Concordia University professor Dr. Vivek Venkatesh is currently conducting research into online environments and their impact on metal fans. Dr. Venkatesh has exclusively provided BraveWords.com with the following update on his research and his team:

In the past decade, educational researchers have spent considerable energies investigating the integration of social computing technologies in formal as well as informal learning situations. It is well known fact that Web 2.0 tools such as bulletin boards, weblogs, and technologies such as Facebook, Ning and MySpace are extensively used to propagate online communities devoted to specific interests. Little is known, however, about the impact of the interactions facilitated through these technologies on learning, especially for populations with fringe interests, such as those in non-mainstream music, film, and other forms of art.

Our project explores the emancipatory effects of the use of these Web 2.0 technologies on one such fringe population, metalheads, i.e. fans of heavy metal music. The theoretical approach is grounded in the study of online communities of practice. Data collection will evoke multiple perspectives, both from within the metalhead community including metal music artists, and from without, including families of metalheads, metal and non-metal music writers and critics, as well as scholastic and/or workplace colleagues of metalheads. The analysis will illuminate the extent to which these web technologies contribute to, or work against the disenfranchisation of metalheads. In addition, the analysis will help us better describe how metalheads share information with one another and how their online communications lead to instances of learning. Our broad question focuses on how new users of heavy metal-related bulletin boards learn not only about music but also about how to use online means of communication.

Dr. Venkatesh's team is pictured in the photograph (click to enlarge) and includes, kneeling, from left to right, in front of t-shirts worn by the five hallowed members of Swedish death metal supergroup BLOODBATH at European festivals in 2008:

- Dr. David Waddington (co-investigator)
- Mr. Kamran Shaikh (co-investigator & PhD student)
- Ms. Amna Zuberi (PhD student)
- Ms. Kathryn Urbaniak (MA student)
- Mr. Timothy Gallant (MA student).

Towering over them, delivering unholy blessings, is Dr. Vivek Venkatesh, project leader.