Digital Anthropology and Ethics of Online Data

Digital Anthropology and Ethics of Online Data: A case study of Aylan Kurdi on social media:

Digital technologies and social media platforms have greatly impacted the reproduction and sharing of cultural artifacts. Images, both photographs and videos circulate from mainstream media sources to personal social network accounts. The first section of this talk is concerned with how social media platforms have become an integral and essential part of the media flow systems that provide cultural and financial opportunities for different actors. The second section of the talk presents a case study of the Kurdish-Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi’s death mediated online. It focuses on the ethical challenges that researchers, both digital ethnographers and anthropologists encounter when collecting and analyzing digital data. A major contribution of anthropology has been a holistic approach which takes into consideration the wider social contexts and relations of practices. The third and final section sums up the impact of digital anthropology/ethnography on our conception of anthropology and what it means to be a « connected human ».

Fatima Aziz is PhD candidate at École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales and part-time lecturer in the Global Communications department at AUP. Her PhD and research focus on identity and sociality as co-constructed practices shaped through online interaction and media policies. 

This lecture is sponsored by the Civic Media Lab.