A long over-due crosspost from gnovis! Way back in 2011 I embarked on a project exploring the colloquial distinction between “the Internet” and “the real” — as in, “Linda, why don’t you join us in the real world instead of texting your friends?” I interviewed friends, parents, and acquaintances hoping to identify the differences between … Continue reading Phenomenology of the Virtual and the Real
Category: Anthropology
We've all done it - the knee-jerk judgement passed on the person starting intensely at their phone at dinner, at a movie, among friends. And certainly, it is true that a substantial amount of our mobile activity is inessential at best, a waste of life's precious minutes at worst. But too often these screens are … Continue reading Don’t hate the dual-screen
Instagram is a social, mobile photography app. They have 100 million monthly active users, and 40 million Instagram photos are posted per day. Purchased by the leviathan of social media that is Facebook in 2012, Instagram seems to be some kind of "big deal". From a commercial perspective, Instagram is an immensely easy-t0-use and popular … Continue reading #Instalife: How Instagram redefines the meaning and practice of photography
Please see also Part 1 and Part 2. PART 3: NGOs AND DIGITAL RIGHTS In the last section I considered the roles of business and governments in protecting "net neutrality", or the basic neutrality of Internet conduits. Net neutrality is a subtle concept, involving the protection of a particular idea about what Internet access is … Continue reading The Politics and Power of Internet Infrastructure, Pt. 3
Please see the first part of this project here. PART 2: NETWORK NEUTRALITY In my last post I described the centralized control of the Internet's backbone by only 5 major companies around the world. This is an example of horizontal integration at the level of Internet service supplies. Thus far, this horizontal integration has posed … Continue reading The Politics and Power of Internet Infrastructure Pt. 2
We traditionally understand the world to be controlled primarily by technologies of violence and destruction. Who controls these technologies and how they are regulated are arguably the most important factors determining the global political landscape. Nuclear proliferation almost entirely determined international relations during the Cold War era, and North Korea's recent suggestion about possible nuclear … Continue reading The Politics and Power of Internet Infrastructure
The past few posts I have written all belong to a collection of case studies about new media practices and the 2012 elections. I want to collect them all here, and briefly reflect on what these case studies might mean overall for democratic engagement and participation. #MocktheVote Practices of political news consumption and production on … Continue reading New Media Practices and the 2012 Presidential Elections
In the lengthy and involved media spectacle surrounding the 2012 elections, the day of reckoning is of course voting day. Traditionally, media messaging switches from heated horse-race coverage to “neutral” coverage encouraging people to get out and vote, with live coverage of lines at polls and providing information on polling locations. This year witnessed an … Continue reading #Ivoted: Documenting the Vote in the 2012 Elections
Twitter and the 2012 Elections: Media Practice and Politics Whereas Facebook is a platform that treats politics as more or less taboo, Twitter's network is made up substantially of news outlets/media organizations, political junkies and citizen journalists. This characteristic of Twitter's population of users is partly a product of the site's informational architecture, which makes … Continue reading Live-tweeting democracy: the fantasy of representation
Since its beginning, the Internet's potential to disseminate information broadly and easily has been hailed as a great democratizing force. Today, this idealist vision has somewhat deteriorated, with some arguing that the Internet creates “echo-chambers” and "filter bubbles" of like-minded people who can choose to only engage with material that agrees with them, and preventing people from being active … Continue reading Practices of political news production and consumption on Facebook’s news feed
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