Actual Lit Review

For my part of the overall class project on anonymity, I will examine the media's perceptions of the group Anonymous. This will involve scouring the Internet for media references of the group, analyzing how they perceive the group's actions against Scientology and many others, as well as examining anonymous responses posted at the end of those stories. I am hoping to find out whether the media comes to a general consensus. As of right now, the perceptions seem to fall under general labels as criminals, but reporters who dive into the world of hackers seem to come to more of a neutral understanding of the hacker culture.

Since there has been little written specifically about the group Anonymous, I broadened my article research to media perceptions of Internet hackers. I came up with a few general historical trends with my two readings. Hackers are alienated by the media and society because of their technological affinity. The media from the emergence of hackers did not understand  the motivations behind hackers' actions and therefore made possibly biased claims about hackers. The final trend I noticed was the snowball effect of the criminal prototype that the media formed while covering hackers' actions.

There are some problems with the selections I read, though. They are not recent, and have not addressed the changing culture of hackers and specifically the group Anonymous. Also, there is no whole-scale examination into just the media perception of hackers - the perceptions are just mentioned in a historical sort of reference.

I plan to fill in that gap by doing what I mentioned before. I will examine as many references to Anonymous in the media as I can and truly see where their ideas align and how similar they are, as well as seeing the interactions between media-types and people who claim to align themselves with the Anonymous movement.

Lit review (attempt No. 1)

I read two books (OK I read selections of two books) on Google Books on the media and society's perspectives on Internet hackers over the years. My project will focus on the media's portrayal of the group Anonymous, but there is already a precedence set by the media's interaction with hackers over the past two and a half decades.

The first selection I read was from "Hacker Culture" by Douglas Thomas. He argues that media and society failed to understand the basic motivations of hackers from the beginning of the technological transformation. For this reason, and the general lack of knowledge or understanding of technology, hackers and other tech gurus were given a cold shoulder because of their relationships with technology. While this was happening, hackers began to form their own communities, bridging the divide between culture and technology - eventually forming their own culture.

Thomas claimed the hacker culture arose when boys received a new medium thorough which they could assert their independence from parents and control over certain aspects of their life. This movement was not accepted though, as Thomas says that parents and society were afraid of the culture because they did not know how to respond to a situation that did not fall into a previous prototype of typical youth rebellion. They were called criminals - unfairly in their mind. A hacker said, "We explore ... we seek knowledge and you call us criminals." The hacker also says that the hackers crimes are of curiosity and outsmarting the status quo - which will not forgive the hackers.

Throughout the increased saturation of hackers, Thomas says the hackers began to change their attack methods. They shied away from more criminal acts and became more political - which could be compared to Chanology.

The second selection was from "The Impact of the Internet on Our Moral Lives" by Robert Cavalier. Cavalier explores the reasons why the societal perceptions of hackers moved from "heroes of the computer revolution" to criminals. One idea he presents is that hackers have changed to become more criminal and indiscriminate than they were in the past, or people have become much less tolerant of their actions. The latter could be explained, Cavalier conjectures, by the government and society's need to demonize a certain group of society - in this case the ever-expanding technological culture. 

Another reason for the transition falls squarely on the shoulders of the media. Cavalier suggests that the media's portrayal of hackers has always been connotative. The words hackers and virus carry with them strong and usually bad meanings. Throughout the years, the media has inundated the public with connotative language, portraying just the controversial, possibly criminal, actions of hackers since the mid-1980s because of the media's taste for the melodramatic. Because of this inundation, society has established a prototype, or common perception, of the hacker as a criminal.

These two readings gave me a historical perspective of why Anonymous is viewed the way it is. It is viewed by the media and society just like previous hackers have been viewed. The difference with Anonymous could just be the scale of connectivity and also the increased ability to find valuable information on the Internet.

Reflections on "Youtube and You" by Mike Wesch

When reading this article, at first I thought of the growing individualism that the Internet age was caused. I always saw Facebook, vlogging, and the ever-growing presence of Youtube as just a growing sense of individualism and in some cases narsicism. While I gave second thought to these ideas after Wesch's demonstrations and explanations of how some people are severely touched by many Youtube videos, I realized these are usually just heat of the moment emotions. The viewers probably tell a few friends about the video, but they forget about it after a few days. It reminds me of passengers on an airplane. You may get to know them and hear some interesting stories, but ultimately you will probably never see them again. They are what Tyler Durden (Edward Norton) calls them on the movie Fight Club - single-serving friends.

In many ways we are becoming a single-serving society, in which we have much more at our disposal, but we are getting further from the collective identity that the country was founded on. With a mutitude of mediums to spread our message anonymously and the mass of information on the Internet, we can learn nearly all we need to know through the web and feel like we can connect to people through the interwebs as well.

Who knows where this will go next, though. Just as Prof. Wesch states in the article, more research is needed to really discover that answer - if it still is intact by the time that research is completed.

Reflections on "No Sense of Place"

After reading chapter 2 of this book by Joshua Meyrowitz, my beleif of the importance of situations and people involved in the situation on a person's behavior is solidified. In terms of the article's influence on my project, which examines the mainstream media's perceptions of the online phenomenon Anonymous, I beleive it will help me with understanding both sides of the situation. On one side, media talking heads are offended by the actions on /b/ and Encyclopedia Dramatica because they are foreign and unruly to them. They have probably not been in a situation like what is on these websites, and therefore can only use opinions based on previous, but separate, experiences. On the other side, for the people involved in Anonymous or Chanology, they have been emersed in that cultural situation and understand the rules, language and typical behavior on those sites. Whether it is a release from their day lives or just something fun to do, these people have adopted a certain behavior that is completely different from what many people claim to be "ethical" behavior - and maybe much different from their own selfs during more confrontational situations.

The reading clearly falls in line with what one of our classmates mentioned about being anonymous on the message boards or on a protest when he mentioned saying things that he would not have in a situation in which his identity was known. It first people are hesitant to go against the common behavior in a certain situation, but once they see other people adapting their behavior and grow to understand that behavior, they become more apt to behave differently. But that certainly does not change most socially accepted behaviors. This is probably why people who are involved in anonymous raids and say and do things anonymously that they would not dare do in a monitored situation. That is why those same people are usually described as a seemingly normal person by their neighbors and friends - they are expected to act normally around these people.

Reflections on International Herald Tribune piece and "History of Media Ecology"

The IHT article really highlighted the dichotomy of Internet identity to me. On one side you have the hyper-evident identity seen on Facebook and Twitter that shows a representation of a person's real self, and on the other side you have the completely anonymous self that shows up often on Youtube and 4chan and other sites which represents a side that cannot come out within the confines of a social identity.

The article also highlights our conversations on micro-celebrity. The part of the article that stood out to me is when a person said they were angry about people posting pictures from years ago and talking about them, but she couldn't just leave Facebook because she wanted to know what they were saying about her. We want to be talked about and we want to be recognized - even if it is in an ambient medium. Facebook has become popular for this reason. People don't want to be alone just as the article concludes.

"History of media ecology"
One of the main themes I took from this piece was the transition in history from few, the elders, to many, even kids now have e-mail addresses and cell phones. As the media was proliferated throughout society, the people moved further and further apart, from spoken word to books to telephones to the Internet, in which speed is everything and no voice or physical interaction is involved.

Another thing that stood out to me is the mastering of the language it took to be a respected consumer of that media, but as time went on, that language became more and more widespread in society just like the forms of media. Now, in the Internet age, someone needs just to look up information regarding the medium's language on the Internet to participate actively in the medium.

It certainly makes me wonder if the new forms a media that will be developed in our lifetime will follow these same trends.

Reflections on "Post-human anthropology"

After reading Whitehead's article, I understand that in order to study the Internet anthropologically it makes sense that ethnographers need to create the location and means of study themselves to see it first hand. It's hard to just follow people on the Internet. because their is no basis of location or personal observation. There is the observation and control though with a personal creation like Blood Jewel. It is not a physical location, but it is a community that is centered around you - so all interaction is filtered through you.

I had no idea really what post-human meant before a few days ago, and this article certainly solidified my conception of that term. Like the author, I see it as not a reduction of humanity, but an extension of the human identity. As we have discussed in Digital Ethnography class, maybe the different identities we apply on the Internet is an extension of ourselves that was that few people knew existed before - or even now as we mentioned in class with the identity people portray on Facebook. That may be where the importance of anonymity may come into fruition. Without that anonymity, people would be scared of the social consequences of those actions. Now those actions are out in the open - good and bad.

Reflections on Silver's "Introducing Cyberculture"

One of the first things I noticed was the little amount of development in the field of cyber anthropology. It has taken years to study just a small portion of the overall Internet community. But that is not a criticism of the ethnographers; it is a testament to the massive breadth of the Internet's influence on the world. There is no way to study the Internet like a remote Indonesian tribe, especially with the ever-changing technology and design of the Internet.

The study of the virtual ethics code, which was mentioned by Silver in the article as a way some people have chosen to study Internet behavior, really interested me, as I have been interested the whole semester in how completely anonymous message boards like 4chan and semi-anonymous boards like comments on Youtube and online newspapers police the comments. What is unethical on 4chan - which little is - is much different on newspaper websites - which usually even monitor for vulgar language.

When Silver talks about the issues of race and gender, that really struck me. When navigating through the Internet, even on seemingly gender-neutral sites, comments seem to be slanted to more masculine and Caucasian influences. This is seen in the language on Anonymous message boards like 4chan who playfully call other posters fags - just like many college guys - and derogitory racial terms like nigger.

Reading Reflections: 2/9

When I signed up for this class, I had no anthropology experience - other than physical anthropology - and I had no idea what ethnography meant. When people asked me what the word meant, I just said it was anthropology so we must be studying people's behavior.

After reading the Hine article, I definitely have a much further understanding of ethnography as an in-depth study of a certain aspect of human behavior. It gives me more of an understanding of what this class is and what is expected of me as a student of this class.

That being said, I took several points from the article that we could use in the overall Digital Ethnography project. The thing that makes the Internet such a popular form of media is its interactivity - which was also mentioned in the "Wealth of Networks" article. We should not just find a way to make our own project interactive - as we have discussed over the listserv, but we also need to look at how anonymous interactivity has driven the increased use of the Internet, Youtube, Flickr, etc.

For my own project, I feel I could improve it dramatically by studying the interaction of "Anonymous" posters on media reports and how they support each other while not supporting each other at the same time. This would involve a more in-depth examination of say the Youtube video of Fox 11's report on Anonymous. I would examine the comments posted to find a pattern - if there is one - to the perception of the media report.

Falling in line with the "Wealth of Networks," this examination of media reports and the public's perception of them through online comments, will most likely agree with findings in the article that show that people form a weak relationship with people - maybe exchange a few comments with other posters - but quickly move on to other Internet endeavors.

Final trailer and proposal on the media

Anonymous is a group - not even a group but an ideal - shrouded in mystery. Few people have the same definition of Anonymous as it is known on the Internet. Some call them heroes, other call them criminals. Some call them teenage hooligans, others call them lost souls on the Internet. Those even in Anonymous struggle to form a cohesive identity.

As media outlets begin to delve into the world of Anonymous and trolls, they too are having trouble explaining the idiosyncrasies and identity of the Internet phenomenon. Media outlets exist to scour the world of information and sort out information they believe the public should or wants to know. They transpose this myriad of information into news stories that people can understand. In the case of Anonymous, there is no single identity — not even close — therefore there is no common stance from the media.

The media has called trolls "hackers on steroids" and questioned if Anonymous' actions against Scientology are hate crimes; they are obviously interested in this issue and want the public to know. Are these fair presumptions? Or are they taking trolling for lulz out of proportion? Is it just a bunch of kids pulling pranks on their peers and elders like the kids of the past putting cherry bombs in mailboxes or ding-dong ditching? My research will focus on the legitimacy and objectiveness of these media reports. I will determine which side of the issue they fall on - and how the masses respond to that.

Updated second trailer on media

Second attempt at a trailer