This document provides information for an anthropology course titled "Anthropology of Media" taught at Trent University in 2015-2016. It outlines the course description, learning outcomes, assignments including essays and exams, required readings, and schedule. The course uses an anthropological lens to examine how media technologies shape and are shaped by various cultural contexts. It will consider the role of media in anthropological research and introduce theories and case studies on topics like globalization, audiences, embodiment, and digital ethnography. The instructor is Cameron Michael Murray and assignments will evaluate students' understanding, research skills, and ability to critically analyze media's role in different societies.

1. ANTHROPOLOGY
TRENT UNIVERSITY
ANTH 2312H: Anthropology of Media
2015-16 (FA)
Durham
Instructor: Cameron Michael Murray
Email: cameronmurray@trentu.ca
Lectures: Monday, 9:10am-12:00pm
Office: TBA
Office Hours: Mondays, 1:00pm-2:00pm or by appointment.
Academic Administrative Assistant
(Peterborough):
Judy Pinto
Email:
anthro@trentu.ca
Office Location:
DNA Building Block "C", Room C207
Telephone:
705-748-1011 ext. 7825
Academic Administrative Assistant
(Durham):
Joan Sirtonski
Email:
oshawa@trentu.ca
Office Location: Thornton Campus, Rm. 101 Telephone: 905-435-5102 ext.
5057
Course Description:
This course introduces students to a range of perspectives on the ways in which and
through which media technologies, and mediation more broadly, shape and get shaped by
diverse cultural and geopolitical contexts. This will include a consideration of the role of
new media devices, from notebooks and tape recorders to film, digital video and social
networking in the research and training practices of social and cultural anthropologists.
Indeed, media technologies simultaneously expand and limit our capacity for sensory
engagement with ourselves, our communities and our environments. At the same time,
these technologies are embedded in uneven dynamics of power, knowledge and access at
local, regional, national and transnational scales. How, why and to what extent particular
forms of media and mediation are produced, consumed and mobilized is always context-
dependent. This course will combine a strong foundation in socio-cultural anthropology
with insights from a range of fields, including media studies, linguistics, literature, history,
gender studies, philosophy and science studies. Students will be challenged to question not
only the role and uses of media and mediation in places as diverse as Northern Canada,
Egypt, Indonesia and Nigeria, but also how media devices have altered the scope, stakes
and relevant spatial and temporal contexts in which anthropologists do their work.

2. Required Texts:
Required readings will be made available via the course's Blackboard page. Suggested
readings and supplemental A/V materials will also be made available.
Learning Outcomes/Objectives/Goals/Expectations:
● Students will be given a strong and diverse foundation in theories and case studies
relevant to the anthropology of media.
● Students will learn how to develop novel research in the anthropology of media.
● Students will learn to challenge their preconceived understandings of the role of
media and mediation in the mundane lives of people all over the world.
Grades:
● Attendance and Participation - 20%
● Multimedia Online Responses (5 in total, each worth 2%) - 10%
● Personal Media Ethnography – 10%
● Research Essay Topic Description and Bibliography – 10%
● Research Essay (2500 words) – 30%
● Final Exam – 20% (to be written during the regularly scheduled exam period)
COURSE SCHEDULE AND READINGS
Note on Readings:
The goal is not to provide you with an overly heavy reading load. Instead, emphasis is on
introducing you to a collection of short articles and excerpts from books that reflect a
broad range of topics and perspectives on the relationship between media and diverse
cultural formations, as well as its role in the practice of anthropology itself. So, even if a
given week has three or four authors, the number of pages from each that you are
required to read is very manageable. As a result, there is no excuse for not coming to
class fully prepared to discuss the required readings. Your grasp of this material will be
reflected in your participation grade, as well as the grades you receive for online
responses and essay assignments.
Date TOPIC
1 09/14/15 Anthropology of Media and Mediation
Required Reading:
❖ Dominic Boyer (2012): “From Media Anthropology to the
Anthropology of Mediation”, from the Sage Handbook of
Social Anthropology, 383-392.
❖ Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, & Brian Larkin

3. (2002): “Introduction” to Media Worlds: Anthropology on
New Terrain, 1-25.
2 09/21/15 Media, Translation and Partial Perspectives
Required Reading:
❖ Marshall McLuhan (1964): “The Medium is the Message”
(23-36) and “Media as Translators” from Understanding
Media: The Extensions of Man.
❖ Gary Barwin, Craig Conley and Hugh Thomas
(2011):“Part Three”, from Franzlations: The Imaginary
Kafka Parables, 39-55
❖ John Berger (1972): Excerpts from “Chapter 1” (7-10, 16-20
& 24-28) from Ways of Seeing.
❖ Donna Haraway (1991): “The Persistence of Vision”, from
The Visual Culture Reader, 677-684.
3 09/28/15 Mass Media, Mass Culture
Required Reading:
❖ Siegfried Kracauer (1927): “The Mass Ornament”, The
Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, 75-89
❖ Debra Spitulnik (1993): “Anthropology and Mass Media”,
Annual Review of Anthropology 22, 293-315.
❖ Heike Becker (2012): “Anthropology and the Study of
Popular Culture: A Perspective from the Southern Tip of
Africa”, Research in African Literatures 43(4), 17-37.
4 10/05/15 Globalization and Cross-Cultural Media Circulation
Required Reading:
❖ Arjun Appadurai (1990): “Disjuncture and Difference in
the Global Cultural Economy”, Theory, Culture, Society (7),
295-308.
❖ Ross Haenfler (2015): “Punk Rock, Hardcore and
Globalization”, from The Sage Handbook of Popular Music,
278-297.
Suggested Reading:
❖ Mette Hjort (2015): “Introduction”, from Small Nation,
Global Cinema, 1-33.
10/12/15 THANKSGIVING – UNIVERSITY CLOSED
5 10/19/15 Interpretations and Active Audiences
Required Reading:
❖ Don Kulick and Margaret Wilson (1994): “Rambo's Wife
Saves the Day: Subjugating the Gaze and Subverting the
Narrative in a Papua New Guinean Swamp”, Visual
Anthropology Review 10(2), 1-13.
❖ Mark Allen Peterson (2010): “Getting the News in New

4. Delhi: Newspaper Literacies in an Indian Mediascape”, from
The Anthropology of News and Journalism: Global
Perspectives, 168-182.
10/26/15 READING WEEK – No Classes
6 11/02/15 Play In/Of/As Culture
Required Reading:
❖ Clifford Geertz (1973): “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese
Cockfight”, from The Interpretation of Cultures, 2-11.
❖ Casey O'Donnell (2014): “On Balinese Cockfights: Deeply
Extending Play”, Games and Culture, 406-416.
❖ Mia Consalvo (2012): “Confronting Toxic Gamer Culture: A
Challenge for Feminist Game Studies Scholars”, from ada: A
Journal of Gender, New Media and Technology
❖ Betsy Morais (2012): “Anthropological Video Games”, from
the New Yorker Magazine
❖ Simon Parkin (2014): “Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest”,
from the New Yorker Magazine
7 11/09/15 Embodiment and the Mediation of Expertise
Required Reading:
❖ Lisa Cartwright (1995): “Introduction” to Screening the
Body: Tracing Medicine’s Visual Culture, 1-16
❖ Marcel Mauss (1973): Excerpt from “Techniques of the
Body”, Economy and Society, 2(1), 70-76.
❖ Natasha Myers (2008): Excerpt from “Molecular
Embodiments and the Body-work of Modeling in Protein
Crystallography”, Social, Studies of Science, 38(2), 170-180.
8 11/16/15 Anthropology In/As Fiction
Required Reading:
❖ Henry Adam Svec (2014): “Artificially Intelligent Folk
Songs of Canada: FAQ”
❖ Kirin Narayan (1999): “Ethnography and Fiction: Where is
the Border?”, Ethnography and Humanism 24(2), 134-147.
❖ Joanna Russ (1975): The Female Man
9 11/23/15 Production, Mobility and Revolution
Required Reading:
❖ Jeffrey Juris, Maple Razsa (2012): “Occupy,
Anthropology, and the 2011 Global Uprisings” Field Sites –
Hot Spots, Cultural Anthropology Online
❖ Jorge Sanjinés (1979): “Problems of Form and Content in
Revolutionary Films”, from The New Latin American Cinema,
62-70.
❖ Eric Ross (1978): “Review of Blood of the Condor”,

5. American Ethnologist 80(1), 203-204.FILM SCREENING:
Blood of the Condor (1969), Jorge Sanjinés (DIR)
10 11/30/15 Anthropology as Mediated Practice PART 1: Photography,
Film and Sound
Required Reading:
❖ Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson (1977): “On the
Use of the Camera in Anthropology”, Studies in the
Anthropology of Visual Communication 4, 78-80.
❖ David Samuels, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa,
and Thomas Porcello (2010): “Soundscapes: Toward a
Sounded Anthropology”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 39,
329-345.
❖ Alison Griffiths (1996): “Knowledge and Visuality in Turn-
of-the-Century Anthropology: The Early Ethnographic Cinema
of Alfred Cort Haddon and Walter Baldwin Spencer”, Visual
Anthropology Review 12(2), 18-43.
11 12/07/15 Anthropology as Mediated Practice PART 2: Digital
Ethnography and Late Capitalism
Required Reading:
❖ Kim Fortun (2012): “Ethnography in Late Industrialism”,
Cultural Anthropology 27(3), 446-464.
❖ Tom Boellstorff (2012): “Rethinking Digital Anthropology”,
from Digital Anthropology, 39-61
❖ Cameron Michael Murray (2014): “Forecasting
Biomedical Futures: Design and Deliberation in Late
Capitalism”. Paper presented at the 2014 CASCA Conference at
York University (6 pages).
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND ASSIGNMENTS
ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION (20%)
It is absolutely crucial that students attend class. The attendance and participation
component of your grade is a reflection of the percentage of classes you attend and the
quality, not quantity, of your contributions to in-class and online discussions. Each week
will involve a brief lecture, including lecture slides and multimedia examples, designed to
facilitate a critically informed discussion with the entire class. Your participation can
include, among other things, questions and commentary relevant to the assigned readings,
including aspects of the materials you do not fully understand, as well as examples from
your own personal experiences. Missing a week or two of class will not have a major
impact on your grade, as long as you are actively participating when you do attend.

6. Missing three or more classes will result in losing up to half (10%) of your overall
attendance and participation grade.
CREATIVE ONLINE RESPONSES (5 total worth 2% each=10%)
This is your chance to engage critically and creatively with the readings. Using the
Blackboard interface, you’ll be asked to identify a passage from the required and/or
suggested readings that you find particularly insightful, maddening, moving, confusing or
otherwise generative of an emotional response. Your responses to these passages can take
many forms. You may decide to provide a brief academic analysis of the readings. You
could also write a poem, draw a picture, write a song, or otherwise engage creatively with
the course material. Alternatively, you may choose to provide examples of songs, films,
websites, video games, etc. that speak to the issues that interest you in the assigned
readings. In the latter case, you’ll be asked to explain how your example highlights or
challenges the core issues being raised in the readings. Be sure to provide links to your
examples, or attach the files within Blackboard. We’ll discuss how to do this during the
first class. You are also encouraged to engage with and comment on each others' creative
responses, as a way of generating both online and in-class discussions. Online engagement
will also count towards your overall participation grade (See above).
Due Dates: Beginning in the second week of class, you’ll be asked to provide five creative
responses over the course of the term. You can choose any five weeks that interest
you. Responses must be posted to Moodle before 9:00am on the day of the class
discussing those readings.
Personal Media Ethnography (10%)
This assignment is designed to get you to engage anthropologically with your mundane
entanglements with media devices and systems. Using Blackboard, you will write a
personal ethnography of your interaction with and through a variety of media devices.
How do specific technologies impact your sense of embodied self? What senses are
privileged? Which are left out? How do these technologies shape or get shaped by your
interactions with friends, family, co-workers and strangers?
Students can choose to use various media in the development of these ethnographic
renderings. You could, for instance, produce an ethnographic film, or a series of audio
recordings. These multimedia renderings will be support by a 1000-1500 word (4-6
double-spaced pages) paper, in 12 pt. TIMES NEW ROMAN font, with one-inch margins.
Due Date: October 8 at midnight via Blackboard
ESSAY DESCRIPTION AND TENTATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY (10%)
1) Description: The goal of this assignment is to make sure you are thinking well in
advance about your final research essay. You will be asked to provide a description of your

7. chosen topic, as well as a justification that expresses how the paper will deal with specific
course themes.
Your topic description and justification should be no more than 400 words (approx. 1 page
single-spaced).
2) Bibliography: You will provide at least five scholarly sources that will be used in your
research essay. These sources MUST come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals or books
published by recognized academic publishing houses. DO NOT CITE WIKIPEDIA. You
may also use Master’s theses or PhD dissertations if they are uniquely relevant to the
research topic. If you are unsure about a specific source, please ask the instructor before
the final due date for this assignment. Course readings DO NOT count towards your five
citations, though they may be used in your final essay. The bibliography can be formatted
in any style you choose (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) but must be consistent throughout.
Both the description and bibliography should be stapled together, and composed using 12
pt. TIMES NEW ROMAN font, with one-inch margins.
Due Dates: You are encouraged to submit at any point during the early part of the term,
but MUST submit in class by October 19th
. This will allow the instructor to raise
questions or concerns before you begin composing the final essay.
FINAL RESEARCH ESSAY (30%)
You are asked to research and comment on a specific topic relevant to. The key is to
incorporate course themes and lessons into an original piece of scholarship. The topic will
be chosen well in advance and approved by the instructor (See “Essay Description and
Tentative Bibliography” above). You must provide a coherent argument and a properly
formatted bibliography that includes at least five sources not included on the course’s
reading list, though you may also wish to use course readings in the paper. The instructor
will provide you with a more thorough outline and marking rubric for this assignment
during the third week of class.
Your essay will be 3000 words (approx. 11-12 double-spaced pages) long. The essays will
be composed using 12 pt. TIMES NEW ROMAN font, with one-inch margins.
Due Date: November 30th
ANTHROPOLOGY GUIDELINES
The Anthropology Department will not accept assignments by fax or e-mail. Please do not
slide any papers under my office door or the Department office door. Assignments
submitted in this way will be marked as late when they are retrieved. Deadlines are firm

8. and no extensions will be given unless there are extenuating circumstances and the
appropriate documentation (e.g. doctor’s note, obituary) is provided. ALWAYS keep a
backup copy of your work!
Faith Dates/Examination Periods:
Students who wish to observe their cultural religious holidays during the scheduled
examination periods should notify the Registrar's Office in writing. The Registrar's Office
will, wherever possible, incorporate these exceptions into the scheduling of examinations.
Where it is not possible to do so, the student should notify the instructor in order to make
alternative arrangements.
Research With Human Subjects: All research involving the use of human subjects
requires advance approval from the Departmental Ethics Committee.
Freedom From Discrimination: Every member of Trent University – faculty, staff or
student – has a right to freedom from discrimination in the University by another faculty,
staff or student member because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin,
citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, family status or disability.
(For details, please consult Trent’s Policy on Discrimination and Harassment.)
UNIVERSITY POLICIES
Academic Integrity:
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious
academic offence and carries penalties varying from failure on an assignment to expulsion
from the University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing with plagiarism
and cheating are set out in Trent University’s Academic Integrity Policy. You have a
responsibility to educate yourself – unfamiliarity with the policy is not an excuse. You are
strongly encouraged to visit Trent’s Academic Integrity website to learn more:
www.trentu.ca/academicintegrity.
Access to Instruction:
It is Trent University's intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a
student has a disability and documentation from a regulated health care
practitioner and feels that he/she may need accommodations to succeed in a
course, the student should contact the Student Accessibility Services Office (SAS)
at the respective campus as soon as possible, (Peterborough, Blackburn Hall,
Suite 132, 705-748-1281 or email sas@trentu.ca
For Trent University – Durham, Thornton Road, Room 111 contact 905-435-5102 ext.
5024 or email corinnphillips@trentu.ca Complete text can be found under Access to
Instruction in the Academic Calendar.

9. Safe Assignment:
Final essays must be submitted electronically to the SafeAssign drop box in Blackboard.
SafeAssign utilizes plagiarism-checking software. Further information about SafeAssign
will be provided on the class LearningSystem/Blackboard site.