Saturday, December 07, 2002

Romancing the Blog

Found a fascinating blog by a social anthropologist at the University of Surrey who has been conducting research on "the culture of weblogging in London" since August 2001. He references all the right books and seems to know what he's talking about, although his recent entries are primarily shout-outs and thank-yous to the people he interviews.

Not much out there on the American side, which isn't surprising; social anthroplogy and, more specifically, the media studies subgenre thereof barely exists here in the states. The closest we come is what is often wrongly called media literacy but is really just a simple critical viewing curriculum, so narrow as to teach only "how TV brainwashes you and what to do about it." As if the concept of media ecology and the facts of cultural feedback in communications media were interesting but esoteric; as if most of our lives aren't driven by the ways we share and create knowledge; as if we weren't in a sea-change right now from writing and print to digital in which the very foundation of our values and assumptions has begun to shift. Bah.

Interesting factoid: to the best of my knowledge, the U.S. is the only English-speaking country which does not have a substantive media and communications curriculum as a required part of the high school curriculum.

posted by boyhowdy | 12:28 PM |

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