Digital anthropology is the anthropological study of the relationship between humans and digital-era technology. The field is new, and thus has a variety of names with a variety of emphases. These include techno-anthropology, digital ethnography, cyberanthropology, and virtual anthropology.

Definition and scope

Most anthropologists who use the phrase "digital anthropology" are specifically referring to online and Internet technology. The study of humans' relationship to a broader range of technology may fall under other subfields of anthropological study, such as

cyborg anthropology Cyborg anthropology is a discipline that studies the interaction between humanity and technology from an Anthropology, anthropological perspective. The discipline offers novel insights on new technological advances and their effect on culture and ...

. The Digital Anthropology Group (DANG) is classified as an interest group in the

American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

. DANG's mission includes promoting the use of digital technology as a tool of anthropological research, encouraging anthropologists to share research using digital platforms, and outlining ways for anthropologists to study digital communities.

Cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...

itself can serve as a "field" site for anthropologists, allowing the observation, analysis, and interpretation of the sociocultural phenomena springing up and taking place in any interactive space. National and transnational communities, enabled by digital technology, establish a set of social norms, practices, traditions, storied history and associated

collective memory Collective memory refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire c ...

, migration periods, internal and external conflicts, potentially subconscious language features and

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

tic dialects comparable to those of traditional, geographically confined communities. This includes the various communities built around

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

, online platforms such as

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...

and

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

and their respective sub-sites, and politically motivated groups like Anonymous,

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...

, or the

Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist socio-political movement that expressed opposition to social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and econo ...

. A number of academic anthropologists have conducted traditional ethnographies of virtual worlds, such as Bonnie Nardi's study of

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

Tom Boellstorff Tom Boellstorff is an anthropologist based at the University of California, Irvine. In his career to date, his interests have included the anthropology of sexuality, the anthropology of globalization, digital anthropology, Southeast Asian studie ...

's study of

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...

. Academic

Gabriella Coleman Enid Gabriella Coleman (usually known as Gabriella Coleman or Biella; born 1973) is an anthropologist, academic and author whose work focuses on cultures of hacking and online activism, particularly Anonymous. She previously held the Wolfe Ch ...

has done ethnographic work on the

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

software community and the Anonymous

hacktivist In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of '' hack'' and '' activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in h ...

network. Theorist

Nancy Mauro-Flude Nancy may refer to: Places France * Nancy, France, a city in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle and formerly the capital of the duchy of Lorraine ** Arrondissement of Nancy, surrounding and including the city of Nancy ...

conducts ethnographic field work on computing arts and computer subcultures such as systerserver.net a part of the communities of feminist web servers and the

Feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

Internet network. Anthropological research can help designers adapt and improve technology. Australian anthropologist

Genevieve Bell Genevieve Bell is an Australian cultural anthropologist best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice research and technological development (including as a pioneer in the field of futurist research), and for being an industry ...

did extensive user experience research at Intel that informed the company's approach to its technology, users, and market.

Methodology

Digital fieldwork

Many digital anthropologists who study online communities use traditional methods of anthropological research. They participate in online communities in order to learn about their customs and worldviews, and back their observations with private interviews, historical research, and quantitative data. Their product is an ethnography, a qualitative description of their experience and analyses. Other anthropologists and social scientists have conducted research that emphasizes data gathered by websites and servers. However, academics often have trouble accessing user data on the same scale as social media corporations like

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and data mining companies like

Acxiom Acxiom (pronounced "ax-ee-um") is a Conway, Arkansas-based database marketing company. The company collects, analyzes and sells customer and business information used for targeted advertising campaigns. The company was formed in 2018 when Acxiom ...

. In terms of method, there is a disagreement in whether it is possible to conduct research exclusively online or if research will only be complete when the subjects are studied holistically, both online and offline.

, who conducted a three-year research as an avatar in the virtual world

, defends the first approach, stating that it is not just possible, but necessary to engage with subjects “in their own terms”. Others, such as Daniel Miller, have argued that an ethnographic research should not exclude learning about the subject's life outside the internet.

Digital technology as a tool of anthropology

The American Anthropological Association offers an online guide for students using digital technology to store and share data. Data can be uploaded to digital databases to be stored, shared, and interpreted. Text and numerical analysis software can help produce

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

, while a

codebook A codebook is a type of document used for gathering and storing cryptography codes. Originally codebooks were often literally , but today codebook is a byword for the complete record of a series of codes, regardless of physical format. Cryptog ...

may help organize data.

Ethics

Online fieldwork offers new ethical challenges. According to the

's ethics guidelines, anthropologists researching a community must make sure that all members of that community know they are being studied and have access to data the anthropologist produces. However, many online communities' interactions are publicly available for anyone to read, and may be preserved online for years. Digital anthropologists debate the extent to which

lurking In Internet culture, a lurker is typically a member of an online community who observes, but does not participate. The exact definition depends on context. Lurkers make up a large proportion of all users in online communities. Lurking allows use ...

in online communities and sifting through public archives is ethical. The Association also asserts that anthropologists' ability to collect and store data at all is "a privilege", and researchers have an ethical duty to store digital data responsibly. This means protecting the identity of participants, sharing data with other anthropologists, and making backup copies of all data.

Prominent figures

Diana E. Forsythe Diana Elizabeth Forsythe (November 11, 1947 – August 14, 1997) was a leading researcher in anthropology and a key figure in the field of science and technology studies. She is recognized for her significant anthropological studies of artificial i ...

Heather Horst Heather A. Horst is a social anthropologist and media studies academic and author who writes on material culture, mobility, and the mediation of social relations. In 2020 she became the Director of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western ...

Mizuko Ito is a Japanese cultural anthropology, cultural anthropologist who is a Professor in Residence at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine. Her main professional interest is young people's use of media technology. ...

* Daniel Miller * Mike Wesch

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Budka, Philipp and

Manfred Kremser Manfred Kremser (30 July 1950 – 3 March 2013) was an Austrian ethnologist and researcher of the human consciousness."CyberAnthropology—Anthropology of CyberCulture"
in ''Contemporary issues in socio-cultural anthropology: Perspectives and research activities from Austria'' edited by S. Khittel, B. Plankensteiner and M. Six-Hohenbalken, pp. 213–226. Vienna: Loecker. * Escobar, Arturo. 1994. "Welcome to Cyberia: notes on the anthropology of cyberculture." ''Current Anthropology'' 35(3): 211–231. * Fabian, Johannes. 2002. Virtual archives and ethnographic writing: "Commentary" as a new genre? ''Current Anthropology'' 43(5): 775–786. * Gershon, Ilana. 2010. ''The Break-up 2.0: Disconnecting over new media''. Cornell University Press * Ginsburg, Faye. 2008. Rethinking the Digital Age. In ''The Media and Social Theory''. Edited by Desmond Hesmondhalgh and Jason Toynbee. New York: Routledge * Hine, Christine. 2000. ''Virtual ethnography''. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage. * Horst, Heather and Daniel Miller. 2012. ''Digital Anthropology.'' London and New York: Berg *Jarzombek, Mark (2016). ''Digital Stockholm Syndrome in the Post-Ontological Age''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. * Kremser, Manfred. 1999. CyberAnthropology und die neuen Räume des Wissens. ''Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien'' 129: 275–290. * Ito, Mizuko, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Rachel Cody, Rebecca Herr-Stephenson, Heather A. Horst, Patricia G. Lange, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Z. Martinez, C.J. Pascoe, Dan Perkel, Laura Robinson, Christo Sims and Lisa Tripp. (2010) Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press. * Paccagnella, Luciano. 1997

. ''Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication'' 3(1). * Sugita, Shigeharu. 1987. "Computers in ethnological studies: As a tool and an object," in ''Toward a computer ethnology: Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium at the Japan National Museum of Ethnology'' edited by Joseph Raben, Shigeharu Sugita, and Masatoshi Kubo, pp. 9–40. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology. (Senri Ethnological Studies 20) * Wittel, Andreas. 2000

''Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research'' 1(1).

External links

Computer Mediated Anthropology

Centre for Digital Anthropology (University College London)

Digital Ethnography Research Centre (RMIT University, Melbourne)

Intel Science & Technology Centre (University of California, Irvine)
{{Science and technology studies Cultural anthropology Cyberspace Digital media Digital technology Technology in society