Friday, August 08, 2008

An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube This informative and provocative video contains a Library of Congress presentation by Dr. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist at Kansas State University, who explores the digital ethnography of YouTube. Wesch and his students conduct their research using "participant observation" on YouTube. Wesch makes very effective use of XML, screen captures, music, pictures, re-mixing, and video presentation techniques to convey his analyses of the cultural significance of Web 2.0 media trends. Wesch's work is a fine example of using a medium to explain a medium--something like Marshall McCluhan using Television to explain the impact of TV on society. See Wesch's other videos, "The Machine is Us/ing Us" and "Information R/evolution," and consult Mediated Cultures for updates about the Digital Ethnography Working Group's studies. ____JH (Thanks to iThinkEd and openculture for citations of Wesch's work.) _____ "Web 2.0 is about linking people in ways that we've never been linked before." "Media mediate human relationships; when media change, human relations change." "YouTube exhibits a seriously playful participatory media culture." "Networked individualism." "The Web is us." 9:54:55 PM    COMMENT []