Anthropology of Media

Indonesia's private television industry blossomed into a powerful source of national, mass culture production in the 1990's and early 2000's. This essay examines the ways in which producers' subject position, in relation to global media form and narrative, is transformed, through production processes and conventions, into a distinctive 'way of looking'. By focusing on the example of a travel program, issues related to the representation of elements classified as 'traditional' or 'ethnic' is explored. Grounded in long-term ethnographic fieldwork among the country's TV producers, programmers and station executives, the essay puts forward the notion that the use of global forms and narratives leads to the encoding of a particular 'gaze' in popular programming, which positions viewers as foreign to symbols of traditional culture.

SUMMARY
The monograph which is focused on new objects for anthropological research was written by the collective of authors. The authors reveal different aspects of contemporary Africa’s cultures.
Three sections form the book. The first section is on the contemporary African social groups and identities connected with them. The first chapter by Professor Dmitri M. Bondarenko is
based on field evidence collected in summer 2017, deals with a very recent phenomenon – the Orthodox Old Believers in the Republic of Uganda in East Africa. This faith originated in Russia, but in Uganda all its adherents belong to the native ethnic groups and, except children, consciously converted to Old Believers from other religions in adulthood. The author describes the short by now history and current state of the Old-Believer communities in Uganda and then concentrates on their members’ motivation for converting to Old Believers vs. knowledge of this religion. Dr. Bondarenko shows that their knowledge of the Old-Believer doctrine is poor and they usually cannot tell how it differs from that of other Christian denominations. What brings them to Old Believers is the search of the true faith associated with the original and hence the only correct way of performing Christian rites. Basing on the study of Old Believers in Uganda, the author discusses in the closing section how globalist and anti-globalist trends manifest themselves in the spiritual (religious) context in contemporary Africa.
The second chapter by Dr. Rosa N. Ismagilova for the first times analyses the existence up to now  such phenomenon as castes in the Somali society in the countries of the Horn of Africa  and  their discrimination. It is based not only on the scholarly sources but also includes the results of the field research in Ethiopia and e-mail interviews with representatives of the studied minorities. Outcastes  aggravate the ethno-political situation. The future of the  Horn of Africa and its political stability  heavily depends on the  incorporation of all strata of the society including the castes and other discriminated  minorities in the  economic and social life.
The third chapter by Alexander V. Pakin is devoted to the problems of the actualization of the Yoruba historical tradition in the modern times. It represents an brief analysis of the tradition itself and focuses on its role in the politics and cultural processes. This research shows that Yoruba historical tradition play an important role in the modern political process. Under situation of modern post world war globalization it also plays an important role in the processes of the reafricanization or African revivalism as its exists in the USA today.
The fourth chapter by Oleg I. Kavykin (Ph.D) is on African religions in Americas. The traditional African religions have demonstrated their adaptability and ability to form different sorts of a syncretism with religions of other cultures. The presence of an oppositional hidden discourse strengthened the network community of adherents and strengthened the notion of a community of "we" opposing the commonality of "they" (i.e. slaveholders, whites, the republican and communist government). In subsequent stages, syncretic religions also symbolized belonging to the nation (Cubans, Haitians, citizens of  Trinidad and Tobago, etc.). The flexibility of traditional beliefs is manifested in their relationship with government policies. It also manifests itself in the organization of the lives of communities of Santerian adepts in the United States i.e. along with ethnocentric tendencies, there is a desire for openness of communities (accessibility for whites, adaptation of rituals, legalization).
The second section is focused on phenomena of contemporaneous educational processes in Africa. The first chapter by Dr. Irina G. Tatarovskaya is devoted to the analysis and research of one of the stages of the human life cycle: the childhood of Wolof people – West African ethnic group. Childhood is one of the poorly studied periods of human life. The author describes the main stages of the child's growing. Each stage has own system of upbringing and education. One of the most spread forms of primary education of Wolof’s children is a "question-answer" form. Traditional education of Wolof’s children has its own methods of transferring knowledge, experience, spiritual and cultural values, helps child adapt to the environment and teach him to live in the world of people and in the world of the supernatural. The system of upbringing and primary education in Wolof’s society has a vivid collective character, in which every single child is not only a child of their parents, but a child of the whole group or community.
The second chapter by Valentina V. Gribanova (Ph.D) is devoted to the actual problem of student and youth protest actions that took place in South Africa in 2015-2016. The author shows its influence on the political life of the country. The socio-economic and ideological reasons for the initiation of the student riots are analyzed. The connection of protests with the general crisis of higher education in South Africa was shown. The study is based on an analysis of the South African press in recent years. The author analyzes main stages, such as events and results of the protests that took place in the autumn of 2015 and the aggravation of the situation in the Higher education in connection with the student riots in the autumn of 2016. These events became the stages of the movement for the abolition of universities fees, which was called "Fees must fall". The chapter noted that youth and student protests are used by the left and radical elements of the South African political spectrum in the struggle for influence in the country.
The third section is on interaction between African cultures, mass-culture and mass-media. The first chapter by Veronica V. Usacheva (Ph.D.) proposes a wide panoramic view on mass media development in Africa after independence, or mass media in post-colonial period. The author notes that after long decades of neglect, the anthropological study of media is now booming. Veronica Usacheva argues that media anthropology nowadays has four main contributions to make to the interdisciplinary study of media and communication - ethnographic, geographical, theoretical and the media historical research. This chapter focuses on geographical and historical dimensions in media Anthropology of Africa. In this chapter author gives an overview of how the new media has developed in Africa and the role that new media technologies might play in facilitating the development of media in African countries. The chapter concludes that new technologies form and re-form social reality of Africans societies, and vice versa African societies shape the communication technologies.
The second chapter by Anastasia A. Banshchikova (Ph.D.) deals with city space, visual outdoor information, commercial advertisement, social advertisement in African countries, and the ways the latter reflects social disorders and conflicts. The main source is a compilation of photos of social advertisement on billboards, taken by the author and her colleagues during anthropological expeditions to Africa. Much attention is given to such problems as violence within family and against women, corruption, AIDS and Ebola pandemics, teenage pregnancy, "sugar daddies", etc. It is clear, that one and the same problem in different cultures is perceived differently and requires different attitudes toward people’s psychology; though social advertisement mirrors societal concern in African countries, quite often this reflection is based on Western point of view and from the perspective of Western moral and cultural values. In this regard the cases of fully local advertisement (sponsored neither by international humanitarian organizations nor by government) are of most interest: this is a private initiative of people wanting to draw attention of their fellow citizens on the most acute problems of social development and using means at their disposal such as billboards.
The third chapter by Denis A. Peskov reviews the ways in which world's leading search engine Google portrays Sub-Saharan African states with the use of its alternative logos – doodles. Occasions and heroes chosen for celebrations are discussed as well as company's agenda and promoted values in selecting them, both explicit and implicit. African situation is also put into perspective when compared with company's similar activity in some other parts of the world.
Коллективная монография посвящена выявлению и анализу новых объектов исследования в социальной (культурной) антропологии Африки, разработке новых подходов к антропологическому изучению африканского континента в связи с изменениями, происходящими в последние десятилетия. Объектом исследования становятся африканские диаспоры по всему миру, изменение принципов самоорганизации сообществ африканцев, новейшие явления, связанные с урбанизацией, информатизацией, трансформацией традиционных институтов и т.д. Обнаружение новых объектов исследования в значительной степени происходит в результате развития самой социальной (культурной) антропологии, а также общественных и естественных наук, ибо современные культурно-антропологические исследования носят междисциплинарный характер. Книга состоит из трех разделов. Первый посвящен современным социальным группам и связанным с ними идентичностям. Во втором разделе рассмотрены новые явления в процессах социализации − воспитания и образования − в современной Африке. В третьем анализируются место и роль средств массовой информации в современных африканских обществах. Коллективная монография может представлять интерес не только для ученых-африканистов и специалистов по взаимодействию со странами Африки, но и для всех, чье внимание привлекает развитие современных культур.

Ivan Bargna, a cura, 2018, Mediascapes. Pratiche dell’immagine e antropologia culturale, Meltemi, Milano

- Ivan Bargna, "Introduzione"
- Amalia Rossi, "Spettacolo politico, paesaggi immaginati ed eco-propaganda monarchica nel nord della Tailandia"
- Sara Beretta, "Dgeneration: video e soggetti nella Cina contemporanea"
- Fiammetta Martegani, "Did David Betray His Soldiers? L'immagine del soldato nel processo di (ri)costruzione dell'identità nazionale israeliana attraverso uno sguardo cinematografico"
- Giovanna Santanera, "Afro-modernità in polvere: esperienze video fra Lagos e Douala"
- Virginia Evi, "La Terra degli Uomini Rossi. Etnografia di un'esperienza cinematografica nel Mato Grosso du Sul"
- Sara Bramani, "La costruzione filmica come processo di significazione culturale"
- Ivan Bargna, "Spettacolo del dolore ed estetica della miseria. A proposito di 'Enjoy Poverty' di Renzo Martens"

Este artículo analiza el papel que juegan la internet y el celular (nuevas TIC) en el registro del prestigio social que hacen autoridades locales específicas en rituales y fiestas de la comunidad de Yanque en el valle del Colca (provincia de Caylloma, región Arequipa). La internet y el celular, muy lejos de desintegrar la sociedad estratificada y la tradicional cultura local yanqueñas, reafirman y refuerzan su vigencia, porque quienes usan las nuevas TIC para conseguir o mantener su prestigio social son solo aquellos que ya tienen acumuladas distintas formas de poder (dinero, tierras, objetos y conocimientos religiosos, títulos educativos), acentuando las diferencias sociales existente en el pueblo.

Based on fifteen months of fieldwork with television and new media producers at the transnational "European" public television channel, ARTE, this article describes the ways in which staff are in the midst of reimagining the channel's "audience." On the one hand, staff continue to understand television audiences as primarily national, and only nationally coherent; on the other hand, ARTE's audiences are understood to be fast-dispersing as a result of new broadcast technologies and streaming web content. To reach dispersing audiences, and to better articulate its programming across borders, ARTE has partly shifted its efforts toward regathering its public through international events, festivals, and other off-screen engagements where its viewers become differently coherent and knowable. The article argues that such a strategy re-emplaces "fans and followers" of ARTE in ways that might foster collective identifications in ways that may be literally re-placing those engendered by traditional public broadcasting.

A few generations ago, college students showed their romantic commitments by exchanging special objects: rings, pins, varsity letter jackets. Pins and rings were handy, telling everyone in local communities that you were spoken for, and when you broke up, the absence of a ring let everyone know you were available again. Is being Facebook official really more complicated, or are status updates just a new version of these old tokens?
Many people are now fascinated by how new media has affected the intricacies of relationships and their dissolution. People often talk about Facebook and Twitter as platforms that have led to a seismic shift in transparency and (over)sharing. What are the new rules for breaking up? These rules are argued over and mocked in venues from the New York Times to lamebook.com.

I was intrigued by the degree to which my students used new media to communicate important romantic information—such as "it's over." I decided to get to the bottom of the matter by interviewing seventy-two people about how they use Skype, texting, voice mail, instant messaging, Facebook, and cream stationery to end relationships. I open up the world of romance as it is conducted in a digital milieu, offering insights into the ways in which different media influence behavior, beliefs, and social mores.

There has been a media revolution in Saudi Arabia, one that is has been tightly linked to internet technologies. YouTube, in particular, has allowed amateur Saudi youth to independently utilise popular culture and humour as potent vehicles to engage with sensitive socio-political issues and develop a virtual public sphere, turning this online platform into the cinema that the Saudis had long been deprived of. Furthermore, these shows represented a radical shift in the history of participation of Saudis in media and entertainment production and the shaping of the local social consciousness. Still, Saudi Arabia, as a case study, forces us to avoid the narrow, deterministic, technological logic that privileges the liberating power of media. The independent characteristics of the platform allowed for self-expression, which, however, became regulated and institutionalised, transforming YouTube into an ad-friendly mediascape. Consequently, this amateur content was refashioned into professionally produced audiovisual media to accommodate the public taste and the dominant market logic, and the Saudi YouTube phenomenon that started with critical attitudes turned into an aspect of capitalist power, marginalising the independent voices.

The past five years have seen a global flourishing of political initiatives in which tech-minded actors of different kinds (geeks, hackers, bloggers, online journalists, citizen politicians, etc.) have played prominent roles. From whistleblowing to online protests, from occupied squares to anti-establishment parties, these ‘freedom technologists’ can no longer be dismissed, particularly after Edward Snowden’s revelations about the surveillance abuses of America’s NSA and allied agencies. Based on long-term anthropological fieldwork, Gabriella Coleman’s Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy, is a riveting account of one these new collective actors: Anonymous.

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

Izvleček: Socialistična podoba ženske v filmih Franceta Štiglica Pričujoče diplomsko delo je analiza dvanajstih filmov režiserja Franceta Štiglica, posnetih med leti 1948 in 1984, v kateri avtorica poskuša najti vzporednice med reprezentacijo žensk v omenjenih filmih in med socialističnim idealom ženske. Ta ideal je bil v času po drugi svetovni vojni pravo nasprotje skoraj celotne zgodovine ženskega položaja v družbi; v času lovcev in nabiralcev naj bi bila ženska zaradi enakovredne razdelitve dela med spoloma enakovredna moškemu, z ustalitvijo teh nomadov in razmahom poljedelstva, trgovine in kasneje obrti, manufakture in celo industrije pa se je položaj ženske zelo poslabšal. Moški, ki je prevzel vodilno vlogo v teh družbenih sistemih, je začel podcenjevati in zatirati žensko na vseh področjih. Nasprotno pa je socializem prinesel začetke ženske emancipacije. Socialistični družbeni red je tako spodbujal žensko k izobraževanju in zaposlitvi, obenem pa je od nje pričakoval, da bo tudi dobra mati in gospodinja, ki je politično dejavna. Vsa ta ideologija vsaj v nekaterih primerih odseva tudi v analiziranih filmih, v katerih prevladujejo liki partizanskih in ostalih mater; po drugi strani pa lahko v filmih najdemo tudi veliko romantičnih junakinj, ki pa so namesto socialističnemu duhu sledile komercialnim Hollywoodskim produkcijam.

Nel corso degli ultimi vent’anni, grazie all’introduzione di nuove tecnologie e alla trasformazione del contesto economico e politico locale, la Nigeria ha visto la propria industria cinematografica Nollywood divenire una delle più grandi del mondo. La sua emergenza ha trasformato il panorama della produzione cinematografica africana creando nuovi spazi di espressione, nuove forme di imprenditoria e nuovi modelli culturali, e dando vita, forse per la prima volta nella storia, ad un fenomeno culturale di massa su scala continentale. I saggi che compongono questa raccolta propongono una panoramica sul dibattito accademico che la nascita di Nollywood ha provocato, offrendo diversi spunti teorici ed etnografici per ragionare sulla produzione cinematografica in contesto postcoloniale.
Contributi di: Abdalla Uba Adamu, Anouk Batard, Jean-Paul Colleyn, Jonathan Haynes, Alessandro Jedlowski, MatthiasKrings, BirgitMeyer, Sara Pahor, KatrienPype, IkechukwuObiaya, Giovanna Santanera

Understanding the relationship between media and communication as increasingly conflictive under conditions of de-democratization in India, this essay proposes a focus on violence-induced conditionalities of political communication among the affected. I introduce the term 'media/violence' as I look at two spaces in North Indian cities that have been turned into 'Muslim ghettos' over the past two decades: Jamia Nagar in New Delhi and Juhapura in Ahmedabad (Gujarat). Based on intermittent fieldwork between 2015 and 2020 (partly online), I argue that differences both in the quality of the violence as well as in the interaction between mediated and physical violence executed on the two spaces conditioned long-term options of collective communication (and their absence). The analysis helps us understand how massive political and legal protests could eventually erupt in Jamia Nagar (Shaheen Bagh) in late 2019, while the very reason for protest appears to have eluded residents of Juhapura.

In this chapter, I analyze one particular aspect of Kinshasa’s mobile phone culture: the ways in which Kinshasa’s elders use (or not use) the mobile phone; how their usage is embedded in cultural and social dynamics that direct communication and the maintenance of intimate relationships; and also how these dynamics have been transformed as a result of the increased usage of cellular communication. I focus in particular on the insertion of cell phones in intergenerational relationships in contemporary Kinshasa. Crucial are the various practices of brokerage, and the kinds of intermediaries that emerge in the ways in which elder people communicate via the mobile phone. As such, I do not fetishize the handset but attempt to locate elders’ usage of it within existing larger societal dynamics. After all, ‘mobile phone culture’ does not exist isolated from other spheres of social interaction and meaning production; rather it crisscrosses, overlaps with and at times sets itself off against other forms and practices of communication, social practice and identity construction.

This chapter offers ethnographic material that supports the observations made by many that mobile phones are shared in sub-Saharan Africa and that SIM card registrations obscure actual usage of the handset (Aker and Mbiti 2010: 212-123; Pierskalla and Hollenbach 2013: 3; Wesolowski et al. 2012, Wasserman 2011). By focusing on brokers (e.g. people bringing mobile phones into the lifeworlds of the elderly; people using mobile phones on behalf of the old people; and so on), the in-betweens, in between the mobile phone and the ‘users’, and embedding the brokerage practices within cultural traditions, I will problematise the taken-for-granted concept of ‘media use’, and draw the attention to the actual usage and handling of the media tool.

Bringing together empirical studies of former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, this Special Issue explores the relationship between censorship and self-censorship. All the cases under consideration share a history of state-led censorship. Importantly, however, the authors argue that journalism in the former Eastern bloc has developed features similar to those observed in many countries which have never experienced state socialism. This introduction presents the theoretical framework and the historical backgound that provide the backdrop for this Special Issue’s contributions, all of which take a journalist-focused angle.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

This article seeks to build a digital ritual framework for the analysis of social gaming and social networking. The architectural design that intertwines Facebook and FarmVille is heightened by the formal and informal participation in ritual practices, which we theorize as digital rituals. Facebook and FarmVille provide a substantive case study that delves into the topical blurring of lines around the game space or magic circle. Through digital ethnographic methodologies the article identifies a number of digital ritual engagements that fit well with Grant McCracken's (1986) four different kinds of consumer rituals: exchange rituals, possession rituals, grooming rituals, and divestment rituals. Social gaming is contextualized as the extension of digital third places complicating distinctions between social network and social networking sites. Beyond simply phatic communication or decompression, FarmVille and Facebook through digital ritual participation are increasingly the manifestation of our networked interests, communities, and lives.

In this interview, The ASA Media Officer Andrea E. Pia talks with Dr Taras Fedirko about his recent ethnographic fieldwork on militarism and media oligopolies in Ukraine. Dr Fedirko discusses the political and social contexts of Ukraine after the Maidan revolution and clarifies the role that media corporations, Putin's propaganda, and para-military groups have played in the leadup to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.theasa.org/publications/asaonline/articles/asaonline_0111

Description

How have cinema and popular religion shaped each other? Is the display of devotion in a cinema hall the same as devotion in a temple? How do we understand cinema’s compelling power to mesmerize people?
Unlike Hindi cinema, mythological and devotional films remained popular genres in Telugu (and Tamil too) until quite recently. The political success of film star N.T. Rama Rao, well-known for his portrayal of gods and kings, posed afresh the problem of cinema’s power to enthral. To what extent viewers were persuaded of his divinity became a matter of debate. In later decades, the figure of another kind of viewer haunted the discourses around cinema, that of the female viewer who got possessed during screenings of goddess films.
Using questions around viewership as the focal point, this book studies the intersections between popular cinema, religion, and politics in South India. The first full-length study of Telugu mythological and devotional films, it combines an account of the history and politics of these genres with an anthropology of film-making and viewership practices. It argues that cinema and other audio-visual technologies lead to the re-orientation of sensibilities and the cultivation of new sensory modes.

The mediatization thesis maintains that media technologies, beginning with print, have profoundly changed human experience. One of its major claims is that media have allowed a new "disembedding," or "distanciation," from the here and now, in a process which now culminates as a so-called deep mediatization. Relying on cultural history and anthropology, this article questions this claim. It contends that mediatization theory is premised on a modern/naturalist, human-centered view of the world as a homogeneous physical nature, dominated by human beings who must resort to technologies to communicate at a distance. This outlook disregards ancient and/or peripheral non-Western ontologies, and cultural practices such as correspondence, theater, religion, and human language itself, which have long enabled rich forms of distanciation. Such neglected ontologies and practices now combine with modern technology, and could be fruitfully incorporated into mediatization research, both historical and contemporary.

Media Anthropology is an emerging and evolving discipline which engages with the social and cultural aspects of Media and its inter-face with people. As an inter-disciplinary field of study Media anthropology is enriched by the contributions, innovations and practice of all cultural and human studies. It is an attempt for Anthropological understanding with the help of visuals and is popularly known as Visual Anthropology. This article, attempts to locate Media Anthropology as a legitimate effort in academic enterprise to understand Media and Media Studies from an anthropological perspective. The article attempts for an in-depth analysis of the interactions taking place between various academic and applied aspects of anthropology and multitude of media and underscores references from India. The study deals with the new directions to reconceptualize mass media relations to culture and society and their particular role in providing common arenas for constructing social relations. The article explores diverse concepts of media content consumption and their moral evaluation.

The article looks at Media Anthropology as an emerging discipline which offers a holistic approach to redress the problem of the integration of anthropological knowledge into the cultural lives of the people. The relevance of media anthropological studies discussed in this article is to understand the intricate connection of media production and consumption with the wider processes of commoditization and transnational culture and to analyze how media professionals are situating themselves and their work in relation to more global media trends.

In the summer of 2013, two major televisual outlets released a groundbreaking campaign of information about a massive mafia-lead traffic of toxic and radioactive waste involving the peripheries of Napoli
and Caserta, southern Italy, which was historically covered up by the national secret services. The widespread mass-mediation of such a dramatic news significantly impacted the local cultural sphere. At the same time, it elicited eclectic (re)actions among the dwellers of these two areas, which the media dubbed as the “Land of Fires.” This article ethnographically analyzes the “Land of Fires” case study as a discursive milieu that mirrors the relationships between power, cultural production,
and political change in neoliberal Italy. In so doing, it aims to redefine the contemporary Italian mediascape, which most academic literature describes as a “cynical” machine of political consent merely engendering “televised” subjectivities amid its publics, as an highly controversial (but still sophisticate and vibrant) space of socio-cultural production.

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

India is an epitome of cultural diversity but with rapid globalization, the youth of the country is losing touch with the local/folk cultural practices and the knowledge embedded in them. In a few years, the generation of the grandmothers - the carriers of oral traditions - would pass away and this knowledge would be lost. UNESCO’s convention on the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) declared oral traditions to be rapidly fading away under the forces of globalization. There emerged a need for all its member states – India being an important one owing to its rich living heritage – to work towards ensuring the viability of the ICH. It was soon followed by a scheme by the Government of India (GOI) to preserve the folk and classical art forms through documentation and archival using audio, visual and textual media. While building inventories has continued to be the focus of Indian cultural institutions, a need for innovation has been felt in order to meet the gap between UNESCO’s directives and GOI’s actions.

In 2014, I started researching on innovative ways of safeguarding the ICH of India and began a pilot project to safeguard the ICH of India using visual anthropology and new media technologies. I audio-visually documented the folk songs sung by women during the Hindu wedding sacrament at Bhadwar village in the Northern Indian state of Bihar and produced an ethnographic film - Vivah Samskara: Bhojpuri Wedding Rites & Folk Songs, narrated from the point of view of the bride’s father. This dissertation gives an ethnographic account of my field work during the project and sheds light on reception of the film in controlled as well as natural settings. Audiences’ responses obtained from film screenings are compared with the responses received naturally through online viewers. This comparative analysis has revealed insights using which an ethnographic film can achieve its goal of making viewers aware of their ethnocentrism.

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

The enormous influence of the Egyptian film industry on popular culture and collective imagination across the Arab world is widely acknowledged, but little is known about its concrete workings behind the scenes. Making Film in Egypt provides a fascinating glimpse into the lived reality of commercial film production in today's Cairo, with an emphasis on labor hierarchies, production practices, and the recent transition to digital technologies. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation among production workers, on-set technicians, and artistic crew members, Chihab El Khachab sets out to answer a simple question: how do filmmakers deal with the unpredictable future of their films? The answer unfolds through a journey across the industry's political economy, its labor processes, its technological infrastructure, its logistical and artistic work, and its imagined audiences. The result is a complex and nuanced portrait of the Arab world's largest film industry, rich in ethnographic detail and theoretical innovations in media anthropology, media studies, and Middle East anthropology.

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

The current study sought to explore the relationship between intake of media violence and expression of aggression amongst a group of 32 fourth graders (20 boys and 12 girls) aged between 7- 9 at a local school in Islamabad. Data was collected using a number of qualitative tools, including in-depth interviews - both structured and semi-structured, participant observation, structured observation as well as the use of some field experiments to elicit and observe reactions. Interviews were done with the teachers, the students themselves as well as their parents and family members. Data obtained was fed into various sub-categories within the domains of physical and verbal aggression. The results pointed towards existence of a positive correlation between amount and quality of media violence witnessed and the levels of verbal and physical aggression observed in children.

This book maps a hundred years of documentary film practices in India. It demonstrates that in order to study the development of a film practice, it is necessary to go beyond the classic analysis of films and filmmakers and focus on the discourses created around and about the practice in question. The book navigates different historical moments of the growth of documentary filmmaking in India from the colonial period to the present day. In the process, it touches upon questions concerning practices and discourses about colonial films, postcolonial institutions, independent films, filmmakers and filmmaking, the influence of feminism and the articulation of concepts of performance and performativity in various films practices. It also reflects on the centrality of technological change in different historical moments and that of film festivals and film screenings across time and space.

Social media platforms have quickly transformed communication, relationships, identities, education and power relations. These platforms have also become a popular topic for discussion and research, yet most claims made about social media are very general. This course takes an anthropological approach to social media in order to speak about the ways social media use is embedded in and reflective of specific cultural contexts. The course concentrates on content of social media rather than platforms, and also explores social media as a research method for understanding how people's lives converge in both online and offline spaces. We will consider the incredible variation in social media that emerges on different continents, among people of different class and religious backgrounds, for people with different gender and sexual identities, and among people who are differently embedded in global systems. Course Objectives Students will be able to: 1. explain key terms that are central to an anthropological understanding of social media 2. relate social media to topics of cultural and social diversity 3. relate issues in the study of social media with power relations, ideology, and social institutions 4. think comparatively in terms of both universals of social media as well as local inflections 5. apply anthropological methods to their own project 6. apply key themes, theories, and approaches of anthropology to their own analysis

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

Se la musica non detta immediatamente gli atti che la devono segui-re, da quell'orientamento che essa dà alla catarsi dell'animo dipende anche quali forze arrecherà alla vita, che cosa libererà e che cosa respingerà nel profondo. L'arte, più che altro, è un'organizzazione del nostro comportamento in vista del futuro, [...] che ci costringe a protenderci al di sopra della nostra vita reale, verso quello che giace al di là. (L. S. Vygotskij, Psicologia dell'arte, 1925, p. 344) È assai ingenuo dare al termine "sociale" il senso di "collettivo", quello cioè della presenza di una moltitudine di persone. La so-cialità è anche là dove c'è un uomo solo, con le sue personali vi-cissitudini interiori. […] Le cose non vanno davvero secondo il modello immaginato dalla teoria del contagio, per cui il sentimen-to sorto in un individuo contagerebbe gli altri e diventerebbe sociale […] (L. S. Vygotskij, Psicologia dell'arte, 1925, p. 339) La sottomissione alla regola e la rinuncia ad agire secondo un impulso immediato è il cammino verso il massimo piacere. Un carattere essenziale del gioco è quindi la regola divenuta affet-to. «L'idea divenuta affetto, il concetto trasformatosi in passione» è il prototipo di questo ideale di Spinoza nel gioco, regno della spontaneità e della libertà […]

Culture is a learned system of knowledge, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms that is shared by
a group of people (Smith, 1966). In the broadest sense, culture includes how people think, what they do, and how they use things to sustain their lives. Cultural diversity results from the unique nature of each culture. The elements, values, and context of each culture distinguish it from all others (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2005).
        Hispanics in the United States includes any person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. Latinos are people of Latin-American descent (Webster’s 3rd Inter- national Dictionary, 2002). Widespread use of the term “Hispanic” began in the 1970s, when the Census asked individuals to self-identify
as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central/ South American or “other Hispanic.” Although the terms Hispanic and Latino are used inter- changeably, the connotations are different. The Latino National Survey (2006) found that 35% of respondents preferred the term “Hispanic,” whereas 13.4% preferred the term “Latino.” More than 32% of respondents reported either term was acceptable, and 18.1% indicated they did not care (Fraga et al., 2006).
Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationali- ty group, lineage, or country of birth of the per- son or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any
race (Black/African-American, White/Caucasian, Asian, or Native American) or of mixed race.
In the 2000 census, seven million respondents designated themselves as multicultural: 48%
of Hispanics identi ed as “White only,” 2% of Hispanics identi ed as “Black only,” 42% of His- panics identi ed as “Some other race,” and 17% of Hispanics also reported belonging to two or more races.
According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau pop- ulation estimate, about 46.9 million Hispanics live in the United States (representing 15% of the total U.S. population). Among Hispanic sub- groups, Mexicans ranks as the largest (66%) fol- lowed by Central and South Americans (13%), Puerto Ricans (9.4%), Cubans (3.9%), and peo- ple of other Hispanic origins (7.5%). Hispanics/ Latinos are a fast-growing, diverse population in the United States. With their growth surging nearly 58% from 1990 to 2000, Hispanics/Lati- nos have more than four times the growth rate of the U.S. population (U.S. Census, 2008a). Cultural Insights will help you communicate with Hispanics/Latinos more effectively.

How is the newness of new media constructed? Rejecting technological determinism, linguistic anthropologists understand that newness emerges when previous strategies for coordinating social interactions are challenged by a communicative channel. People experience a communicative channel as new when it enables people to circulate knowledge in new ways, to call forth new publics, to occupy new communicative roles, to engage in new forms of politics and control—in short, new social practices. Anthropologists studying media have been modifying the analytical tools that linguistic anthropologists have developed for language to uncover when and how media are understood to provide the possibilities for social change and when they are not. Taking coordination to be a vulnerable achievement, I address recent work that elaborates on the ways that linguistic anthropology segments communication to explore how a particular medium offers its own distinctive forms of authorship, circulation, storage, and audiences.

As a member of the social sciences, anthropology until recently (1980s) did not work systematically with mass communication. We did not know if anthropological research were following the same trend or not (comparing to communication research). We did not know if anthropology were answering questions posted by communication research. We did not know how many studies were conducted by anthropologists or where they were writing. We did not know if anthropology could make a contribution. The purpose of the present work is to answer all these questions in order to help in the institutionalization of an anthropology of mass communication. I think it is time to
coined the term mass media anthropology.

For Catalans, the most important aspect of their culture is the Catalan language, and those who use the language exclusively in the public sector do so with a specific ideology in mind: Catalan is the language of Catalonia, and it is a right and duty to know the language as a resident of the region. In 2010 the Spanish central government made alterations to the Catalan constitution, particularly relating to economic and linguistic rights, prompting over one million Catalans to take to the streets of Barcelona in protest. This historic manifestation took place the day before the FIFA World Cup final, and the media discourse surrounding these two seemingly unrelated events highlights the ongoing conflict between the Spanish government and Catalonia. While the Spanish press belittled the protest, grossly underestimating the turnout, Catalan newspaper headlines lauded the manifestation and ignored the pending World Cup match. After Spain’s victory in the final however, the Catalan-language press claimed ownership over the championship by highlighting the contributions of Futbol Club Barcelona to the team's success. The Catalan-language papers sought recognition for the region by invoking this long-standing symbol of Catalan nationalism while still giving ample front-page space to a continued discussion of the protest. Through an analysis of language ideology and front-page newspaper stories from the Spanish and Catalan press on the days before and after the World Cup final, this paper examines the politicization of the Spanish national team's victory. Furthermore, this paper argues that FC Barcelona is implicated in ongoing political debates and conflicts with the central government as Catalonia struggles to renegotiate its position in the country and gain greater autonomy.