Chapter 9 - Digital Anthropology, Social Media & Internet Cultures

Question 1

Internet Culture

Answer 1

Cultures that exist and take place on the internet.

They are more complicated than national cultures.

Tony Weeks - cultures like this are more heterogenous and compromised by people with all sorts of cultural values and beliefs.

Internet connects people and creates socialites.

Question 2

Glocal

Answer 2

A term used to describe how the ‘local’ and ‘global’ mix.

Question 3

Digital Anthropology

Answer 3

The ethnographic study of how people use and interact with digital technologies and the impact these have in they lives.

Question 4

Ethnography allows….

Answer 4

• allows to go beyond the good/bad narratives associated with the internet.
• doing ethnography on the internet implies it can be done online.

Question 5

Denah Boyd:

Digital anthropologist for Microsoft

Answer 5

She conducted an ethnographic study on 33 teenagers in the US. Her findings:

• Digital media (Insta, FB, Twitter) allows teenagers to create meaning and connections in different ways - over the internet instead of in person.

Like Daniel Miller she found that the internet rearticulates existing social norms and perceptions in new ways.

Digital media creates new forms of sociality e.g. building an online identity based on reputation, online bullying.

Increasing use of social mea was reactive to broader economical and social changes. This shows that the internet and communities are part of each other.

Question 6

The broader, social, political dimensions of internet culture are made explicit by the work anthropologist….

Answer 6

Gabriella Coleman.

She performed field work with Anomynous

She says:

Anonymous are not just about cyber lingo, pranks etc. Rather their identity takes many shapes - it transforms according to socio-political processes. In some ways their practices are a reaction to, and also influence, global issues, usually the circulation of information, from unlawful governments.

This shows how the internet is not separate but participates in the world.

Question 7

BitCoin:

Answer 7

Bill Maurer did anthropology on Crypoto currencies

• Says that hidden, local and alternative forms of currency is nothing new
• Bit Coin can be understood as a ‘subculture’ because people put a value on them. They have collectively agreed that that bit coins are valuable.
• What this implies is that bit coin is not simply a way of exchanging money - it is also an internet culture: in other words a community of likeminded people who have the same values and beliefs about money.
• Bitcoin is unique: it blurs the ocundary between consumption and production.

Question 8

Bonsu and Darmody:

Answer 8

explore this in relation to Second life, by exploring how the creativity SL provides users creates new means of consumption and sociality.

• On the one hand, SL changes the relations between consumers and producers, but this creates new ethical questions as to how producers and marketers should use the creative input of consumers.