Like everyone else, I found the first chapter very refreshing compared to the enlightening information from Research Design. The authors' focus on the different ways to do a case study further clarified qualitative methods.
The sections that jumped out to me was the "language events" and "cultural practices." Although they seemed a bit anthropological, their application of their definitions in the case studies was relative to research. These sections also got me thinking about my own research and how I could relate my ideas to theirs and if it would be beneficial to my over research. I hope to apply "language events" and "context" as the authors convey the meaning of digital language in association with particular websites/social sites. This thought then brought me back to the beginning of the chapter where the authors discuss the "local particulars of some abstract social phenomenon." The "local particular" deal with the surroundings of the subjects being researched. In the book, the subjects were elementary students and their local surroundings (their world) revolved around their community. The community was mainly based on the children's cultural surroundings. In relation to why I was brought back to this was that involving the cultural surroundings is extremely important, especially when looking at the subject from a specific angle, either wide or close.
In film, a wide angle and close angle (lens) can give the filmmaker a voice as well as show the audience a specific aspect that they would not have seen otherwise. To me, it is an emphasis on an important/ key element that should be noted to the audience. In kind, the wide angle/close angle in research is similar in that one can focus on a specific world (close) or the relation of the close to the wide (wide).
In all, I think that this chapter helped to further define much of the information in the first book. It also, was a nice turn from focusing on three different types of research to just one.
Like Caroline, I was greatly helped by the On the Case first chapter; it defined the concepts in a way that was much more easy to understand. But anyways, I chose to respond to this because of the film reference you used. It was a great comparison to aid in understanding, and it's an interesting concept to consider when conducting research; though research should be as unbiased as possible, it is our responsibility as researchers to point out distinct findings, whether big or small. It's our job to make sure the people that are interested in our research see details of our findings through our "lenses". It was very refreshing to hone in on one research method in practice over just reading about all of the methods at once in a dictionary definition fashion.
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