media | antropologi.info

Introduction to “Media Worlds”: Media an important field for anthropology

Published on April 25, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, media, persons and theories

anthropologist Andrea Ben Lassoued, zerzaust

In their introduction to “Media Worlds” Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod and Larkin argue, that the anthropology of media is an important field of study, as the “ubiquity of media worldwide means, that anthropologists encounter it in the diverse places where we work.” They think that media anthropology will be able to advance theory and method in both anthropology itself and nearby fields that are concerend with the study of media. What anthropolgy can contribute to the study of media is a global, comparative perspecitve. >> continue to her post (incl many related links!)

anthropologist Andrea Ben Lassoued, zerzaust

In their introduction to "Media Worlds" Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod and Larkin argue, that the anthropology of media is an important field of study, as the "ubiquity of media worldwide means, that anthropologists encounter it in the diverse…

UPDATED: Ethnographic Study on "Digital Kids"

Published on April 17, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, fieldwork / methods, media, technology, youth

Linux Electronics

A University of California, Berkeley, professor is spearheading a team just awarded $3.3 million to study “digital kids.” The study will document how youth from ages 10 to 20 are using new digital media to create and exchange knowledge, assess how these phenomena affect learning, and encourage use of its conclusions for the improvement of schools.

Principal investigators include anthropologist Mizuko Ito, who has studied youths’ use of digital media in the United States and Japan.

Half of the ethnographic study’s research sites will be online and include the use of blogs, new online play sites such as Neopets and online games. The other half will include sites like libraries, community centers, game centers and after-school programs that have digital media. >> continue

UPDATE: Judd Antin (University of California Berkeley!) has more information. He writes – among others: “There is practically no research on how youth in the United States use, perceive, and value ICTs. It’s a gigantic gap. We aim to fill it. (..) Educational technology has been stagnant since about 1990. There have been practically no new developments in teaching software. Through our study we hope to provide the ammunition to develop educational software that works, and which capitalizes on the new, digital, networked environment in which many kids are growing up. >> continue
He also points to the research project’s homepage

LINKS UPDATED 5.1.2023

Linux Electronics

A University of California, Berkeley, professor is spearheading a team just awarded $3.3 million to study "digital kids." The study will document how youth from ages 10 to 20 are using new digital media to create and exchange knowledge,…

New book by Lila Abu-Lughod: The Politics of Television in Egypt

Published on April 8, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, media, persons and theories

Cairo Magazine

“Dramas of Nationhood. The Politics of Television in Egypt” by anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod is the first major work to analyze contemporary Egypt TV watching nation. 10 years went into researching and writing the book. Ten years spent watching television melodramas with Egypt’s subalterns to write a book that no one who watches television will ever read. It is an academic work that analyzes the “post-Orientalist epistemes” in the relationship between Egyptian melodramatic series and the (re)production of the nation/state.

In a region over-colonized by Western political scientists and journalists writing “behind the scenes” accounts, a book that takes seriously the oeuvre of Usama Anwar Ukasha (“the Naguib Mahfouz of Egyptian television”) comes as a breath of fresh air. >> continue (link updated)

Interview with Lila Abu-Lughod by Nermeen Shaikh of AsiaSource

American Ethnologist Book review: “The Anthropology of Media: A Reader” and “Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain”

Book review “Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin: Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain (Australian Journal of AnthropologyAugust, 2004 by Jennifer Deger – findarticles.com)

Cairo Magazine

"Dramas of Nationhood. The Politics of Television in Egypt" by anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod is the first major work to analyze contemporary Egypt TV watching nation. 10 years went into researching and writing the book. Ten years spent watching television…

Disney-Film depicts indigenous people as involved in cannibalism

Published on March 2, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, Latin- and Central America, media, Native American, persons and theories, Us and Them

IPS

The producers of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” are eagerly gearing up to film the sequels. But the project, due to be released on Jul. 7, 2006, is already proving to be a problem, as the descendants of the Caribs, historians and others are objecting to scenes depicting these indigenous people as involved in cannibalism.

Brinsley Samaroo, head of the history department of the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), dismisses the claim of cannibalism as a “European myth”. He told IPS that it was nothing but “manufactured history” by the Europeans who came across the Caniba, a tribe found in North and South America. “The Caniba tribe was very hostile and resisting the Europeans very stoutly and in order to warn other Europeans about this, the early explorers spread the myth that the Caniba tribe eat people,” he said.

The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Historical and Archaeological Society has called on movie-goers to boycott the sequel unless the “grossly offensive” scenes depicting the Caribs as cannibals are removed from the script. >> continue

In the IPS-article, there’s also an link to a Brief history of cannibal controversies

SEE ALSO:
We do not eat people (Trinidad News)

UPDATE: More news on this controversy at warauduati, among others Boycott Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean and Racist Stereotypes in Pirates of the Caribbean

IPS

The producers of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" are eagerly gearing up to film the sequels. But the project, due to be released on Jul. 7, 2006, is already proving to be a problem, as…

UPDATED – The future lies behind: How languages reflect our conception of time

Published on February 27, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, language, Latin- and Central America, media, Native American

Laura Spinney, The Guardian

For the Aymara people living in the Andes, the past lies ahead and the future lies behind. The Aymara word for past is transcribed as nayra , which literally means eye, sight or front. The word for future is q”ipa , which translates as behind or the back. Over the years, rumours have surfaced of similar strangeness in other languages.

The researcher is Rafael Núñez, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego. With his collaborator, linguist Eve Sweetser, he will publish his findings later this year.

“This Aymara finding is big news,” says Vyvyan Evans, a theoretical cognitive linguist at the University of Sussex. “It is the first really well-documented example of the future and past being structured in a totally different way from lots of other languages, including English.” >> continue

UPDATE (28.2.05):
Anthropologist Kerim Friedman writes “I can’t understand the fuss being made over the Aymara people living in the Andes who supposedly have a unique spacial conception of time. My guess is that this is simply another example of reporters mangling academic research in order to make the story more exciting.” >> continue

Laura Spinney, The Guardian