From Culture to “Cyberculture”: the technological mediation in the construction of knowledge and the new ways of sociability

Abstract

It is necessary that Anthropology tackles the socio-cultural phenomena and processes that carry new meanings, and/or show up as the result of technological mediation. The media represent a relevant issue for Anthropology as an object of study, as a support, and as a research tool. The social and cultural uses of video cameras, the internet and of cell phones are of anthropological concern. Moreover, the anthropologist can also carry a camera in order to record social events that take place during his/her fieldwork, and subsequently reflect upon this methodological practice. Therefore, the anthropological research work on and through audiovisual media requires a review of those concepts and categories which articulate theoretical and methodological knowledge, and which intend to shed light on the new social experiences of individual and collective subjects in our contemporary world. The concepts discussed throughout the present article –culture; cyber-culture, mediation, (commodity) fetishism– represent analytical tools to understand the new ways of constructing knowledge and sociabilities on the internet.