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From Media Anthropology to the Anthropology of Mediation

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From Media Anthropology to the Anthropology of Mediation 4.4.3 From Media Anthropology to the Anthropology of Mediation Dominic Boyer When one speaks of media and mediation in and Coman 2005), professorial chairs and research social-cultural anthropology today one is usually and training centres (e.g., the USC Center for referring to communication and culture. This is to Visual Anthropology, the Program in Culture and say, when anthropologists use the term ‘media’, Media at NYU, the Programme in the Anthropology they tend to remain within a largely popular of Media at SOAS, the Granada Centre for Visual semantics, taking ‘media’ to mean communica- Anthropology at Manchester University, the MSc tional media and, more specifically, communica- in Digital Anthropology at University College tional media practices, technologies and London, among others), and research networks institutions, especially print (Peterson 2001; (e.g., EASA’s media anthropology listserv: http:// Hannerz 2004), film (Ginsburg 1991; Taylor www.media-anthropology.net). 1994), photography (Ruby 1981; Pinney 1997), Yet, as my fellow practitioners of media anthro- video (Turner 1992, 1995), television (Michaels pology would likely agree, it is very difficult to 1986; Wilk 1993; Abu-Lughod 2004), radio separate the operation of communicational media (Spitulnik 2000; Hernandez-Reguant 2006; cleanly from broader social-political processes of Kunreuther 2006; Fisher 2009), telephony (Rafael circulation, exchange, imagination and knowing. 2003; Horst and Miller 2006), and the Internet This suggests a productive tension within media (Boellstorff 2008; Coleman and Golub 2008; anthropology between its common research foci Kelty 2008), among others. These are the core (which are most often technological or representa- areas of attention in the rapidly expanding sub- tional in their basis) and what we might gloss as field of anthropological scholarship often known processes of social mediation: i.e. social transac- as the ‘anthropology of media’ or ‘media anthro- tion in its broadest sense of the movement of pology’, which has spent much of the last 40 years images, discourse, persons and things. The prob- researching how the production and reception of lem of mediation obviously raises the question of communicational media texts and technologies practices of communicational media-making and have enabled or otherwise affected processes of media-receiving, which media anthropologists cultural production and reproduction more gener- have addressed at length, especially in the last ally. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this 20 years. But mediation also raises the question of established focus on communication, and media how we should conceptualize ‘media’ in the first anthropology has certainly thrived, particularly in place. To paraphrase one of Marshall McLuhan’s the past 20 years, cementing its subdisciplinary more effective provocations (1964), if one under- substance and legitimacy through, among other stands media as extensions of human instrumental things, a series of fine review articles (Spitulnik and semiotic capacities then why should wheels, 1993; Ruby 1996; Mazzarella 2004; Coleman money and clocks, for example, not also be con- 2010), edited volumes (Askew and Wilk 2002; sidered alongside broadcast media such as news- Ginsburg et al. 2002; Peterson 2003; Rothenbuhler papers, radio and television? Along the same 5709-Fardon-Part04_Section4.indd 383 1/30/2012 10:48:00 AM 384 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY lines, why could the anthropological study of than they at first appear; indeed, each tells part of roads and migration, currency and finance, com- the truth about the history of media anthropology modity chains and values, and the formation and and each reveals something about contemporary dissemination of expert knowledge, not be pro- concerns over the integrity of media anthropolo- ductively connected to anthropological research gy’s subdisciplinary identity. on communicational media under the rubric of a As Eiselein and Topper contend, it is indeed broader anthropology of mediation? true that anthropologists have concerned them- Alongside the emergence of new, more narrow selves with media for a long time and that anthro- iterations of media anthropology (‘cyberanthro- pologists have always used media to publicize pology’, for example) we are indeed beginning their research findings. Nevertheless, media only to see a movement in media anthropology that really emerged as a specialized topic of research more centrally highlights mediating practices, and ethnographic interest for anthropology in the technologies, spaces, materials and institutions 1940s as part of the explosion of interest across beyond those of communicational media. In the the human sciences in studying the cultural, long run, the further development of anthropology social, political and psychological effects of of mediation may help to counteract the inevitable broadcast communication. This moment cannot fissile tendency of subdisciplinarity by knitting be disentangled from popular and political con- contemporary media anthropology research more cerns with fascist and communist movements’ use effectively into long-standing anthropological of film, radio and print for purposes of political discussions (for example, concerning exchange mobilization and pacification (see, e.g., Lazarsfeld and knowledge). In this chapter, I briefly describe 1940; Lazarsfeld and Merton 1943), and as a the historical consolidation of media anthropol- result early broadcast communication studies had ogy as a subfield of anthropological inquiry and a distinctly critical edge (Horkheimer and Adorno move from there to explore the current horizons 1947). Communication studies played a relatively of media anthropology, including the project of small role in anthropology in the 1940s but they connecting research on media to work on social were certainly present (e.g., Bateson 1943; mediation more generally. Meadow 1944; Powdermaker 1947) and, likewise, often oriented by a critical sense of the massive cultural impact of broadcasting. Writing of her path-breaking (and to this day, still unparalleled) MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY ALWAYS field research on the Hollywood studio system, AND NOW Hortense Powdermaker (1950) explained her con- cern with the manipulative tendencies of broad- Compare the opening statements from two articles cast communication: that have sought to define an emergent field of ‘media anthropology’: I am concerned with opening up the general prob- lem of movies as an important institution in our After long decades of neglect the anthropological society. A unique trait of modern life is the manip- study of media is now booming … . Given anthro- ulation of people through mass communications. pology’s late arrival at the study of media and People can be impelled to buy certain articles and communication, what can our discipline hope to brands of merchandise through advertising. contribute to this long-established field of interdis- Columnists and radio commentators influence ciplinary research? What is, in other words, the political opinions. Movies manipulate emotions point of media anthropology? and values. … In a time of change and conflict and such as we experience today, movies and other Media anthropology is nothing new. Media and mass communications emphasize and reinforce anthropology have been inalienably linked since one set of values rather than another, present the beginning of anthropology. models for human relations through their portrayal by glamorous stars, and show life, truly or falsely, It is only slightly surprising to someone familiar beyond the average individual’s experiences. with this field that the first statement, the one that (quoted in Askew and Wilk 2002: 162) suggests media anthropology is a relatively con- temporary area of focus, was published two years Although, in certain respects, Powdermaker’s ago (Postill 2009: 334). The second statement, motivation sounds uncannily contemporary, the meanwhile, the one that argues that anthropology historical immediacy of fascism and communism has engaged media both as research object and as also played a major role in her analysis: method of communication since its beginning, was published 35 years ago (Eiselein and Topper Hollywood represents totalitarianism. Its basis is 1976: 123). The statements are less contradictory economic rather than political but its philosophy is 5709-Fardon-Part04_Section4.indd 384 1/30/2012 10:48:00 AM MEDIA AND MEDIATION IN ANTHROPOLOGY 385 similar to that of the totalitarian state. In Hollywood, exegesis known to us. The author’s mode of rea- the concept of man as a passive creature to be soning is such that involvement and importance manipulated extends to those who work for the (particularly of print) is transformed into primary studios, to personal and social relationships, to the characteristic and determinant, sometimes with a audiences in the theaters, and to the characters in footing in the evidence, sometimes by sheer asser- the movies. The basic freedom of being able to tion. (Hymes 1963: 479) choose between alternatives is absent. The gifted people who have the capacity for choice cannot Debates over orality and literacy continued to be exercise it; the executives who technically have the an active concern in the human sciences until the freedom of choice do not actually have it, because 1980s (e.g., Goody 1968; Eisenstein 1979; Ong they usually lack the knowledge and imagination 1982; Anderson 1983; Schieffelin and Gilmore necessary
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