AAA Annual Meeting: Are blogs a better news source than corporate media?

It's the probably the largest meeting of anthropologists in the world, nevertheless it's hard to find information on what has been discussed the recent days. I was about to write that I've found more news reports on an anthropology conference in Borneo (Meeting of minds on Sociology & Anthropology in Borneo opens and Closing ceremony of sociology and anthropology conference), than on the much larger Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) (no articles, conference homepage seems to exist!). A more indepth search revealed some news stories on two topics, though:

Easter Island's demise caused by rats, Dutch traders says new theory (several sources)
Rats and European traders may be responsible for the mysterious demise of Easter Island according to research presented last week by a University of Hawaii anthropologist during an American Anthropological Association meeting. >> continue

Science snapshot: Early humans hunted, not hunters (US Today)
Some anthropologists are suggesting that being hunted, rather than hunting, was the daily fare of humanity's ancestors. At a presentation here at the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting, anthropologist Donna Hart of the University of Missouri in St. Louis argued that fossil evidence and the experience today of monkeys and apes "supports a 'Man, the Hunted' theory of evolution." >> continue

There hasn't been much blogging during the conference as it is the case in other disciplines. So I'm not sure if we can conclude that blogs are a better news source than corporate media. There are more blog posts than articles, but most of them are more personal than anthropological - "Rachel" just writes about food:

My trip to Washington, DC to give a paper at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association started with French ravioli smothered in gruyere

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Here are some posts, more will follow, I hope?

Savage Minds: Neoliberalism: Good. Spy Museum: Better.
Of course, all anthropologist have a love-hate relationship with the crippling reflexivity and desperate networking that is the AAAs, but this year seemed particularly half-cocked. The job market was not particularly exciting this year, and it was hard to find exciting panels. Even particularly popular panels, like ‘the neoliberalism one’ were not as heavily attended as it could be since, as one grad student put it, “the spy museum was cooler.” I am not sure whether this says more about the spy museum or neoliberalism. >> continue

another post: What happens at the AAA, stays at the AAA

Erkan's field diary: A few more words on Washington DC and AAA
After the last AAA meetings, I would somewhat casually say that science and technology studies and ethnographies of neoliberalism are the two hot themes of anthropological work... >> continue

John Hawkes: So how were the triple-A's?
I was on an invited panel discussion of ethical issues in biological anthropology, particularly with relation to property. My part was to discuss concerns relating to genetic research on anthropological variation. >> continue

Photoethnography: Successful anthropology conference in Washington, DC
>> continue (very short entry!)

Mareska Kellemvore: Kick in my complacency
I was super overwhelmed 'cause it's a HUGE conference and I didn't know enough of the names of the important people and everyone was dressed schnazzier than at AFS and I was intimidated because this time I was on a panel of a bunch of professors and me. >> continue

SEE ALSO:
More and more anthropologists, but they're absent from public debates - "Engaging Anthropology" (1)