This Is Digital Anthropology

Sat, Dec 19, 2009

Digital Anthropology, Philosophy, Tech

This Is Digital Anthropology

I have been shying against the term “social media” lately.  For a few reasons that are very simple…

  • It’s inaccurate.
    • Social: well, the internet is inherently social. Always has been and always will be.  It’s just the fact that we’re figuring it now that makes us want to slap a name on it.
    • Media: this little phenomenon of communicating and connecting through the digital world is not limited to “media”.  What about politics?  Art?  Philanthropy?  We use the social web for all of these things.  Not just “marketing” and “advertising”.
  • It’s word vomit. It is overused and overhyped.  The end.

If I have to call this phenomenon anything, I’d prefer to call it digital anthropology: the way in which humans communicate, collaborate, and connect through the social web.

Humans behave to accomplish a myriad of goals and the digital world is yet another component to achieving them.  The internet fosters this human to human interaction and facilitates the methodologies in which communicating and connecting can be used to efficiently solve problems (business, social, personal, etc.).

Surely, digital anthropology operates not on the premise that humans morph their behaviors when using the internet.  This is not the case.  They operate the same as they do in real life.  But what is valuable here is how we communicate.  Why we communicate.  When we communicate.  If we can understand these ways a bit more, we can draw some lines in the sand.   With any inkling of intelligence we’ll figure out how to use digital anthropology to expand our business and enrich our lives.

Photo credit marfis75
  • Digital anthropology may be more accurate, social media is catchier. But regardless of what we call it, isn't it more important we understand it to be the same thing when the term is used?
  • Catchier, perhaps. That's the branding in this whole ordeal I suppose. It's all about making that $$$. Digital anthropology sounds too educated? Let's dumb it down and call it social media. :-)
  • Too many syllables. Even highly technical language among the members of a particular subfield tends to get abbreviated, shortened, verbed, etc. to the point where the term collides with terms from outside of the field and you just have context to go on.

    Even "social media" is a bit long at 5... I think the "media" bit will probably be the first to go, and "social" will transform to be more explicitly net-relevant.
  • Case in point: Social Media reduced to SocMed. Then reduced further to SM.

    Proof (just for fun):

    Hypothesis: Social Media = Sarah Merion

    1. Social Media = SocMed
    2. SocMed = SM
    3. Sarah Merion = SM
    4. If Social Media = SocMed and SocMed = SM and Sarah Merion = SM, then Social Media = Sarah Merion

    ;-)
  • I can hear the movie trailer now:

    "This summer... Sarah Merion is...

    SOCIAL MEDIA"
  • But, on a more serious note Nicolas, yes, I agree.

    Also, perhaps whatever word is used to describe this phenomenon, it is inherentely marketable, as it was created by marketers.
  • Yup. It's totally a type of branding. It's like how in politics whoever gets to name the "pro-" side has an advantage, even though it's just an abstract category.
  • KSU's Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology Michael Wesch would probably agree with you: http://ksuanth.weebly.com/wesch.html (if you haven't watched his lecture on studying YouTube culture, I would highly recommend it)
  • Wow, super awesome! Thanks for turning me onto Prof. Wesch. Can't wait to delve into more of his content. So much to learn.. so little time...
  • Sarah, don't you think that the architecture of the Internet encourages and often forces people to alter their behaviors in ways that they don't in unmediated space? Sure, plenty of people stick their head in the sand, but many people modulate aspects of their personalities in order to account for the fundamentally different space they're operating in. Addressing a room full of people is inherently different than publishing something on the Internet or using Twitter.

    For one, people carry on time-shifted conversations that aren't possible in real space. What you say on the Internet sticks there and is searchable. And that searchability means that plenty of people that you never dreamt of addressing can find your stuff and respond to it as if you were speaking directly to them. That's hugely empowering, but it also undeniably affects behavior. In fact, social media is probably functioning to actually change people's prioritization of certain kinds of privacy. If nothing else, social media has been both the cause of and the window into the increasingly blurry distinction between public and private.
  • You definitely made time stand still a little bit with this comment. So much to talk about here, I think I'll have to write three more blog posts just to address this.

    Yes, I agree with you that a lot of what is happening on the internet deals with architecture. Perhaps that is what I was trying to get at with the how anthropology works online - how relationships are structured and function as a result of being digital. This idea needs to be fleshed out more though to be fully understood and to understand the whole scope of my idea on it.

    Your second paragraph re: altered behavoirs based on the searchability and the permanence of the internet is something that I haven't considered. You have good points here, that's for sure.
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