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,[1] digital ethnography, cyberanthropology,[2] and virtual anthropology.[3]
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.
The Digital Anthropology Group (DANG) is classified as an interest group in the American Anthropological Association. 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 or the "virtual world" 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,[4] migration periods, internal and external conflicts, potentially subconscious language features[5][6] and memetic dialects comparable to those of traditional, geographically confined communities. This includes the various communities built around free and open-source software, online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, 4chan and Reddit and their respective sub-sites, and politically motivated groups like Anonymous, WikiLeaks, or the Occupy movement.[7]
A number of academic anthropologists have conducted traditional ethnographies of virtual worlds, such as Bonnie Nardi's study of World of Warcraft[8] or Tom Boellstorff's study of Second Life.[9] Academic Gabriella Coleman has done ethnographic work on the Debian software community[10] and the Anonymous hacktivist network.[11] Theorist Nancy Mauro-Flude conducts ethnographic field work on computing arts and computer subcultures such as systerserver.net a part of the communities of feminist web servers[12] and the Feminist Internet network.[13] Eitan Y. Wilf[14] examines the intersection of artists' creativity and digital technology and artificial intelligence.[15]Yongming Zhou studied how in China the internet is used to participate in politics.[16]Eve M. Zucker and colleagues study the shift to digital memorialization of mass atrocities and the emergent role of artificial intelligence in these processes.[4][17]Victoria Bernal conducted ethnographic research on the themes of nationalism and citizenship among Eritreans participating in online political engagement with their homeland.[18]
Anthropological research can help designers adapt and improve technology. Australian anthropologist Genevieve Bell did extensive user experience research at Intel that informed the company's approach to its technology, users, and market.[19]
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 and data mining companies like 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. Tom Boellstorff, who conducted a three-year research as an avatar in the virtual world Second Life, defends the first approach, stating that it is not just possible, but necessary to engage with subjects “in their own terms”.[20][citation needed][21] Others, such as Daniel Miller, have argued that an ethnographic research should not exclude learning about the subject's life outside the internet.[9]
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, while a codebook may help organize data.
Ethics
Online fieldwork offers new ethical challenges. According to the American Anthropological Association'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 online communities and sifting through public archives is ethical.[22]
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.[23]
Prominent figures
Genevieve Bell is an Australian cultural anthropologist credited for pioneering the User Experience field. During her time working for Intel Corporation, Bell studied how various cultures from around the world interacted with and experienced technology. Researching and improving user experience allows companies and designers to gather data regarding how users utilize their digital products and what requires improvement or expansion.
Tom Boellstorff is an anthropologist known for Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human where he conducted research on how engaging in virtual worlds affects the player’s sense of self.
Gabriella Coleman is an American anthropologist concerned with the politics, ethics, and culture of hacking and online activism. Coleman’s most notable ethnography features the hacktivist collective Anonymous, where she argues that various genres of hacking exist according to the social conditions at play. Coleman is dedicated to making her ethnography accessible to a diverse audience, including academics and non-academics.
Diana E. Forsythe was an American anthropologist of science and technology and the author of the essays featured in Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. She asked relevant questions such as how should humans interact with computers and how gender roles are maintained in technology-oriented occupations.
Heather Horst is a sociocultural anthropologist interested in the relationship between digital social relations and material culture.
Mizuko Ito is a Japanese cultural anthropologist specializing in technology use and the intersection between computers and the social sciences. Her primary interest is in how young people utilize media technology and how it can be used to engage students in education.
Daniel Miller is an anthropologist with a concentration in digital anthropology. His research includes the smartphone and perpetual opportunism, the intent and consequences of posting on social media in various geographical locations, and how hospice patients use media to socialize in the last stage of their lives.
Mike Wesch is a cultural anthropologist interested in how people share their lives, cultures, and beliefs through digital media.
^Weber, Gerhard; Bookstein, Fred (2011). Virtual Anthropology: A guide to a new interdisciplinary field. Springer. ISBN978-3211486474.
^ abZucker, Eve Monique; Simon, David J. (2020). Mass Violence and Memory in the Digital Age: memorialization unmoored. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. ISBN978-3-030-39395-3.
^Nardi, Bonnie (2010). My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft. University of Michigan Press. ISBN978-0472050987.
^ abBoellstorff, Tom (2010). Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton University Press. ISBN978-0691146270.
Bernal, Victoria. 2014. Nation as Network: Diaspora, Cyberspace, and Citizenship. University of Chicago Press,
Budka, Philipp and Manfred Kremser. 2004. "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
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.
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)
Wilf, Eitan Y. 2023. The Inspiration Machine: Computational creativity in poetry and jazz. University of Chicago Press.
