Paper short abstract:

This paper draws from a five-year collaborative research project on global television, to consider the relationship between anthropological theory and television research. In comparison to the ever-growing ethnographic literature on new media and information communications technologies, anthropologists have had less to say about television in recent decades. Yet the work that does exist demonstrates the considerable contribution that anthropological theory can make to understanding television practices, no less so in an era that has seen many television systems transform from national broadcast models into multi-platform, transnational, hyper-commercial ones. Despite earlier predictions that television would decline in the new media age, recent work in television studies indicates quite the opposite. The increasingly variegated conditions in which the production, consumption and distribution of television can take place suggest that media anthropologists might focus more, rather than less, on the role of television in social change. In the interdisciplinary field of television studies, anthropology remains under-utilised by those who seek to theorise the contextual and located nature of television practices. Beyond merely offering the techniques of participant observation to be adapted by qualitative researchers, such possibilities are exemplified in this paper by considering how two arguments developed by anthropologists without focussing on media – the work of Teresa Caldeira on urban fear, and that of Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward on the ontology of denim – may enrich understandings of contemporary television consumption. The argument is supported by an ethnographic study of television consumption in southeastern Mexico, which forms part of a forthcoming book manuscript.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws from a five-year collaborative research project on global television, to consider the relationship between anthropological theory and television research. In comparison to the ever-growing ethnographic literature on new media and information communications technologies, anthropologists have had less to say about television in recent decades. Yet the work that does exist demonstrates the considerable contribution that anthropological theory can make to understanding television practices, no less so in an era that has seen many television systems transform from national broadcast models into multi-platform, transnational, hyper-commercial ones. Despite earlier predictions that television would decline in the new media age, recent work in television studies indicates quite the opposite. The increasingly variegated conditions in which the production, consumption and distribution of television can take place suggest that media anthropologists might focus more, rather than less, on the role of television in social change.

In the interdisciplinary field of television studies, anthropology remains under-utilised by those who seek to theorise the contextual and located nature of television practices. Beyond merely offering the techniques of participant observation to be adapted by qualitative researchers, such possibilities are exemplified in this paper by considering how two arguments developed by anthropologists without focussing on media - the work of Teresa Caldeira on urban fear, and that of Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward on the ontology of denim - may enrich understandings of contemporary television consumption. The argument is supported by an ethnographic study of television consumption in southeastern Mexico, which forms part of a forthcoming book manuscript.

Paper short abstract:

By infusing social movement theories with media materiality theories, new approaches to studying social movements and social media begin to emerge. Examples of insights gained from this approach include the idea that participation in protests becomes independent from geography. Also we begin to see that our individual worldviews and shared communication structures are shaped by the nature of the technologies we use to communicate to bring protests into existence.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers the role that media have played in shaping the structure and outcomes of political revolutions and revolutionary events. Inspired by the debate about the role of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook in recent protests and revolutions in northern Africa and the Middle East, this paper turns to existing literature on social movements by sociologists, in which communication tools go largely unnoticed, and puts it in dialogue with the work of media materiality theorists. Setting these theoretical bodies next to one another enables a different kind of discussion to emerge; a discussion which offers a new lens through which to see social movements in the digital age. Theories of media materiality help augment existing social movement theories by making the experience, image and outcome of a social movement dependent (to an extent) on the communication technologies used to make it happen. Findings suggest that geography becomes just another aspect of the story told about, or experience of a social movement today as our worldviews increasingly adopt characteristics of the technologies we use to communicate.

Paper short abstract:

The relationship between media and social continuity and change needs to be re-conceptualized in front of the challenges of digital technologies and people’s media practices. Practice theory reconfigures materiality and virtual, media and social space by looking at what happens when people make things. Drawing on our ethnographic research, we will explore how software developers are making materiality and how Free Culture activists creative practices make media space.

Paper long abstract:

The relationship between media and social continuity and change needs to be re-conceptualized in front of new objects of study that deal with digital technology and people's daily life digital media practices. It has been argued that digital technologies are bringing astonishing social changes regarding all aspects of our social life and cultural forms, especially in the way we conceptualize and experience space, time and materiality.

On one hand, in the Internet social studies, the materiality is often situated in the physical world -the wires and the hardware-, while the virtual worlds are seen as places of human culture realized by computer programs through the Internet (Boellstorff, 2008). On the other hand, media Studies theoretical developments such as MediaSpace deal with the dialectical intermingle between the kinds of space created by media and the effects that existing spatial arrangements have on media forms as they materialize in everyday life (Couldry and McCarthy, 2004). Regarding those, we will argue that a theoretical approach of practices allows us to re-compound the distinction between materiality and virtual, media and social space by looking at what happens when people make things. Studies of material culture focus almost exclusively on made objects rather than on the processes of making (Ingold, 2011), rather, in our ethnographic research, we are following how software developers are making materiality and how Free Culture activists creative practices make media space.

Paper short abstract:

This paper critically examines the notion of ‘’social change’’ in relation to mobile phone and social inequalities and calibrates assumptions made in the current literature with what could be observed in the everyday life of the poorest of the poor in Niamey, Niger.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last decade mobile phone adoption and use in Africa grew at an exceptional pace sparking research and newspapers articles that contend that this device ''is transforming Africa.'' However, the notions of ''social transformation'' or ''social change'' are not always clearly explained and we do not still know what the actual ''transformation of Africa'' consists in. Is it the physical availability and access to mobile phones such as manifested in the impressive figures of adoption? Is it a change manifested in economic growth? What is the depth of the so-called ''social change''? Did the relationships between people and groups of people change? This paper critically examines the notion of ''social change'' in relation to mobile phone and social inequalities and calibrates assumptions made in the current literature with what could be observed in the everyday life of the poorest of the poor in Niamey, the capital city of Niger. Contrary to the irenic view of technology, it is concluded that the ''transformative'' character of mobile phones when it comes to social inequalities is not evident. The paper is based on a field research carried out during the summers of 2008 and 2011 among the most disadvantaged people living in four quarters of Niamey.

Paper short abstract:

The mobile phone in Africa is widely regarded as having a revolutionary impact and contributing to positive social change. This paper critically reviews the relations between media and social change on the African continent, more specifically in relation to mobile communities, on a more empirical basis.

Paper long abstract:

Since the beginning of this century African societies, both urban and rural, have become connected through mobile technology. This so-called mobile phone revolution has been hailed for its enormous impact on positive social change. In this paper we will present results from a research programme that started in 2008 investigating the relation between mobile technology and changes in the political and social landscape in Africa. We concentrate on the comparison of various mobile communities (i.e. refugees, migrants, internally displaced people) in Central and Southern Africa. In the programme we have worked with concepts like mediatisation, intertextuality of media and 'appropriation' understood in a historical and comparative perspective. This paper will first of all present the empirical results of the project within relation to case studies of mobile communities from Cameroon, Chad, Angola and Namibia. These results will be situated in the overall discussion on the relation between mobile technology and social change as it is discussed for the African continent that still lacks a firm empirical grounding. Subsequently the paper will review its analytical conceptsmodel in relation to its findings and to the explanation of mediated change in Africa's mobile communities. The paper draws from the results of the project 'Mobile Africa Revisited', based at the African Studies Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands (www.mobileafricarevisited.wordpress.com )

Paper short abstract:

In this paper I discuss media and social change inside home with a focus on domestic energy consumption in the UK.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I am concerned with finding a theoretical framework for exploring the possibilities for change in domestic routines in relation to digital media and energy consumption.

My research is developed within the LEEDR (Low Effort Energy Demand Reduction, see http://leedr-project.co.uk/) interdisciplinary project that looks at opportunities for intervention and for triggering change in social behaviour related to domestic energy consumption by using digital media.

In reflecting on my ethnographic findings, my aims are threefold: to discuss the possibilities for the domestic environment to be seen as an arena for/of social change; to find an appropriate set of theoretical lenses for looking at the contemporary changing relationship between media and the rhythms and routines of home; to open up a discussion about how the material and multisensory qualities of digital media (rather than its content, in this case) can be relevant in making visible and bringing to the fore domestic energy consumption.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between media and social change through a discussion of research conducted in India over the past five years. Social change in this context is about increased agency, mobility and participation for women farmers and women who work in the informal sector. The aim is to ask what constitutes positive social change for these women, and how communication technologies including radio and mobile phones contribute to this. How do these communication technologies enhance or extend initiatives that work to challenge and change the economic, social and cultural structures that traditionally exclude these women?

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between media and social change through a discussion of research conducted in India over the past five years. Social change in this context is about increased agency, mobility and participation for women farmers and women who work in the informal sector. The aim is to ask what constitutes positive social change for these women, and how communication technologies including radio and mobile phones contribute to this. How do these communication technologies enhance or extend initiatives that work to challenge and change the economic, social and cultural structures that traditionally exclude these women? The paper draws in particular upon research with the Deccan Development Society (DDS) in Andhra Pradesh where women farmers run Sangham Radio, and SEWA supported RUDI No Radio in Gujurat. The research with these women is used to critique approaches within the fields of Communication for Development (C4D), and Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D). Through studies of the particularities of use of media within these populations and their setting within local initiatives that aim to sustain livelihoods and achieve food sovereignty, we start to uncover the role of media for the meaningful mobility of these women, and the relationships of these examples to broader development discourse. Development discourse tends to emphasise the role of new media and technologies for increased flow of knowledge from North to South, whereas these local initiatives function by wholly different ways of knowing.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on empirical explorations of rapid media expansion and urban transformation in India, this paper builds a theoretical framework of desire/visibility disjunction which seeks to overcome the limitations of public/private division running through journalism literature. The paper advances media theory by drawing attention to recent urban transformation, globalization and the specificities of news cultures in the Global South.

Paper long abstract:

The recent expansion of commercial news media in the globalizing economies of the Global South has brought to the fore the limitations of media theories rooted in the experiences of Western democracies. In these regions, the revived and reframed engagements of the news media go beyond mere dissemination of 'information'. They take on new roles and self-presentations to directly shape social change in the uncertain milieu of urban transformation and deeply fractured integration into global economy. This paper proposes that the news media's current transformations and their implications for social change and urban politics could be understood in terms of a tension between two mediations: 'desire' and 'structured democratic visibility'. On the one hand, the growing commercialization of media mediates desire-as-aspiration in ways that 'desire' itself extends beyond the realm of consumer commodities, into new imaginations of ideal citizenship, civic activism, lifestyle, cultural ascent, social mobility, body and self. On the other hand, 'structured democratic visibility' relates to acts of visibalization, emerging as intended and unintended outcomes of the news practices through their intersections with the wider social and cultural field, and imprisoned neither within the liberal conception of representation and rational-critical discourse nor within the paradigm of absolute elite control. I suggest that the framework of desire/ visibility disjunction could overcome the limitations of the public/private division running through journalism scholarship, especially those which draw a distinction between public good and private accumulation. Eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork on news production in urban India informs this analysis.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on a cross-cultural ethnographic research amongst activists in Italy and Britain, this paper introduces the concept of media imaginary to explore how people imagine what they do with the media according to particular social and political projects.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will argue that in the analysis of media and social change, it is of central importance to develop a theoretical approach that not merely considers media as practice and highlights the everyday uses of technologies, but also understands media as social and political projects which relate to specific ethnographic imaginations. Drawing on the findings of a cross-cultural ethnographic research amongst two very different political groups of activists in Britain and Italy, the paper will focus in particular on social media practices and will argue that the relationship between social media and political activism is embedded in a tension between opportunity and anxiety, which varies from context to context, from situation to situation.

In order to understand these cultural variations the paper will introduce the concept of media imaginary. In doing so, it will critically assess Taylor's (2004) idea of modern social imaginary and Castoriadis' (1998) notion of radical imagination, and will combine them with the understanding of media as practice (Couldry,2004). Therefore, it will argue that it is important to appreciate that people often imagine "what they do" with media technologies according to culturally and context specific political projects. The concept of media imaginary, it will be argued, enables us to insight on the complex relationship between political participation and social media, and on the multiple and complex human variations that are embedded in these media practices.

Paper short abstract:

This paper intends to show how issues of digital policy arise from the dilemmas faced by participants in social movements in their use of digital social media. Thus, a new public sphere and agenda that goes beyond the concern for the instrumental value of these media emerge from these practices.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic research I am conducting on free software communities and on hacktivist groups involved in the creation and maintenance of the technological infrastructure used by the 15-M movement in Spain, this paper intends to show how participants in social movements and organizations face a number of problems as they connect, communicate and organize themselves through new digital media. These problems naturally produce the need to take into account issues of digital policy, including net neutrality, privacy, openness, trust, security, transparency, and problems regarding intellectual property and the construction of a digital commons. These issues have consequences for the organization and governance of the movements, but also for the emergence of a broader field of action related to new forms of politics in digital environments. Since this is a regime of power as much as a regime of knowledge, a series of dilemmas with a political dimension inevitably arises.

Thus, a field of uncertainty opens up that displaces the concern about these digital policy issues into a back-and-forth path between groups organized around this agenda and a broader public composed by social activists and movements, NGOs, and other actors engaged in processes of social change.

In sum, this paper intends to show that, in addition to the impact of new digital media on social organizations, movements, and social change, issues involving a digital public sphere that, according to the anthropologist Chris Kelty, could be called a "recursive public" arise from the implementation and use of these same media.