PUBLICATIONS
DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS
Digital technology permeates the physical world. Social media and virtual reality, accessed via internet capable devices – computers, smartphones, tablets and wearables – affect nearly all aspects of social life.
The contributions to this volume apply innovative forms of ethnographic research to the digital realm. They examine the emergence of new forms of digital life, such as political participation through comments on East Greenlandic news blogs, the personal use of video broadcasting applications, the rise of transnational migrant networks facilitated by social media, or the effects of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on global conflicts.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL AND MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY
This latest issue presents articles ethnographic short-film productions that are the outcome of timely and original digital ethnography research. A range of papers and films examine the important issue of influence in the world of social media, contemporary forms of digital activism, the influence of virtual communities on the physical realm, and alternate identities in virtual space. Further articles explore virtual reality and the emergent topic of 'digital immgration' as termed by Marc Presky.
EDITORS: PROF. DR. URTE UNDINE FRÖMMING, DR. STEFFEN KÖHN, MIKE TERRY.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL AND MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY
The sophomore issue of the Journal of Visual and Media Anthropology consists of four articles and six short ethnographic films. Reflecting the expanding diversity and variety of research fields in Digital Anthropology, these works present new research topics beyond what has previously been thought of as digitalization processes. Specifically, this journal contains the topics of religion, games and play, urban mobility, community development, online dating and big data.
EDITORS: PROF. DR. URTE UNDINE FRÖMMING, DR. STEFFEN KÖHN, MIKE TERRY.
JOURNAL OF VISUAL AND MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY
The Journal of Visual and Media Anthropology is a a peer-reviewed open-access journal dedicated to research on digital environments and cultures, the impact of new media on expressions of self and social formations, the theory and practice of ethnographic filmmaking and the study of online- and offline visual worlds. The journal is a venture of Freie Universität Berlin’s Research Area Visual and Media Anthropology. It will present written works, machinima and short films that self-consciously experiment with innovative modes of representation, new forms of integrating written and multi-media ethnography and therefore seeks to challenge the conventions of academic publishing.
EDITORS: PROF. DR. URTE UNDINE FRÖMMING, DR. STEFFEN KÖHN, MIKE TERRY.
VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS AND CULTURES
Virtual reality is no longer an issue that we can avoid or ignore. It is an essential part of our experience, influencing cultures and individuals all over the world. This book presents a collection of ethnographic research in the virtual world of Second Life, and can be seen as an attempt to discover the challenges and limits of social anthropological research with an avatar in virtual cultures and environments. The contributions in this book demonstrate that the development of «digital codes» has meanwhile gone so far that anthropologists have started to conduct fieldwork inside digital user-generated worlds. This volume investigates the challenges facing a reality that is strongly and maybe irrevocably entangled with virtual reality. This development holds disadvantages and dangers but advantages as well - such as freedom of expressions for minority groups, social online activists, religious communities or artists. All research is based on qualitative methods, with group and single interview situations and participant observation over a period of between three and ten months.