repeat. And of course, back that up with the literature. So we do go into kind of the practice side. And I think Anne-Christine Hermann was referenced by another researcher named Stefan Moestraat, and he references Herman's work going so far as to say ethnographic reporting is relevant not only as a practice, but as a critique of journalistic norms, which is kind of talking about what you were just describing as well. But he nicely, in his article, he describes how it can bridge theory and practice.

Emily Kennedy [00:19:10]:
And so I think that in our research note, we were trying to also highlight that, that it has value for that reason too. Um, but of course, it being useful in practice is, is, is what journalists would like to hear, you know, practicing journalists, professional journalists. That's some reason why they might read Facts and Frictions and this piece. And I think that though there's still a lot that where this could go. Like, there's so, so many more places that we could have gone with it, you know, and why the research matters. I don't know. There's a— I have a lot of places that I hope the research goes next, but I know you've got some. Like, there were things you were trying to sort of inch into the paper.

Emily Kennedy [00:19:58]:
Was there like a big one that stood out for you?

Adam Gamwell [00:20:02]:
That in terms of where research goes that didn't make it into the paper? Yeah.

Emily Kennedy [00:20:05]:
Um, or, well, Maybe it didn't make it in, but also you're hoping that it's something we could explore next.

Adam Gamwell [00:20:12]:
Yeah. I mean, the, like, what's to me, like, you know, I, you know, I'm, I'm do a lot of work in technology working with, you know, AI and software development and, and tools and, and beyond or beside that, like, you know, generative AI is the name of the, the conversation today, whether it's agentic systems running things or just talking with ChatGPT, you know, like, It's such a common, you know, conversational set and force in play right now that is also totally up in the air. Also another, you know, boon for ethnography, I think. But, you know, obviously for the, on the writing side, like there's the journalism and any academic discipline, like there's the perceived quote unquote threat of like, you know, people cheating by just using AI to write stuff. But, you know, aside from that, like there is, I think these deeper questions in terms of Because we were framing this paper around engaged journalism, you know, so there's journalism, journalism, right? Then there's engaged journalism, which is, you know, ethnographers will sound somewhat familiar, but then also for engaged journalists too, it's like that where you're much more community involved. You're closer to the community, right? The idea is, do you want to be more reciprocal with how you either collect stories, tell stories? And this could, again, breaking some of the old rules of like maybe sharing drafts of stories. Does this representation look correct to you?

Emily Kennedy [00:21:24]:
Mm-hmm.

Adam Gamwell [00:21:25]:
You know, so the, there's, there's a lot that basically is just about being closer to, to community and questions of accountability or responsibility, things like that. And what's interesting is, is, you know, AI doesn't do any of that or can't do any of that. And so like, as AI becomes more of a means through which people might either get their news, might create news, you know, or like, you know, how it gets positioned in the roles, I think there's a lot of questions there. Again, so where can this research go of like, what can ethnography help us do is that as AI becomes both more embedded in journalistic practice, but then also like as people use it as a technology to get an understanding to make news, I think those are, those are the key pieces because it's not about stealing journalists' jobs or anthropologists' jobs. I mean, like, can it write and sound like us? Yes. But what it can't do is like actually bring any sort of emic or insider perspective of any of this kind of work because it both isn't alive. You know, this is a question that I actually address in a different paper that wrote around the same time, which is why I'm thinking about this, that like, it does, we do have to ask the question that if like people can't tell the difference or don't really care, does it matter? Like if they say, well, it sounds good enough to me. And so I think it is incumbent upon us in like, in this kind of research to think through like actually being engaged with a human community is something that we as humans have to do.

Adam Gamwell [00:22:40]:
And anyway, so I think the AI question just makes this kind of, this kind of question urgent of like, like how can ethnography help us under pressure, like both for, both anthropology and for journalism and how we tell stories and do community representation and build together. That's, and it's an interesting and challenging point. I mean, and so I know it's not a question, but it's just an area that like we have to face, you know? And I think that both engaged journalism and ethnographic practice as part of engaged journalism can help us do that in ways that will maintain humanity, um, in the face of these big challenges.

Emily Kennedy [00:23:12]:
Well, and it'll become more rare to have news written by journalists that have gone into communities and engaged with them. So finding, you know, really good methods and practices for doing that— cough cough ethnographic— then, you know, it will become more rare. It will then become, ergo, become more valued, I'd hope. And I think also publications will probably put that front and center, like you know, where they and where they do not use AI. Plus, we did see a little bit mentioned that engaged journalism can actually help with the bottom line. Like, it can help on the business side.

Adam Gamwell [00:23:52]:
Yeah.

Emily Kennedy [00:23:53]:
So that's another area I think where this research matters, where, you know, where else it could go would be looking further into that idea of how more engaged audiences basically can equal increased revenue. I mean, think about like a one-time reader turning into a subscriber because you've been engaging with that community. So yeah, we highlighted that too as an area for further research, and that's one that I'm really curious about. But of course, again, this was an engaged-themed entire issue, and I was really surprised actually at how there was sort of no one solid definition for what engaged—

Adam Gamwell [00:24:34]:
Hmm.

Emily Kennedy [00:24:35]:
Meant, because related to that, you know, business side and engaging with communities, there's also community engagement in news and journalism, and there's even like engagement audience editors. But these are usually people who are, you know, working with pieces after they've been published. So it's still a type of engagement. And I think that too can still, or it may even be one of the larger drivers more immediately of, you know, turning people into subscribers and increasing revenue. But that kind of difference between definitions was something that we found we had to try and make sense of in this paper.

Adam Gamwell [00:25:18]:
Yeah, that was surprising to me too, that there's kind of like, we ended up like kind of splitting between engagement and engaged, which sounds kind of like you're splitting hairs, but at the same time it was, it did matter because we didn't, we saw both uses of both terms across the literature, like used both ways, both as a form of like audience engagement versus community engagement. And that, that was tricky because it was like, we did have to work, you know, with the editors too, to kind of make sense of that because we didn't come in expecting that there would be that kind of definitional issue. We're like, oh, engaged journalism is this thing. And I think we had even ourselves in the early draft slipped between saying engagement and engaged. And we realized you can't, like, because they don't mean, it doesn't mean one thing.

Emily Kennedy [00:25:57]:
Mm-hmm.

Adam Gamwell [00:25:58]:
And it was helpful to recognize that too, but I also think you're, You're right. And I'd be excited to see too that I think that there is a, there can be a deep connection between the community engagement side and the audience engagement side. And again, like both business building, revenue building for newsrooms, because think about it, it is a question of revenue. It is a question of, sorry, I'm tapping the mic. It is a question of representation, right? If you see yourselves in stories, you're more likely to want to engage with that source. And especially if you're seeing yourself engaged in ways that you say, oh, I know my neighbor participated in that story, or I helped in this thing or something where I've seen myself as part of this work. That's why Substack does really well because it's like it has this sort of personal vibe, even though it's like a giant impersonal machine. But like there's this kind of felt relationship between the authors and the audience.

Adam Gamwell [00:26:44]:
And that I think has huge value for ways that you can create and produce, like thinking with ethnography, with communities that will help, I think, the bottom line of newsrooms kind of tell stories that matter to communities. And I will say too, not to be contradictory, that I also think that AI can help with scale and that kind of thing, not to write a bunch of fake stories, but just like there are questions of how we could think about the idea of how do we both be local and also help scale an idea. And so we can work with technology for that. So we're not a Luddite or anti-technological. It's just like there are ethical ways to do it and I think useful ways. And so I agree. I think this is a really interesting idea of both recognizing the engagement engaged lack of definition, but then also community and audience engagement can help each other, I think, and especially the newsroom level and at the community level.

Emily Kennedy [00:27:31]:
And of course, we are big proponents of using ethnographic methods in engaged journalism. We had one peer reviewer ask us this question, what forms of engaged journalism are not ethnographic? Which, like, I think the two of us really love that idea that it could all be.

Adam Gamwell [00:27:52]:
Yeah.

Emily Kennedy [00:27:53]:
Ethnographic. But we did have to clarify and say, you know, there's, there's certainly some forms of engaged journalism that are not ethnographic. And again, like maybe that broader definition of engaged and engagement journalism plays into that too. But, but, but yeah, we did, we did kind of have to then further explain what we were talking about. But that being said, we of course do feel strongly that there's such a a large swath of engaged journalism that employs ethnographic methods. Maybe they don't realize they're doing it. And so if you don't mind, I can mention that the Center for Anthropology and Journalism is running, producing an engaged journalism conference. So we are inviting more conversations and we're hoping to see, you know, all orientations towards engaged journalism, engagement, engaged.

Emily Kennedy [00:28:48]:
However you like to, to describe it. Um, and, and hopefully, you know, it, in the conference and surrounding the discussions that happen during the conference time, we'll maybe see some of these questions explored there too.

Adam Gamwell [00:29:04]:
Yeah, no, I think so. And I hope so. And, and yeah, we definitely, you know, invite folks to, to check out the conference. We'll, we'll put some links as long as alongside the show notes and I mean, the reason that we're doing this, and, you know, if you have either, you know, heard Emily in our, my conversation a couple of years ago, and, or just if you participate in any of the, the, the Center for Anthropology and Journalism workshops that we've done, you know, a lot of our passion is just to bring together these 2 disciplines. And we're obviously, we're talking about a paper that we just wrote about it, you know, but it's like, it's, I'm excited about this, the conference too, because it's, A, it's daunting to put one of these, put a conference on, but like, It's, it's neat because it's also one of these other things that we have not seen. We haven't seen a conference dedicated to bringing these, these 2 pieces together of ethnography and journalism. And just something that I'm excited about with it too is that the theme for this year is care. I think that's, that's neat because it is, you know, a lot that we found both in the research and just what we're seeing in engaged journalism.

Adam Gamwell [00:29:59]:
What does it mean to engage with the community is, is to care, right? For the people, for the place, for the stories that get told and the culture that gets, that gets perpetuated and brought through. And so it's like, I think that's a really compelling idea. And it's something that, you know, personally, I'm just interested anyway in these questions of how do we think about caring for the future for ourselves, for our communities. And so it's neat to see the ways that 2 disciplines can come together and kind of engage with that. So we're excited for it. And we hope that, yeah, I'm happy to share more about that if folks are interested and we'll put some links in the show notes. And we definitely, you know, hope to be doing this again in the future. More conferences, more workshops and things like that.

Adam Gamwell [00:30:32]:
So anyway, yeah, it's been, thanks for chatting about the paper with me, Emily. This has been fun to reconnect with you here on the, on the digital platforms. Yeah.

Emily Kennedy [00:30:39]:
Good to chat with you, Adam, especially about this work that took us so many months to create. And finally to see it out there in the world is great. I hope people check it out.

Adam Gamwell [00:30:50]:
Yeah, cool. We'll see y'all next time.