ANTH245 2007-10-30

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Do Virtual Communities Exist?

Recap

Databasification

• Impact of symbolic forms on how people are represented
  • The old cliché of being a number
  • But also a self as pattern

Institutions

• Corporations
• Governments

Ideologies

• Communicative transparency
• Privacy
• Bodies vs. People

Segue

• Today we consider the phenomenon of blogging -- a catch-all phrase -- and community
• What ideologies?
• A counter-institution?

Intro

YouTube and Community

• What defines a Community?

MySpace

• EMO

Daily Kos

• Video of conference
• Lieberman

Imagined Communities

• See Anderson1997

Community and Imagination

• Anderson's argument
• Applies to all forms of social organization
• Role of ritual is to create this consciousness

Imagination and Symbolic Form

• Newspapers
• The Novel
• Language
• Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
• Also: folklore, etc.

Community and Society

• Tonnies, 1887, Community and Society (excerpts)