Wilson, Samuel M. and Leighton C. Peterson. (2002). “The Anthropology of Online Communities.”

Wilson, Samuel M. and Leighton C. Peterson. (2002). “The Anthropology of Online Communities.”

In their article Wilson and Leighton raise these questions: How have scholars approached
online communities and online communication in general? Is the concept of community
itself misleading? How are issues of power and access manifested in this
arena?

They state that the shortage of “mainstream anthropological
research on the Internet and computing reflects the fact that anthropology has not
played a central role in studies of mass media in the past; anthropologists have positioned
media as peripheral to culture.”

They argue that “anthropology is uniquely suited for the study of socioculturally situated
online communication within a rapidly changing context. Anthropological
methodologies enable the investigation of cross-cultural, multiileveled, and multisited
phenomena…” This is changing as “Recently there have been calls for an ethnographic approach to the issues of new media, an approach that is timely and indispensable as we begin to theorize the sociocultural
implications of new communication technology.”



Kollock, Peter and Marc A. Smith. (1999). “Communities in Cyberspace.”

The authors show two visions associated with description of social networks. One, optimistic that “highlights the positive effects of networks and their benefits for democracy and prosperity” (p. 22), the other, pessimistic, shows individuals who “are trapped and ensnared in a ‘net’ that predominantly offers new opportunities for surveillance and social control” (p. 4).

They provide examples to illustrate participation in community networks’. the Big Sky Telegraph community networks that managed to attract less than 1/3 of potential users of one-room teachers in Montana was a failure, and the success story of the Jervey Place taskforce that attracted a host of help from prominent architect and community leaders, which would not be possible without the Internet.

I agree with their conclusion that the overly optimists view of new technology is not the serious analysis but prediction. In the past, new technologies such as “the telegraph, radio, movies, and television did create revolutions, but no the ones that were expected” (p.23).