Paper No.

: 02 Social Cultural Anthropology

Module : 33 Media and communication Anthropology

Development Team

Principal Investigator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor

Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi

Prof. Sabita, Department of Anthropology, Utkal

Paper Coordinator
University, Bhubaneshwar

Naila Ansari
Content Writer Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi

Prof. A.K. Sinha, Department of Anthropology,

Content Reviewer
Panjab University, Chandigarh

Social Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology
Media and Communication Anthropology
 Description of Module

Subject Name Anthropology

Paper Name 02 Social Cultural Anthropology

Module Name/Title Media and Communication Anthropology

Module Id 33

Social Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology
Media and Communication Anthropology
 Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Definition of Media Anthropology

2. Disciplinary Identity of Media Anthropology

3. Emergence of Media Anthropology

4. Media Anthropological Studies

5. Aim of Media Anthropology

6. Media, Communication and Anthropology

7. Ethnographic contexts

8. Scope and Areas of Work

9. Research Branch

10. Centrality of Communication in Human

11. Media and Expressive Culture

12. Anthropological Approach & Concept to Mass Media

Summary

Learning Objectives

 To able to define Media Anthropology

 To determine the Disciplinary identity of Media Anthropology

 To be able to describe Emergence of Media Anthropology

 To able to examining various Studies of Media Anthropology

 To able to describe the Aim, Scope, and distinct Research in Media Anthropology

 To able to examining various Anthropological Approach & Concept to Mass Media

Social Cultural Anthropology

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 Introduction

Media anthropology is a rapidly developing new field of interdisciplinary studies. The media
anthropology studies conducted in India and Asian subcontinent in last two decades range from
popular visual culture to film industries, curatorial strategies and contemporary art practices and
markets, from urbanization processes to transnational migration. Most of the Asian and Indian media
anthropological studies have looked at images and media as mediators and sources of transcultural
encounters and entanglements. Anthropologists approach Media Anthropology from different
directions with different histories and for different purposes. It is not only natural but productive that
they would make differing choices of concepts, methods, and interpretations.

The anthropology of media is a fairly inter-disciplinary area, with a wide range of other influences. The
theories used in the anthropology of media range from practice approaches, associated with theorists,
as well as discussions of the appropriation and adaptation of new technologies and practices.
Theoretical approaches have also been adopted from visual anthropology and from film theory, as well
as from studies of ritual and performance studies (e.g. dance and theatre), studies of consumption,
audience reception in media studies, new media and network theories, theories of globalisation,
theories of international civil society, and discussions on participatory communications and governance
in development studies.

1. Definition of Media Anthropology

Anthropology of media (also anthropology of mass media, media anthropology) is an area of study
within social or cultural anthropology that emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of
understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media. Media
anthropology contains multiple perspectives, each the product of different intellectual trends, in
different fields. Briefly, it represents both the use of anthropological concepts and methods within
media studies and the study of the media by anthropologists. It may be a new interdisciplinary
convergence; it could become an established field of inter-disciplinary studies, or even a new
discipline.

A common sense definition for media anthropology would say that it represents the application of
instruments (theories, concepts, research methods) from a field of science, cultural anthropology, onto
an investigated object, in this case media (i.e. communication mediated by technologies and
institutions, be it mass or group, “big” or “small”. It exactly what suggested one of the first approaches
to the field: “Media anthropology is an awareness of the interaction (both real and potential) between
the various academic and applied aspects of anthropology and the multitude of media.

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 2. Disciplinary Identity of Media Anthropology

In the case of media anthropology, the fact that various researchers do not assume that clear
disciplinary identity (with roots in sociology, cultural studies, narratology, history, etc) yet use
concepts specific to cultural anthropology, as well as research methods intimately related to this
science (ethnographic methods), may appear as a random meeting, and a passing experience.
Especially since the authorized representatives of cultural anthropology have treated these attempts
with scepticism.

On the other hand, border-crossing and interpreting mass media phenomena from a cultural
anthropology perspective can also be understood as the beginning of delineating a new sub-discipline
of cultural anthropology, or of communication studies, a sub-discipline that has as its research object a
specific form of cultural creation the mass media, or as the first step in the creation of a new
anthropological frame for the study of the global and mediated cultural phenomena.

3. Emergence of Media Anthropology

Studies like

‘Communication and Cultural Development: a Multidimensional Analysis’ by George A. Bernett in

1981,

‘The Effects of Television Viewing: a Cross-Cultural Perspective’ conducted by Susan Kent in 1985

‘Culture/Media: A (mild) Polemic’ by Faye Ginsburg in 1994

The above mention studies initiated debate at various intellectual platforms in India on how and in
what ways television programmes produce culture and how this culture is defining people‟s behaviour.
The study argued that the human process of understanding consists of depositing those modes of being
which define us into cultural elements. In other words, we learn how to behave, so to speak, by going
to the cultural elements which we have already created. Explain about how culture is transmitted
through mass media, especially television, and how this transmission of culture has shaped the human
society. All these studies brought mass media to the centre stage of anthropology and communication
studies.

4. Media Anthropological Studies

1. Anthropologists have studied the relationship between television and culture and how social and
cultural messages are carried forward in the society by television and other visual media and how it
integrates various elements in human society.

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 2. These studies laid a foundation for media anthropology to establish how mass media became the
vehicle of transmission of culture in the process of evolution of societies. So the study of media
anthropology explores and expands with the understanding that whatever happened in the domain of
culture is mostly because of media.

3. The studies were mostly focused on the post liberal challenges of transculturation and the legitimate
role of media in the formation of global imaginaries.

4. The media anthropological studies focus more on images and media as ideal means to explore
shifting asymmetries of cultural flows.

5. The studies have a close ethnographic look at the multiple layers of social, cultural, political and
historical contexts and processes through which these asymmetrical flows of visualises have emerged
and shaped

6. The media anthropological studies are mostly in the form of ethnography of reception carried out
largely under the banner of cultural studies. The studies mostly focus on the role of culture in
exercising power both political and socio-cultural.

5. Aim of Media Anthropology

The aim of media anthropologists is to provide the general public with entertaining, relevant
anthropological background information through the public media. This quarterly newsletter
disseminates information, promotes awareness of present physical and social issues, and offers a means
of intercommunication on the topic of Media Anthropology. Typical issues of discuss current matters
of concern. To media anthropologists; announce available and current films, periodicals, publications,
seminars, arid conferences: list audio-visual tools, manuals, and guides and describe opportunities,
Ventures, and Studied distinct of multimedia Materials, mostly annotated, contain complete
bibliographic information.

6. Media, Communication and Anthropology

Media Anthropology is an area of study within social or cultural anthropology and is now a days a part
of media and cultural studies that deals with the social and cultural aspects of mass media. Media
anthropology is an inter-disciplinary stream of study influenced by the approaches and practices taking
place in Visual Anthropology, Film and Performance studies and Development Communication. Media
anthropology generally represents the application of instruments (theories, concepts, methods,
approaches, tools and techniques) to understand media studies from a socio-anthropological
perspective. Social scientists and media anthropologists generally consider media anthropology as an
approach to understand the interaction between various academic and applied aspects of anthropology
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 and the multitude of media.

This phenomenon is not new, because several sciences can claim the interpretation of the same social
system (history of tourism, sociology of tourism, geography of tourism, anthropology of tourism). In
this case, besides older actors of mass media research such as sociology, economics, history, law,
ethics, and psychology, anthropology as well can find a place under the sun of mass media,
interpreting, with its own tools, the same realities interpreted, “media anthropology grows out of the
anthropology of modern societies, on one hand, and the cultural turn in media studies, on the other. It
turns its attention from “exotic” to mundane and from “indigenous” to manufactured culture while
preserving the methodological and conceptual assets of earlier anthropological tradition. It prepares
media studies for more complete engagement with the symbolic construction of reality and the
fundamental importance of symbolic structures, myth, and ritual in everyday life.” But in the case of
media anthropology things are not simple, firstly because of the ambivalent relationship between the
sciences (now) in dialogue: for cultural anthropology, confronted with an identity crisis, it would be
reluctant to widen its borders, while mass media, confronted with a growth crisis, has the tendency to
lose its identity by extending without limits toward the most heterogeneous areas of social life.

One important debate is about whether classical ethnography is necessary to everything called
anthropological, or is the adaptation called anthropological, or is the adaptation of the spirit of
ethnography in media and cultural studies legitimately anthropologists? Applying ethnographic method
to modern societies had already produced a dispute regarding methodological purity within
anthropology, even before ethnographic ideas were widely adopted.

7. Ethnographic Contexts

The types of ethnographic contexts explored in the anthropology of media range from contexts of
media production (e.g., ethnographies of newsrooms in newspapers, journalists in the field, film
production) to contexts of media reception, following audiences in their everyday responses to media.
Other types include cyber anthropology, a relatively new area of internet research, as well as
ethnographies of other areas of research which happen to involve media, such as development work,
social movements, human rights or health education.

8. Scope and Areas of Work

The scope of media anthropology is tremendous. It offers an excellent opportunity to communication

scholars having a background in social sciences and humanities (with a good understanding of social-
cultural anthropology) along with communication to study how media institutions in transitional
societies can best manage the communication activities and tools to facilitate cultural modernization.
There is a peculiarly intimate relationship between the social, cultural and communication process.
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 Media anthropology provides a new ethnographically informed, historically grounded and context-
sensitive approach to communication scholars and cultural scientists to study the ways in which people
use and make sense of media technologies. The subject has great potential to explore the dynamics of
social and cultural processes of media consumption, production and circulation.

As far as the growth and scope of the subject is concerned, media anthropology grows out of the
anthropology of modern societies and their culture finding a place under the broad arena of mass
media. It is different from cultural anthropology as it turns its attention from „exotic‟ to „mundane‟ and
from „indigenous‟ to „manufactured culture‟ while preserving the methodological and conceptual
assets of anthropological tradition. The study of media anthropology in communication studies is
gaining a lot of attention these days because it prepares media practitioners for more complete
engagement with the symbolic construction of reality and the fundamental importance of symbolic
structures, myth and rituals in everyday life. Media Anthropology is a multidisciplinary field of study
having a wide scope for the graduates from the fields of Communication, Anthropology, Psychology,
Sociology, and Philosophy. Media anthropology as a practice provides the scholars two main
branches/areas to build a career–

9. Research Branch

Anthropology of media examines the relationships between people and media. This emphasis on
people is demonstrated through the ethnographic approach. This allows for knowledge construction
that is discipline specific, and which moves across disciplines. The connections are located in the
grounded approaches to knowing about people and where media in all its various forms are
inextricably part of today's social settings. The implications for anthropology 'media studies' relate to
the issue of knowledge construction and how methodological and paradigmatic approaches have been
applied as also issues of the integrity of these applications. This has led to debate and controversy in
media studies where media/cultural studies scholars have challenged the slipshod application of
ethnography in the so-called ethnographic turn of the 1980s and where they make distinctions between
'ethnography' and 'proper ethnography.' This suggests particular emphasis on the anthropological as a
set of knowledge practices that will yield acceptable results in studying people and media and where
this approach becomes important through the focus on people. This branch especially deals with
studies related to media structures, function, process, impact etc of media information, technologies,
mediums, professionals, audience and control.

This branch deals with the communication of anthropological information and insights through media
channels in widely acceptable styles and formats. The branch also provides an opportunity to the
scholars to promote anthropology in various media by influencing journalism practices to who, what,

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 when, where and how, in order to create an alternative method of gathering and presenting information
that can help to fill the educational vacuum, not with more detail, but with more perspective.

10. Centrality of Communication in Human

Anthropology has long been concerned with the centrality of communication in human experience.
Communication impacts relations of truth, evidentiality, power, identity, wellness, and the sacred,
among others. Narrative, ritual speech, bureaucratic discourse, scientific argument, and political
slogans are just some of the myriad ways that communication manifests and matters in human life. In
recent years, anthropologists have increasingly turned their attention to mass media, new media, and
state discourse, as additional types of communication forms that impact society, culture, power, global
relations, and everyday life. A vibrant interdisciplinary community of scholars both within
anthropology and outside anthropology shares a focus on media, communication and culture. Research
areas include: media ethnography, cultures of media production and media consumption,
media power, new media, ethnographic film, visual culture, digital culture, digital scholarship,
sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and rhetoric.

Mass media involve technological transformation of this system of communication in various ways and
to different ends. The media thus include not only books, films, television, videos, magazines,
newspapers, and radio, but billboards, comic books, e-mail, the World Wide Web, telephones, and
many other technologies. The key question for the anthropologist are how these technologies operate to
mediate human communication, and how such mediation is embedded in broader social and historical
processes.

11. Media and Expressive Culture

The media have as one of their primary and manifest functions the expression of social and cultural
information, clearly makes them part of the field of expressive culture. All media, moreover, explicitly
seek to affect human beings, and consumers of media intentionally constitute themselves as audience
in order to be affected. Media messages can persuade (seduce, compel) us. They can inform (educate,
provoke, brainwash) us. And they can give us pleasure in the form of escape, laughter, or insight. In
more than one way, this was an interesting period in the history of Indian Anthropology, where a great
deal of emphasis was laid on applications of anthropology for rural and tribal development.
Communication was seen as an essential ingredient to reach out to remote and isolated tribal and rural
communities. The aim was to accept new ways of living and adopting technologies that would help the
rural and tribal population produce more food and are part of those who live in better material comfort.
In other words, economic development was at the core of the national ethos for the betterment of
remote rural and tribal areas identified for change, in agriculture, nutrition and family planning.

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 Education was seen as a precondition for adoption of innovation. The entire national climate was
charged with centralized planning to bring about desired change.

Visual documentation allows a broader and holistic comprehension of cultural reality, and to a large
extent, breaks the language barrier. While visuals give accurate depiction, the selection of a sequence
of events, its juxtaposition with other events and the very selection of live events creates a composite
visual mosaic that could create an illusionary or distorted comprehension of culture.

12. Anthropological Approach & Concept to Mass Media

These five and more represent the divergent intellectual orientations that may meet in this territory we
have recently taken to calling Media Anthropology. Media anthropology is, to one degree or another,
in varying ways and for varying purposes, the use of anthropological concepts and methods in the
study of the media.

 In one group are anthropologists who have recently turned their attention more systematically
toward the media.
 Some are studying the production and consumption of media in many of the same settings and
using more or less the same methods traditionally used in ethnographies of indigenous, village,
and tribal life, others transfer those methods to the work-place setting of media production, and
others are engaging whole new questions about transnational cultural flows, media systems,
business and industry, and more.
 Another group includes communication and media scholars who began borrowing concepts of
ritual, myth, religion, symbolic structure and process from anthropological theory to forge an
alternative approach to media studies.
 A third approach to media anthropology grew out of the ethnographic turn that swept the
humanities and social sciences, became the new mainstream in media studies, and
ethnographies of television viewers, fans of popular music, and other forms of audience
reception studies became much more common
 Fourth are the visual anthropologists, ethnographic filmmakers, and others who for decades had
been pursuing many of these interests in their own way, under the guidance of another set of
questions and conceptual vocabularies.
 Yet a fifth approach would be the myth and symbol tradition of interpreting texts with an
abstractly anthropological orientation, informed by anthropological reading but not its methods.

Media anthropology is the label that has most recently come into use for a territory of contact between
distinct fields. In the anthropological approach to mass media, several established concepts are finding
relatively new uses:
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  Culture (acculturation, culture change, cultural diffusion, assimilation, globalization),
 Religion (cult, sacred and profane, transcendence, belief, cosmology, liturgical order themes
and motifs),
 Ritual (ceremony, magic, commemoration, celebration),
 Narrative,
 Performance,
 Representation,
 Symbol

These are all places where anthropologists and media scholars take turns talking and the various points
of view in the field are presented as side-by-side alternatives.

Summary

Communication is a key tool that anthropologists use to understand social and cultural environment by
focusing on each and every aspect of the social and cultural life of a nation. In social and cultural
anthropology, communication is used to educate and train people to study and analyze the nature and
state of specific social and cultural structures and institutions which widely affect the process of social
and cultural development in the society. The approach is to understand the media and cultural process
as institutions, as workplaces, as communicative practices, as cultural products, as social activities, as
aesthetic forms, as historical developments and alike. The studies are mostly concerned with the
understanding of the relationship between media institutions/channels and the patterns of socio-cultural
changes basic to the problems of contemporary nation building.

So, we can see media anthropology as a field within the broad discipline of social sciences and
humanities dealing with the relationship between the mass media and culture. The main focus of the
study is more about how culture is transmitted through the mass media, and the media process or
system by means of which society is shaped. Anthropology is the social science, studying culture,
whereas media anthropology is the specific field which deals with the whole process through which
culture shapes human beings through the mass media.

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