One more time something on the workshop ↑Understanding media practices at the ↑9th EASA Biennial Conference. Very interesting to me is ↑Elisenda Ardevol‘s paper on “Game pleasures and media practices”, as it’s very close to my project:  This paper will explore the concept of media practice related to the social uses of the new technologies of information and communication in everyday life, focusing on a specific cultural form such as videogames. Videogames can be seen as an intersection of two different logics: narrative representation, characteristic of the audiovisual culture, and the pleasure of play, characteristic of the game culture. Playing … Continue reading →

  My colleague ↑Birgit Bräuchler, author of ↵Cyberidentities at War, courteously invited me to send in a proposal for a workshop called ↑Understanding media practices, which she will organize together with John Postill at the ↑9th EASA Biennial Conference which will take place from September 18th through September 21st 2006 in Bristol, UK. As the deadline is tomorrow, I today got the seats of my pants dirty and went to the writing desk. In case of the EASA rejecting my proposal, feel free to contact me and to talk me into my writing the paper for your conference or publication … Continue reading →

  Now the website of my seminar ↑Onlinegemeinschaften [online communities] is online as well. Here’s the seminar’s English abstract:  The Internetinfrastructure is the basis for a whole range of sevices (like e.g. www, e-mail, IRC, IM, P2P, Usenet, ftp, etc.). This “new media”—mediators unknown before—do not only enable communication, but especially interpersonal and social interaction. If said interaction reaches a certain density, if the familiarity and mutual trust among the members of a group grows beyond a certain point, then something akin to social structure and culture begins to emerge—things anthropologists are interested in. Compared to the traditional “objects” of … Continue reading →

  It’s up; the website of my seminar ↑Computerspiele [computergames], which I will celebrate during the upcoming term is online. The seminar’s complete reading list consists of texts which are available online. Full bibliographical references and links are at the site. Here’s the seminar’s English abstract:  With contemporary sociocultural anthropology’s opening-up towards modernity, commodities, their consumption, appropriation, and meaning in diverse cultural milieus and contexts came into focus. Computergames are a true global commodity which not only diffuses via container-shipment, but via the Internet, too—and they are by no means manufactured and played in Europe and North-America only. The artefact … Continue reading →