Proposal for Mass Media Anthropology

2012 ◽  
pp. 36-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Osorio
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Media Anthropology

Media Anthropology

Anthropology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Pardo ◽  
Elizabeth ErkenBrack ◽  
John L. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Anthropological Perspective ◽  
Media Anthropology ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Object Of Study

Although anthropologists have long addressed topics related to media and communications technologies, some have argued that a truly institutionalized commitment to the anthropology of media has only developed within the past twenty years. This might be due, at least in part, to a traditional disciplinary emphasis on “primitive” communities lacking the ostensible features of modernity, including electronic forms of mass mediation. Thick description, a central aim of ethnography as touted by Clifford Geertz, was historically geared toward small-scale societies and precluded the study of contemporary forms of mass media in modern life. However, anthropologists have begun to develop productive ways of including mass mediation into their ethnographic accounts. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to talk about cultural practices at all without some nod to the ubiquity of global media. From an anthropological perspective, it is important to consider varying cultural contexts of mass-media production, consumption, and interpretation. And this begs a question that several anthropologists have begun to answer. What is the most appropriate way to study “the media” as a cultural phenomenon? Content analyses of media texts? The measuring and identifying of media’s social effects and influence? Ethnographic studies of “reception” and “production”? Or something else entirely? Anthropologists engage in all of these and more. Additionally, new questions are emerging about how anthropology might best address digital media and online communities. There are multiple ways in which anthropologists have engaged with “the media” both as a tool of representation and an object of study. To outline some of those ways, it makes sense to provide a history of developments in the field, summarizing several thematic topics that have recently been of central focus to anthropologists of media, including religion, globalization, and nationalism. It also makes sense to think about approaches to studying mass media that other disciplines deploy—disciplines that are in conversation with anthropologists on this subject, including and especially media studies, communications studies, and cultural studies. The categorical divisions here attempt to reflect anthropology’s historical commitments to various analytical, thematic, and medium-based modes of inquiry.

Sex Differences in Mass Media Preferences Across Four Asian Countries

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malini Ratnasingam ◽  
Lee Ellis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Female Students ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Evolutionary Explanation ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Preferences

Background. Nearly all of the research on sex differences in mass media utilization has been based on samples from the United States and a few other Western countries. Aim. The present study examines sex differences in mass media utilization in four Asian countries (Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore). Methods. College students self-reported the frequency with which they accessed the following five mass media outlets: television dramas, televised news and documentaries, music, newspapers and magazines, and the Internet. Results. Two significant sex differences were found when participants from the four countries were considered as a whole: Women watched television dramas more than did men; and in Japan, female students listened to music more than did their male counterparts. Limitations. A wider array of mass media outlets could have been explored. Conclusions. Findings were largely consistent with results from studies conducted elsewhere in the world, particularly regarding sex differences in television drama viewing. A neurohormonal evolutionary explanation is offered for the basic findings.

Between scientists and public: Communicating psychological research through the mass media.

1982 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 985-995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. McCall ◽  
S. Holly Stocking
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
The Mass Media
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