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Antrim Folk Tales

reminiscent at times of Hermann Bausinger’s (1961) ‘horizons’ when he discussed folklore through the lens of a technological world. Interestingly, the reader may also notice in this chapter the precise observation that digital folklore has more frequently considered text and transmission rather than performance and digital technology. While Oring’s writing perhaps subscribes to this phenomenon (a more ‘traditional’ perspective), Simon Bronner in the sixth chapter begins his intricately balanced piece by positioning his views alongside Smith’s (1991) nearly prophetic realization that ‘many colleagues wedded to definitions of folklore around face-to-face oral transmission might be skeptical of his folkloric label’ (119). He continues with great flourish to unravel some of the more perturbing and evasive issues surrounding the expressive, interactive features and cultural functions of folklore online. Simon Bronner, Bill Ellis, and Montana Miller, in the final chapters ‘The Jewish Joke Online: Framing and Symbolizing Humor in Analog and Digital Culture’ (119–49), ‘Love and War and Anime Art: An Ethnographic Look at a Virtual Community of Collectors’ (166–211), and ‘Face-to-face with the Digital Folk: The Ethics of Fieldwork on Facebook’ (212–32), manage to discuss with mastery the digital social setting. They all reorganize the cultural frames pertinent to their subject matters, rather than trying to squash the newly created expressive forms into frames that were adequate for traditions from a different age. In short, this is what this book as a whole does exceptionally well. It feels as though, finally, we have a collection of strong voices that have recognized the organic nature of tradition and the need to constantly re-clarify, re-justify, and rethink traditions within varying, new, and changeable social parameters. Possibly the chapter that epitomizes this notion and the need for an open-minded, ever-changing appreciation of how the folk, folklore, and the discipline itself are developing is Lynne McNeill’s fourth inclusion, ‘Real Virtuality: Enhancing Locality by Enacting the Small World Theory’ (85–97). This represents a detailed investigation into social reality as it stands, and considers how multi-localities and trans-localities enhance individual experiences within the framework of a ‘small world theory’. Seemingly sharing a similar perspective as the authors in previous chapters, it is an articulate, and matter of fact, recognition that the virtual world should be recognized as part of the physical world, and that vernacular digital communication is essentially redefining the folk. McNeill goes on to suggest, through a wonderful array of examples, how contemporary traditions are being created, crafted, and passed on through a, not necessarily always equal, co-existence (or even co-dependence) of the analogue and the digital. Furthermore, McNeill demonstrates that the will for a deep interconnectedness still pervades culture, as it always has, and with subtlety and poignancy gives a nod to the folklorist to uncover the ways in which it is now manifested. While these re-conceptualizations are well understood and remarkably well explained, the potential impolite and awkward situations of underdeveloped, unconfirmed, shared customs that we face in this new social reality do not escape McNeill, and the conclusion offers a tidy view of the situation through a macro, albeit multi-localized, lens.