Comments on: How I Would Use Twitter To Take Over Anthropology, If That Was What I Wanted To Do

By: What is Anthropology Report? | Anthropology Report

What is Anthropology Report? | Anthropology Report — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 20:08:28 +0000

[…] I view the situation a bit differently, in that online anthropology may be in transition between the old model of listserv sacrifice–where no one has the time to manage a 20,000-person list–toward a new model of entrepreneurial curation, where a 20,000-person list is an enormous resource. Of course, that runs straight into the power-grab issue, or as Rex once warned: How I Would Use Twitter To Take Over Anthropology, If That Was What I Wanted To Do. […]

By: Jason Antrosio

Jason Antrosio — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:51:45 +0000

I’m no apologist for Twitter, but I’ll take the optimistic side and say that the twitter-blog sphere can open new possibilities for general anthropological commentary and intervention in public debate. My limited peering into the anthropology Twitter feed (I’m not on, although I’ve recently been encouraged to join) reveals an already-occupied space as well as some familiar faces from anthro blogs, so that it would be difficult for one person to dominate, even the mighty Rex. Many feeds are linked to blogs, which in turn point to other ensembles of work, even written material. It may already be that getting plugged or panned on a blog is of bigger consequence than a traditional book review, but I’m not sure this has to limit the field nor does it seem to allow one individual or group to dominate.

By: ryan a

ryan a — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 07:04:22 +0000

“So much of contemporary work these days consists of pieces so short and without a ‘boring’ literature review that you must carefully read between the lines to understand what went on in the room where the conference on global assemblages was held.”

Hmmm. I don’t know. Is there any reason to assume that a long, drawn-out text is necessarily better than a shorter work? Not really. Just as there’s no reason to assume that someone who finds some value in using twitter has suddenly lost regard for books like Europe and the People Without History (or insert other lengthy anthropological/ethnographic text).

There are always going to be fads and technofiles, but as Adam F argues above, I don’t think things are quite this bleak. Besides, my guess is that the reaction to twitter is going to be a trend of mega-ethnographies.

By: MTBradley

MTBradley — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:49:43 +0000

#titlesmadeofwin

By: Adam Fish

Adam Fish — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 03:49:30 +0000

Oh Lord…Rex, I love your experimental and impulsive posts and for this reason I love your ridiculous cynicism here. Come on, you’ve read everything so I’ll just remind you of Stu Hall’s work on resistant and oppositional readings and R. Williams work on emergent phenomena. Twitter is an insurgent media that impacts the collective media ecology but is rarely citable or serious in situ. We are more critical of 140 characters today then we are Olbermann and O’Reilly yesterday. Give your anthro-audience credit, we aren’t doped by techno-fanaticism.

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 03:44:23 +0000

@Dara thanks for the link to your piece. Very interesting.

By: Rex

Rex — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:21:25 +0000

sorry I’m r3x0r (I corrected the post).

@Dara you head it here first — I was the last to think of it! Great post on Habermas btw.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:18:31 +0000

I can’t find you on twitter. Can you post a link?

By: Dara

Dara — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:58:45 +0000

“The result would be something like that Stanislaw Lem short story where the the guy dresses up as a robot to investigate the world of evil robots only to find out that it is populated entirely by people dressed up as robots trying to hide that fact from each other: one would have the constant sense that there was a consensus about what was new and important that everyone else was reading or invested in.”

This is actually what’s been happening in the DC-pundit Twittersphere for some time: everyone quickly comes up with a “take” on the latest development in the news cycle, even as they claim that they’re not slaves to the news cycle. The “takes” from those with the largest audiences, of course, are most influential. Conventional wisdom builds itself in real time.

I actually wrote about this (in particular, the power asymmetries you hit on in this post) last year, in the wake of the fake Habermas Twitter account: http://wunderkammermag.com/politics-and-society/real-jhabermas-twitter-scandal#comments