Coursenotes, SOCI221 – Sociology of Cyberspace, Meeting 11

SOCI221 – Sociology of Cyberspace

Meeting 11: November 24, 2014
Cultural Contexts to Posthumanism

Posthumanism

Self portrait for LinkedIN profile picture. SteveMann with EyeTap, by Glogger (CC-BY-SA–3.0))

Last Week

Cultural Contexts

Activity: Online Interview

  • How easy was it to find an interviewee?
  • How did you prepare?
  • How did you conduct the interview?
  • What kind of insight did you gain?
  • Would a face-to-face interview be preferable?

Required Texts

Horst, Heather “Free, Social, and Inclusive: Appropriation and Resistance of New Media Technologies in Brazil.” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 437–462.
Kelty, Christopher. “Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics.” Cultural Anthropology 20, no. 2 (May 2005): 185–214. doi:10.1525/can.2005.20.2.185.

Horst

Horst, Heather “Free, Social, and Inclusive: Appropriation and Resistance of New Media Technologies in Brazil.” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 437–462.

  • Unexpected uses
  • Networked sociality
  • Similar experiences?
  • Different Internets?

Kelty

Kelty, Christopher. “Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics.” Cultural Anthropology 20, no. 2 (May 2005): 185–214. doi:10.1525/can.2005.20.2.185.

  • (Re)constructing the Internet (links to Leiner et al.)
  • Science and technology studies
  • Technology and law (copyright…)
  • Dense network of influential people
  • Transhumanism

Next Monday

Activity: Project Plan

  • Based on your experience with an online group (field entry, interview), what type of research could you do in this context?
  • What type of insight would you try to gain?
  • Which methods would you use?
  • How would you explain your project to others?

Required Texts

Chapters 1–2 in Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Un-Human Subjects, and the End of Anthropology, edited by Neil L. Whitehead and Michael Wesch. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2012. doi:10.5876/9781607321705
Cool, Jennifer. “The Mutual Co-Construction of Online and Onground in Cyborganic: Making an Ethnography of Networked Social Media Speak to Challenges of the Posthuman.”
Tufekci, Zeynep. “We Were Always Human.”

Cool

Cool, Jennifer. “The Mutual Co-Construction of Online and Onground in Cyborganic: Making an Ethnography of Networked Social Media Speak to Challenges of the Posthuman” in Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Un-Human Subjects, and the End of Anthropology, edited by Neil L. Whitehead and Michael Wesch, 11–32. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2012. doi:10.5876/9781607321705

  • Post-/Transhumanists
  • Cyborganic ethnography
  • Liberal subject
  • Who decides?

Tufekci

Tufekci, Zeynep. “We Were Always Human” in Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Un-Human Subjects, and the End of Anthropology, edited by Neil L. Whitehead and Michael Wesch, 33–47. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2012. doi:10.5876/9781607321705

  • Technology and society
  • Facebook ethnography and surveys
  • Responding to media
  • Embodiment
  • Cyberasociality

Ethnography

Descriptive approach to cultural diversity. – Alex

  • Fieldwork
  • Establishing rapport
  • Insider and outsider
  • Participant-observation
  • Cultural translation (making exotic familiar and familiar exotic)

Surveillance Society

  • Panopticon
  • Sousveillance
    • Surveillance, sousveillance and PRISM – an op-ed for Die Zeit | … My heart’s in Accra http://lar.me/2zk
  • Internet Bill of Rights

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