#dr-durington

[lexabrianna-blog]

Forrest of Bliss, Why it Sucked (according to Ruby), and other thoughts...

1) Is Robert Gardner an ethnographic filmmaker or visual artist?  Does it matter when attempting to document culture? By some he is considered to be both.  Gardner’s work aspires to produce “artistically competent films about exotic people.”  Ruby would consider Gardner to be a visual artist.  After reading this critique I would say it does and does not matter.  What Gardner did is still a part of culture, its just labeled differently and in another category.  The film isn’t telling of another person or groups truth, it is the truth of the artist behind the lens.    

2) What are Ruby's main critiques of Robert Gardner and his films? Ruby’s main critiques on Gardner’s work  as a whole is that 1) he is dependent on outmoded and inadequate theoretical perspectives, 2) he has failed to utilize anthropological knowledge derived from ethnographic fieldwork to organize films and 3) Gardner’s attached persona must be put into question as the underlying aesthetic of his art might become morally and politically suspect.  

3) How does the notion of 'salvage' play into the critique of Gardner by Ruby? Filmmakers decide that a certain culture or way of life is dissolving and make it their duty to record “disappearing” culture.  This can throw insult to those still actively involved in what the other (in this case the filmmaker) has decided needs salvaging.  

4) What are the direct critiques of Forest of Bliss by Ruby? As for Ruby, Forrest of Bliss falsely mystifies.  It is unknown what language is spoken in the film and there are zero subtitles leaving the lay-viewer to guess about what’s happening on screen.  This kind of “interactive viewer involvement” becomes problematic as the assumptions/observations being made are most likely going to be misinformed, ethnocentric, and incorrect.  As Gardner chooses to leave out subtitles, choosing what is not important enough to translate, Ruby feels he is left with pure formalism.  The films visuals lack to convey meaning.  He also believes he used the “exotic quality of Indian life” to express his own feelings.  The film turned into an art piece.  Gardner manipulated the fact that the viewing western audience would approach the film with collective “oohs!” and “aahs!” baffled by the mysterious nature of the exotic Indian people.  Those filmed were used a medium in which to paint, aesthetic muses to observe and romanticize.  “Gardner mistakes ignorance for mystery.  India is mysterious only to those too lazy to learn something about it,” –Ruby.  He believes Gardner made an art film lacking the vital moral questions anthropologists need to ask of themselves when conducting research and disseminating it in whatever medium they so chose.  Gardner tells his own stories and is not revealing truth.  

5) What is your take on the difference between Ruby and Gardner's perspective on this film? I have to agree with Ruby’s critique of the film (I may have done a disservice by reading the piece before watching the film).  I was left to wonder what was going on bringing prior knowledge taken from other cultural television shows I’ve watched over my lifetime regarding Indian culture.  I wanted subtitles; I wanted to know what they were saying to each other to really understand each frame.  The film certainly felt like an art piece leaving me to interpret it as I saw fit.

Random (and raw) thoughts during the reading… “Other” But if were stepping into these communities, as anthropologists, that we vehemently acknowledge and recognize that we are not apart of, wont there always be the Other.  We set up these ethical constructs to acknowledge that we know nothing and to work with the people being filmed or researched isn’t that saying from the beginning that we are other.  We are to be cognizant of the fact that when we step into the field, were not supposed to be know it all ass holes observant at the top of our “veranda sipping tea” (as Dr. Durington performed in front of our class so beautifully).   So, aren’t we always going to be the other anyway, at least until we’ve reached an idealistic society when we are all equal and disenfranchisement no longer exists?  Isn’t it doing a disservice NOT to recognize that there is The Other?  Isn’t that in and of itself kind of denying that there is unequal representation and agency to voice—doesn’t that negative the very work you’re entering the field to do?  Anthropology seems to both demonize and praise recognition of others as The Other...#confused.

“Gardner has made it quite clear that he views it as a ‘personal film, not an ethnographic one.’ “110 Gardner considered Forrest of Bliss to be a “personal film.”  ELL OH ELL. Sooooo its just a super long snap chat that was meant for himself BUT JUST SO HAPPENED to land in laps of a film festival?  Dude.  

“Gardner has indicated that what is said is not important enough to translate and that with the vignettes of behavior are not consequential enough to present in such a way as to make them understandable, I am left with a kind of pure formalism.” 110 Don’t all directors have to edit as some point, even if there are subtitles?  At some point the director/ethnographic filmmaker/visual artist/whatever the hell we’re calling them these days, have to decide what’s important enough to go into the film anyways?  

[danthropologist-blog]

Gill’s Article and Films

Dr. Harjant Gill’s perspective on ethnographic film, visual anthropology, and the methodology and process described in his article are extremely valuable especially when contexualized with his film Roots of Love. In the article, some of his first advice was in regard to determining what to say before beginning to shoot. This enables time for revision, reflection, and the ability to proceed with clarity of focus. It also allows for the filmmaker to be efficient in their production and determines the interest, or lack thereof, of one’s initial idea. Also critical in the ethnographic filmmaking process is the strategy of pre-interviewing. Once rapport is established, pre-interviewing is an effective way for the author to gauge the authenticity and openness of their participants, especially when compared with subsequent interviews. For Gill, these interviews are vital in determining how effectively such testimonies fit within the themes the author is considering.

One of the advantages of film that Gill describes is the immediacy and reach that distribution of anthropologically guided work maintains; the filmmaker is able to capture the emotive or sensorial aspects that develop differently in the written ethnographic form. That said, a drawback of this media compared to traditional ethnography is the difficulty for the author in establishing a theoretical distance from the subject being depicted. This is then negotiated in how the material is presented, ideally without resorting to the infamous ‘voice-of-god’ narration technique. As mentioned in Durington’s article, another primary concern echoed by Gill in this process is reflexivity for the filmmaker. Gill understands that the process of editing is a type of manipulation or narrative-construction in its own right, but that this is innately part of ethnography. To do so responsibly, however, Gill notes the importance of intending to accurately depict one’s interlocutors; this can be achieved by ensuring the participants review the media produced and that their own voice is captured truthfully. By coupling this article with Gill’s filmic work, the viewer sees the end result of these thorough and tedious workings.

Roots of Love is documentary style, which may give some visual anthropologists pause in relation to how the voice of the director versus the participants is being prioritized; Gill, however, perceives the distinction between documentary and film that is driven more directly by the participants expansively, in a way that blurs traditional disciplinary distinctions. In essence, the goals of each of these endeavors are broadly the same and each is a visual manipulation of culture, with one being conducted and presented with slight modifications in comparison to the other. Regardless, the films provoke and educate the viewer effectively on the issue at hand.

Common themes for Gill include migration and gender performativity in the Punjab in a globalizing era. In Roots of Love, Gill explores the changing role and meaning of the turban for men and their families who are Sikh. Traditionally, the turban has stood for the uniqueness and self-aggrandizement of Sikh men, and continual hair growth within the Sikh religion represents the strength and importance of God. With the diaspora of men in the Punjab to countries like the US, where turbans are less common or turban-wearers face stigmatization through the association of labels like ‘terrorist,’ younger men appear to be changing their views on letting their hair grow. One older individual equates cutting hair to murder, and others testify that if a Sikh cuts their hair, even if they apologize and rejoin the religion, they will never be a whole practitioner again. Conversely, the primary interlocutor in the film attests that cutting his hair has provided him with a feeling of liberation.

Gill’s combination of aesthetics and interviewing techniques render a film that is impactful and intriguing to the eye. Interview-style shots are frequent, as well as longer sweeping shots of landscapes which promote introspection in the viewer and combine for a dynamic piece that captures the tensions and multi-faceted nature of his topic of study. While the film is only 26 minutes in length, after familiarizing oneself with the arduousness and intricacy of ethnographic film-making described in Gill’s article, one is even more appreciative of the subject’s rendering.

#harjantgill #rootsoflove #ethnographicfilm #visualanthropology #hashtag

[anthrosam2017-blog]

“Beauty Baseline”article review (Critical Visions)

So, for the “Color” selection of our reading, I decided to focus on a story that delves into the nature of beauty commodification and the discrepancies between how dark and light-skinned women are treated in India and the West.

In “Beauty Baseline,” a study of the commodification of light skin and the perpetuation of this preference by ‘the media,’ Elise Barrington explores the difficulty women of color face in finding cosmetics that match their skin tones. I found this article to be a really interesting read, because conventional standards of beauty are 1. stupid, 2. based almost entirely on Western features and 3. stupid.

Anyway, in the article, Barrington discusses the theory that this preference toward women with lighter skin goes way deeper than the racism we all know it to be. Instead, she introduces colorist.

- “Those with lighter skin and Eurocentric features have historically enjoyed conscious and unconscious preferential treatment across many realms, including romantic and work relationships.”

- “Colorism is a form of prejudice where people are treated differently based on their skin color. This differs from racism, which is a prejudice against perceived racial statuses. Colorism can, and often does, live within communities of color. It is rooted in histories of biases toward darker skin tones.”

From here, Barrington theorizes that women have been able to fight back through protests of white-only brands, though this comes with its own challenges of still buying into the convention of one desirable construct that is “beauty.” (“Yet, the use of beauty as a method of cultural protest can be problematic. While it arms agency in one sense, it propagates the commodification of women in another. Beauty, specifically for women becomes social currency.”)

Online, women are reclaiming their cultural and physical identities by banding together. Youtube and Twitter (and the inception of hashtags) provide open spaces for community-building and combating conventionality.

- “Politics of beauty are in constant flux between agency and commodification. By fostering community, African-American and dark-skinned Indian women are able to set roots in the beauty world.”

These spaces didn’t exist before this century, so this is all-new territory. The Internet and the rise of generally anonymous posting have made people outspoken (and mean), but they have also brought women who could have never known each other to come together to create and advocate for change.

All that said, I was disappointed in the visuals here. Most of the images are straightforward screenshots or collages of faces. Aside from breaking up the text, I don’t think that the pictures added anything. It was a pretty weak showing, when I feel like an image of a darker-skinned woman comparing her skin tone to that of all the makeup for white women described in the article could have been really powerful. It could have shown the struggle women of color go through just in order to wear makeup. Furthermore, everybody in this story is wearing makeup, when the article itself even describes how conventional beauty is 1. fabricated and 2. stupid, which I think is a missed opportunity.

*Update* I wanted to find a meme for Dr. Durington, but if you google “conventionally beautiful meme,” most of what you get is ‘nice guy’ types being the worst.

[abigailremington-blog]

Comaroffs Ch 5 Questions

Abby Quinn

Chapter 5

Summary:

This chapter consolidates the compromises made by civil society of Botswana as they were faced with the transition from a diverse, rich indigenous political theory to the multi-party, election driven “democracy” of Western neoliberalism. Using the example of a changing democracy in Botswana the Comaroffs argue that African politics has something to contribute to global political theory. The dynamic tswana political theory and practice must be given agency as this provides a comparison to western political theory and allows us to critique western politics. Without looking at African political theory as something valid to be critiqued against western theory, western politics “has had nothing useful to say to political anthropology.” The Comaroffs argue that “a political philosophy found in another social world may be the basis of a critical anthropology of our own.”  Through analyzing the shifts in Botswana politics, the Comaroffs pointed out that the western notion that democracy is solely about choice diminishes the tswana political theory that democracy should be a part of everyday life, and not just amplified during election seasons.  The Comaroffs use this importance of Substantive democracy to explain why Botswana political theory supports a one-party system.  

(I know a lot of these things are straight from the book. They will be properly cited in any assignment I turn in.)

2) How are consumer capitalism and notions of democracy linked in emerging nation-states? (Full answer by Elana)

-western political theory rests on the basis that emerging states need free market to industrialize and compete -the ballot box connects to business -western countries push a multi-party system -African political theory leans more towards a one-party system -western democracy relies on utility and freedom; self-expression with choice -western politics ‘advertises’ democracy as freedom of choice; puts importance on elections

3) Noting the ‘unenviable dilemma’ of Africans in democracy, how are these tensions exemplified in Botswanan political development? (Full answer by Elana)

The unenviable dilemma describes the tension African politics faces as they must opt for either an un-African political order (individualized rights bearing citizens whose sole purpose is to vote) or an ‘indigenous’ politic characterized by patriarchy, tradition, anti-modern, ethically based, authoritarianism.  These tensions are amplified in Botswana because the public naturally rejects the democratic multi-party system based on their deeply ingrained indigenous political theory.   A multi-party system reduces government accountability and reduces it to a few moment of choice.  The Botswana Democratic Party “barely exists between elections.” This multi-party democracy is viewed as antithetical to participatory democracy.  (This question continues more into question 4)

4) What are the four developments that occur after the first election of the BDP in Botswana that are emblematic of the democratic process moving forward?

Before the forming of the BDP in 1962 and the first elections in 1965, Botswana politics revolved around the public sphere and the space provided for debate and consistent forums critiquing the chiefs.  The chiefs’ purpose was to rule with the people, and take all criticisms into concern.  The BDP was formed by bourgeois nationalists, meaning the elite and the rich who had connections to the countryside.  The BDP regulated chiefship and tribalism and was designed after the European style secular liberal nation-state.  The first development after the elections was a noticeable drop in voter turnout from 74% to 31%.  This shows the disconnect between indigenous politics with this new democratic election method.  Botswana citizens saw no need to vote to reelect and this was actually considered a form of approval for the president.   The second development recognized by the Comaroffs was that not many people knew who their representative was.  A leader is responsible for the personnel of his or her regime, so based on previous indigenous politics, citizens do not feel it is necessary to seek out education around elections.  The third development was the massive turnout of active citizen participants at the BDP election meetings.  This is another example of how indigenous politics is merging with this idea of a neoliberal democracy.  The term “kgotla” represents the space between civil society and the state where citizens have the freedom to debate. Civil society did not respond to the idea of voting or freedom of choice as the core of neoliberal democracy. This idea of procedural democracy was not as important in Botswana as substantive democracy, which represents the space for criticism.  This idea of the one-party system is furthered by the development that oppositions to the more famous candidate are not really represented as the opposition.  They are seen more as active participants in the forum and critics of the president, which mimic a one party system even though they are technically operating under a multi-party system.     

dr-durington

[arratovmyan]

Yes hello go to this thing

Instead of using this for student crowd sourcing like a responsible person, here is a straight up shameless self promotion post about the Christmas Special that we have going on right now. 

I'm going to be a ninja this Saturday at 2 pm and 8 pm.

So at some point this will be me:

(Probably)

and at another point:

(Probably)

You should come (in your pajamas). It's for charity. Do the thing.

We sing Highway To The Manger Zone, what could go wrong?

The 2 pm show is our Time Travel Matinee. Because bow-ties are coolest at 2 pm.

The 8 pm show is not currently themed, but it'll be the normal Saturday night crazy-ness.

Coupon Code: ALEXIGREEN10

[anthrosam2017-blog]

*Updated* Jean Rouch and Steven Feld -- shared anthropology

1) What is shared anthropology?

Shared anthropology, or relieving the anthropologist’s own self of agency by relinquishing it to his or her subjects, is pretty much what we’ve been talking about all semester. It’s “pushing it along.” It’s creating a network of co-authors ands transforming ‘the subject’ into ‘the participant,’ -- into ‘the colleague,’ ‘the author,’ ‘the producer’ and ‘the partner’ -- in order to create the most genuine, raw ethnography possible.

Rouch has several things to say on the subject:

“Film is the only means I have to show someone else how I see him. For me, after the pleasure of the ‘cine-trance’ in shooting and editing, my first public is the other, those whom I’ve filmed” (Rouch, p.43).

And this sentence, I think, is the most important:

“Finally the observer has left the ivory tower; his camera, tape recorder, and projector have driven him, by a strange road of initiation, to the heart of knowledge itself. And for the first time, the work is not judged by a thesis committee but by the very people the anthropologist went out to observe” (Rouch, p. 43).

In this way, Rouch says that anthropologists’ only critics should be the people whose lives and nuances and mannerisms they’ve attempted to capture. Committees don’t know anything. The general population doesn’t know anything -- at least in terms of one’s chosen subject of study. The only people who know anything at all (i.e. anything consequential or at all meaningful) are the people who live in it and experience it everyday. Who cares what the rest of us think? Who cares how we evaluate the technical points of ethnographic film is the images themselves are invariably subjective without that subjectivity being acknowledged? The future of shared anthropology is cooperation between ‘subject’ and ‘observer,’ who are, at their roots, both only human.

While I’m on the subject, I’m going to step out of order and discuss ‘cinema-verite’ -- “the art of life itself” -- according to Rouch. 

“...a camera that can so totally ‘participate’ that it will automatically pass into the hands of those who, until now, have always been in front of the lens. At that point, anthropologists will no longer control the monopoly on observation and they themselves will be recorded. And it is in that way that ethnographic film will help us to ‘share’ anthropology” (Rouch, p. 44)

Per Feld, ‘cinema-verite’ has been “discussed variously as a set of technology, an ultimate film consciousness, a movement, and a set of attitudes and procures,” despite the fact the Rouch does not identify his work in this way. Insead, Feld argues that Rouch is mostly just using this term because it is  fancy-sounding (Feld, p.236). 

According to Feld, this term “immediately raises the spectre of ‘truth’” (Feld, p.237).

I wrote everything prior to this line BEFORE Dr. Durington’s class on Tuesday confused me about everything. Now though, I think I can understand cinema-verite as the “truth” the camera produces, or maybe the “life” it produces. The presence of a camera captures the truth of how people respond to being filmed/photographed/recorded, which is an entirely new way to study human behavior. The camera creates this truth, almost as if its very presence is initiating a conflict for subjects to deal with. And it almost seems like Rouch is advocating an ethnography wherein the only viable bias comes from the camera itself -- or at least ideally. Cinema-verite acknowledges the truth of filmmaking and some of the flaws in the process therein (shooting, editing, distributing, staging, etc.)

Questions for Chronicle of a Summer:

1) What evidence of reflexivity do you see in the film?

Rouch is in the film. He states his filming methods and how he believes a given subject should or would respond. By acknowledging this, viewers can recognize that Rouch has his own biases/flaws in his process.

2) What evidence of Rouch's methods do you see in the film including cinema-verite?

- sets up situations that are unlikely to occur in France at that time (organizes people of mixed races into intense conversations)

- shows his process, which is a reflexive approach

-discusses the effect of cameras and how the knowledge of being filmed can change behaviors, reactions, situations, etc.

[abigailremington-blog]

Blog Assignment 3

Abby Quinn

Dr. Durington

Anth 352

28 October 2014

  Djelic, Marie-Laure, and Sigrid Quack

2010 Transnational Communities and Governance. In Transnational Communities: Shaping Global Economic Governance. Marie-Laure Djelic and Sigrid Quack, eds. Pp. 3-36. Cambridge University Press.  

  This chapter focuses on the role community plays in modern society.  Authors Marie-Laure Djelic and Sigrid Quack (2010) suggest that the term “community” has a different meaning when taken out of context from our “…contemporary, differentiated, and individualist…” society (Djelic and Quack 2010:3). Standing on its own, the term “community” suggests the close-knit nature of a group of people, bound by emotional ties, shared culture, and geographical closeness.   In a rapidly individualizing society, however; “community” is used to describe the resilience of groups who have remained close-knit despite the differentiated nature of modern society.  Authors Djelic and Quack (2010) use sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies’s concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft to stress the profound dichotomy of the idea of community. Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft represent the dichotomy between community and society; as society (Gesellschaft) progresses, the sense of community (Gemeinschaft) declines.   Community and society associate when members of an individualistic society come together, “…more or less permanently, mostly to serve their own interests” (Djelic and Quack 2010:3).   This chapter explores the notion of community, its different definitions, and the importance it holds in our modern social media driven society. 

Moving past the idea of dichotomies, authors Djelic and Quack (2010) presented Emile Durkheim’s understanding of community in individualistic societies.  Durkheim stressed that the original link that bound a peoples together to form a community would not disappear, even in the most differentiated modern society.  Considering the multitude of definitions for community, authors Djelic and Quack (2010) focus on the conclusion that “…communities are no longer static…” (Djelic and Quack 2010:6).   Most important to comparing this chapter to Victoria Bernal’s (2014) study of Eritrea in Nation as Network is the inclusion of Morris Janowitz’s theory of community.  Janowitz believes that a group of people can be a community even without the physical presence of the people in one geographic location.  According to Janowitz, a community does not require the intense involvement of its people.  Like the Eritrea, “…a community could even survive with only a small minority of ‘active custodians.’ The rest of the membership could be connected in a more passive manner” (Djelic and Quack 2010:8).   This passive manner could include remittance from people outside of the designated geographical location of the community.  Remittance the major way in which Eritreans hold membership in their community (Bernal 2014). 

Authors Djelic and Quack (2010) then describe the idea of an “imagined community” which is the section of their work I will focus on for my analysis of Nation as Network. Community can be symbolically constructed like that of Eritrea.  Georg Simmel’s idea that “…differentiation and individualization…” create “…both a weakening of local links and a greater likelihood of community bonds at a distance…” leads to the symbolic or “imagined” construction of community (Djelic and Quack 2010:8-9). Geographical distance has opened communities up to the new age of social media and digital technologies.  This chapter supplements the importance of the internet to Eriteans and their sense of community.  Victoria Bernal’s (2014) study of Eritrea shows how digital technologies are keeping a community close-knit despite the ideas presented by authors Djelic and Quack that individualistic societies hinder community. I will use this chapter to argue how social media and networked identity enhances community, even if it is by creating “imagined communities.”    

[abigailremington-blog]

Blog Assignment #2

Abby Quinn

Dr. Durington

Anth 352

7 October 2014

Bruckman, Amy, and Yardi, Sarita

2011 Social and Technical Challenges in Parenting Teens’ Social Media Use. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Syestems:3237-3246. http://gacomputes.cc.gatech.edu/Members/yardi/Yardi_ParentsTechnology11.pdf

   This article examines the struggles parents face while monitoring their teens’ technology use.  Authors Sarita Yardi and Sarah Bruckman stress that parents’ “understanding [of] how technology and social media use impacts teens’ learning, growth, and social development is critical for their health and well being and for the welfare of the family” (Bruckman and Yardi 2011:1).  Yardi and Bruckman noted that parents were concerned with the safety of their children on social media sites.  Finding the balance between parental authority and teen autonomy is a modern difficulty in the household with the rising popularity and importance of social media.  Parents’ anxieties increased as teens became emancipated with the invention of the mobile phone. Yardi and Bruckman observed that the control to turn a “family window” on or off is an important part of home media space and more parents are setting technological limitations for their teenagers (Bruckman and Yardi 2011:2).  Yardi and Bruckman set out to determine how parents policed their teenagers’ internet use and which method is the most successful in raising a healthy happy teen. 

  Authors Yardi and Bruckman interviewed 2 fathers and 14 mothers with a combined total of 41 children from a predominantly white private school.  Parents were questioned about what their teenagers like to do online, how their internet use is monitored, and what rules or limitations are put in place.  The authors approached these interviews with an activity theory framework to acknowledge “…the dynamic and potentially disruptive impact that technology can add to the parenting process” (Bruckman and Yardi 2011:3). Many of the parents enforce a technology cut-off rule in their home to encourage healthy sleeping habits.  Some parents even have their teenagers relinquish their gadgets after a certain time of night.  Another thing parents have anxiety about is frequency of cell phone use.   Location is also a key factor in monitoring technology use. All 16 parents mentioned location and many have rules about where cell phone use is appropriate.  Some parents only allow their teens to use a cell phone in public spaces for emergencies, while others have no rules concerning location. 

  A division of labor is critical when dealing with teens and technology.  Parents have anxiety over the amount of control they possess especially when young people typically have more technological knowledge.  Some parents required their teenagers to friend them on Facebook, while others asked for passwords.  Every parent wanted their teenager to be happy and healthy online and every parent admitted that they struggle to find the balance between teen autonomy and parental authority. 

  This article delves into the specific concerns parents have with their teens and social media as well as the specific measures they take to monitor online activity.  Three of the four affordances Dana Boyd discusses in It’s Complicated – visibility, spreadability, and searchability – contribute to parents’ anxieties examined in this article.  Teenagers need a certain level of privacy to lead healthy lives and the panic that social media creates in parents is impacting that basic right. I will use this article to discuss how parental surveillance and panic are threatening teen privacy.  Dana Boyd recognizes that teenagers have always induced panic within the family and this article contributes to the idea that new technologies in social media have heightened parental anxieties.     

[arratovmyan]

Blog one

Alexi Tarlton

Anth 352

BBC's Sherlock 

Abu-Lughod, L. (1997). The Interpretation of Culture(s) after Television. Representations, 59(summer), 109-134. from http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2928817.

        The form of media that I wanted to focus on is television, specifically BBC's Sherlock and in extension the fandoms that have formed because of this show. While I am a fan of the show, I believe I can still study a portion of this from an outsiders point of view due to the show's popularity in different areas around the world. It helps that I am a fan of the show in that I can understand a lot of the inside jokes and running trends that persist within the fandoms, due to the fact that I am embedded in many of the popular threads of conversations online (via Tumblr, Twitter, what have you). I would study these groups and this show using Abu-Lughod's The Interpretation of Culture(s) after Television, mostly because she performed a similar study within in her article with different subjects. Abu-Lughod expressed how important television is to anthropology, the ways that culture is depicted through television, and how different cultures reacted and related to what is displayed through media. She also makes it clear that, in order to write thick ethnographies about television, the cultural backgrounds and the individual's personal experiences have to be taken into account for it changes how the media is interpreted. 

         What I find interesting about the show and the surrounding fandoms is that despite the bare minimum of content given to us (the fans) in relation to hundreds of other shows, there is a surprising amount of dedication to the show and its furthered efforts. While most fans typically wait a few months, or perhaps a year, for a new season or episode, Sherlock fans are waiting years for a new episode. Season one aired in 2010, and yet season two took it's dear old time and came out in 2012. Another interesting factor in the fans dedication is that their versions of seasons only consist of three episodes, albeit they are quite long episodes. Undeterred by this, or perhaps because of this, fans maintain Sherlock to be their favorite.

         To study this show, and its fans, I would want to look at the filming of the show and what the directors/writers intended to present to the audiences with their content as well as how the audiences received this media and their reactions to it. The audiences would respond differently depending on their culture, and their individual backgrounds. It would be interesting to see how the fans got into the show and why they continue to watch it (other than unresolved plot lines). I would also want to study what had been created for the show, but ended up being cut in final production. Scenes that were originally in the script and scrapped at the last minute are just as important to the overall media as the presented media is. I would want to see how fans, cross culturally, have dealt with scenes, that they are aware of, being cut from final production. I believe that I would find many different outlets of media produced from fans (in the form of art, fanfiction, music, ect) that would be an attempt to "fill the void" while waiting for new episodes, as well as fill ins for missing plot lines, cut scenes, and other parts of the story expanded on where fans felt something was lacking. I believe that a lot of these would happen cross culturally, but to be sure I would have to focus more upon where this show has entered the lives of fans in several different cultures and compare. 

[abigailremington-blog]

Blog Assignment #1 Kanye is Smarter Than All of Us

Abby Quinn

Anth 352

Dickey, Sara. 1997 Anthropology and its Contributions to Studies of Mass Media. International Social Science Journal 153:413-427. Malden: Blackwell Publishers

Kanye West has mastered the art of media.  He understands that everything he produces has a massive impact and he uses that to his advantage.  Despite his open disgust for the corruption within media production, Kanye releases his own art pieces to be dissected by the consumer.  Kanye uses his songs, music videos, fashion lines, galleries, concerts, and even his personal life to convey a message and an identity.  I am going to use some of Sarah Dickey’s ideas from “Anthropology and its Contributions to Studies of Mass Media” to discuss the impact and intentions behind Kanye’s  music  video “Bound 2.” 

Dickey defines mass media as a communication that has the ability to be widely broadcasted. An important factor in Dickey’s view of mass media is its homogeneity.  The homogenous material is what allows different cultures to create different interpretations. Dickey’s article focuses on what I believe Kanye already knows:  the audience interpretation has just as much creative power over the content as the producer himself.  The audience interpretation establishes the degree of impact and creates a dialogue as discussed in Dickey’s article.  Different cultures interpret media differently and the response to the released content is the drama Kanye loves. 

"Bound 2" is strange, cheesy, perfect, seemingly low budget, and possibly one of the things Kim Kardashian regrets.  When I first saw the music video I was incredibly confused.  In interviews and even during his concerts, Kanye takes 6 minute digressions to rant about art and media.  He takes his craft and his status very seriously.  He knows that everything he releases has a massive effect on his audience and he puts every effort and care into his work. That’s why I was confused.   I couldn’t decide if he made the music video bad to prove a point or if it was just his new aesthetic.  Before I had the chance to wrap my head around Kanye’s complicated sense of humor, “Bound 3” came out.   “Bound 3” was a shot-for-shot remake performed by Seth Rogan and James Franco.   Rogan and Franco earned their success and celebrity through acting, focusing most of their talent in comedic films. It is important to note that Rogan and Franco are best friends and pop culture icons.  Just like me, neither Rogan nor Franco could determine the intentions behind “Bound 2” – until Kanye reached out. After the parody’s release, Kanye contacted Rogan and Franco to ask if they would perform the song at his wedding. Kanye quickly retracted his question after hearing it out loud and explained that “Bound 2” was “bad for the purpose of being bad.”  Kanye West knew what he was doing when he released a “bad” music video.  The consumers’ response created more media and an artistic dialogue.  If you didn’t watch “Bound 2” when it was released, it is highly likely that you watched it after seeing (or even just hearing about) the parody.  Kanye used the media to get people to talk about Kanye, and then the people talking about Kanye used the media to respond to Kanye about Kanye, causing even more people to talk about Kanye.  Sara Dickey’s analysis of media recognizes that the media is a force in constructing contemporary imaginations, identities, and power relations.   Kanye uses the media to solidify his identity as an artist and as an instigator.   Kanye’s understanding and control over the media gives him the power he wants to create artistic dialogue.  Even the misinterpretation of his music video created the response he needed.

To produce a comprehensive anthropological analysis of the impact Kanye West has on popular culture through the media, I need to observe his concerts.  I would need to see his fans in an environment dedicated solely to his appreciation.  By attending a few of his shows, I could write an ethnographic report based on the culture Kanye West himself has created through the media.  The media gives Kanye the platform he needs to assert his power over popular culture.   Kanye knows exactly what he’s doing.

[arratovmyan]

Anthropology and Mass Media by Debra Spitulnik

Annotated Bibliography. 

Alexi Tarlton Dr. Durington Anth 352

Spitulnik, Debra 1993, “Anthropology and Mass Media.” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 22, pp. 293-305. Published by: Annual Reviews. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2155850

       Debra Spitulnik gives a critique of recent, as of 1993, theoretical developments concerning the nature of media power, the mass communication process, media language, and the ethnography of media audiences. She considers the emerging topics that anthropologists were beginning to become concerned with in the way of media constructions of difference, indigenous media, and mass mediation of national identity. Spitulnik states that mass media needs to be approached anthropologically: as institutions, workplaces, communicative practices, cultural practices, social activities, aesthetic forms, and historical developments. Mass media are vehicles of culture that provide audiences with ways of seeing and interpreting the world. Media ultimately shapes the very existence and participation within a given society.

      Spitulnik's article runs through the theories of mass media and how they have been reformed. The relations between mass media, society, and culture have been the subject of study for several decades (as of 1993) within sociology, communication studies, British cultural studies, literary criticism, and political science. Most studies of the ideological functions of mass media and the mass mediation of culture focus mainly on media texts. This is the assumption that media's meaning are found within the media's messages. She goes on to say that a number of writers have argued that this analysis is incomplete without a look at the culture of media production, the political economy and social history of media institutions, and the various practices of media consumption that exist in any given society.

     Spitulnik analyzes the issues of the current studies of the time, such as in British cultural studies where most the “anthropological approach” has been framed in. One of the final points that she makes about theories of mass media is that audiences have been commodified through rating wars. The focus on ethnography and interpretive practices is applied mainly to media audiences of Western contexts. Ethnographic study of mass media institutions and practitioners at the time was recent, and the work on the recruitment of spectators and imagining audiences in media practice suggested new ways to understand how media consumption is embedded in the culture of media production. She then writes on the exotic stereotype that National Geographic and a series called Disappearing World enforces through their publications. Their tendencies to portray non-Western peoples as representatives of earlier stages of human development, and their attentiveness to selected “cultural traits” such as curiosities in gender relations. Spitulnik writes about the emergence of indigenous media and the difficulty in finding what is actually indigenous about it.

     This critique gives insight into the growing body of research at the time on indigenous and alternative media, exploring the social cultural dynamics of national media. She states that anthropologists have implicitly theorized media processes, products, and uses as complex parts of social reality. They also expect to locate media power and value in a diffuse, rather than direct and causal, sense. Media causes fundamental and irreversible social and cultural change. The “mass” of media is becoming more individual and interpersonal. I can agree with much of what Spitulnik theorized in 1993. A lot of what she spoke about ended up becoming reality in our current culture. As media becomes a larger part of global culture, we are more affected by media imperialism and technological determinism. She speculated how media will affect our ways of relating to one another, and our ways of understanding ourselves. As media has become a major part of our culture, it has affected how we relate to one another, how we present ourselves, and how we understand others through media.

[abigailremington-blog]

Annotated Bibliography - Media Anthropology: An Overview (Mihai Coman)

Abby Quinn

Dr. Durington

ANTH 352

10 September 2014

Coman, Mihai

2005 Media Anthropology: An Overview. University of Bucharest, Romania.

 Mihai Coman’s analysis focuses on the origin of media anthropology as an area of study and the various paradoxes, contradictions, and debates on methodology within the discipline. In the context of the overview, media is defined as communication mediated by technologies and institutions, while media anthropology is defined as an awareness of the interaction between the various academic and applied aspects of anthropology and the multitude of media. 

This article traces the beginnings of media anthropology to the simple need for anthropologists to draw new attention to their field of study. Coman separates media scholars and anthropologists by presenting two differing intents.  Anthropologists use media anthropology to study how societies use the media available to share their culture and to solidify a universal identity.  Coman stresses throughout her overview that classical anthropologists tend to focus on the idea that indigenous cultures are exotic, even though exoticism is a dated concept.  The cultural studies perspective on media, however, focuses on the the producer and the consumer of media in modern society.  Cultural studies is not driven by the desire to expose and understand the “exotic” and instead focuses on any cultures’ involvement in media despite it seeming mundane.  Despite the different intentions and disagreements surrounding the importance of ethnographies, Coman includes that both approaches recognize the relationship between media contents and symbolic productions of reality. 

Coman’s own approach towards media anthropology uses this comparison between the media and symbolic productions of reality to question if mass media is a form of culture that creates and imposes social constructions of reality. Coman’s anthropological approach dictates that mass media does not only present images and ideas that are agreeable within a culture, but it creates new social norms and social constructs.  The images the media portrays are accepted because they are symbolic constructs, like those of myths and rituals.  Coman believes the anthropological approach must focus on the ritualization and mythologization of reality by the media as opposed to the study of the forms of coverage of myth and ritual. 

This overview presents the idea that media has become so massive and all-consuming that exoticism should no longer be the basis of anthropological approaches.  I believe, and agree with Coman, that the media has exposed so much of every culture that Otherness is no longer a reason to scrutinize a society.  Media anthropology will continue to shift focus from the exotic to the routine.   The mundane aspects of daily life offer more information about the social, political, and economic constructs of a culture than one single identity accepted by the general population.  Media anthropology should explore aspects of both producer and consumer.  Media anthropology should not be used to enforce an exotic stereotype.

The rituals shown and created by the media can be presented in ethnographies based on participant observation.  For example, Coman briefly describes a study that focused on the daily routines created by television show schedules.  Media is in every aspect of every culture, and its effect on people should be addressed using an anthropological approach.  Detailed ethnographies allow even the most mundane aspects of culture expose significant information about modern society.