The two readings discussed in this paper is all related to the digital ethnography, in which the study in Boellstorff (2012) was focused on explaining the difference between physical reality and digital unreality, to explain the benefits of digital anthropology and provide theoretical framework for understanding the digital anthropology. While the study of Boellstoff (2016) was focus on the ontology turns to theorising the digital real. It mainly focused on the ontology and epistemology of the digital ethnography.
Both of the two studies use extensive literatures related to the digital anthropology and anthropology for their research. Both of the two studies Boellstorff (2012) and Boellstorff (2016) applied literature review researches based on systematic analysis for explaining the theoretical and methodological foundation and applying the digital anthropology method. Thus, it can be seen many direct quotation in the two papers for expressing other scholars arguments to support, or use as counterargument for their discussed theme.
The choice of digital anthropology should attribute to the increasingly use of internet and digital technology in human world, it become the most effect way to observe people and understanding their behaviours. As Boellstorff (2012) stated, for studying people behaviours, interview or questionnaire could also be used, but those method more focus on the interaction and communication with participations rather than using the digital anthropology to observe the participations.
Compare with the visual analysis that focus on the image and photography, the digital anthropology could be used to understanding the difference and similarities between online and offline live of people through participation observation. Generally speaking, the visual analysis only include the secondary materials (photography) which study the historical things, while the digital anthropology study the current issues, involving human beings’ participations in the research process by observation, both of them are widely used method for media and cultural studies (Hyman, 2009).
Same with the readings in visual analysis, in the Boellstorff (2012) and Boellstorff (2016), author have been involved in the research and they put themselves into the text, for Boellstorff (2012), it use its three day digital life to explain how to use the digital anthropology for understanding human beings; for Boellstorff (2016), it use other scholars’ studies with its personal judgements in the research for explaining the methodology turn of the digital anthropology. By such writing style, it could use personal case to demonstrate their arguments and use their own experience to show how digital anthropology works for media and cultural studies.
The digital anthropology could be used in many media and cultural studies, especially to study the digital consumers’ behaviour for identify the potential for product innovation, to test things from behavioural insights through internal communications throughout the observation process in digital anthropology application (Silverman, 2000). It is quite useful in contemporary media and cultural studies and it seems that people is no longer get rid from the digital platform, the digital reality also become the physical reality currently.
References
Boellstorff, T. 2012. “Rethinking Digital Anthropology.” In Digital Anthropology, ed by. Heather A. Horst and Daniel Miller. 1st ed. 39-60. Bloomsbury Academic.
Boellstorff, T. 2016. “For Whom the Ontology Turns: Theorizing the Digital Real.” Current Anthropology, 57 (4): 387–407.
Hyman. S, J. 2009. ‘Getting Started’ in How to do Media and Cultural Studies. London: Sage.
Silverman, D. 2000. Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage.
by huijie wang
MCS923 Group 5 