CMA History 2

In a 1993 Annual Review of Anthropology article, Spitulnik writes: "There is as yet no 'anthropology of mass media'" (p. 293). The only Internet mention is a brief note in the conclusion which says: "In our own society the technologies of the future are here today: interactive television, virtual reality, electronic town halls, digital compression, direct satellite broadcasting, and the fax. Significantly, many of these new developments supplant the 'mass' of mass media, making them more individual and interpersonal. One wonders how they will affect our ways of relating to one another, and our ways of understanding ourselves" (p. 307).

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imagining the kinds of communities that human groups can create with the help of these emerging technologies" (p. 218).

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What finally put the nail in the coffin for BBSs, BITNET, and FIDO in the mid 1990s was Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) being added to web browsers

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October 1995, Farnel and Huntley wrote "Ethnography goes interactive." In the article, they explore the possibilities opened up by creating CD-ROM ethnographies. The advantages include seeing the motion of participants and the non-linear format allowing multiple audiences to be addressed.

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In 1996, Patricia Gonzalez wrote an article entitled: "Anthropological Research and Collaborative Computing." She saw a need to anthropology to get involved with cyberspace: "

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The embeddedness of advanced information technology in daily experience and human routines is often overlooked in objectified or romanticized characterizations of cyberspace and on-line interaction. To understand the human context of advanced information technology, studying the full scope of related activities is necessary. Anthropologists must be adequately trained in technical areas to affect system design. They need a strong theoretical framework such as activity theory for studying technology usage" (p. 34).

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