Localizing the Internet
Subtitle: an anthropological account
By: John Postill
Series: Anthropology of the media -- v. 5
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 180
ISBN-13: 9780857451972; 9780857451989
Subjects: Internet
Description: At a critical time of democratic reform across many parts of Southeast Asia, Subang Jaya is regarded as Malaysia's electronic governance laboratory. The focus of the study is Subang Jaya's field of residential affairs, a digitally mediated social field in which residents, civil servants, politicians, online journalists and other social agents struggle over how the locality is to be governed at the dawn of the 'Information Era.' Drawing on the field theories of both Pierre Bourdieu and the Manchester School of political anthropology, this study challenges the unquestioned predominance of 'network' and 'community' as the two key sociation concepts in contemporary Internet studies. The analysis extends field theory in four new directions, namely the complex articulations between personal networking and social fields, the uneven diffusion and circulation of new field technologies and contents, intra- and inter-field political crises, and the emergence of new forms of residential sociality.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: An Internet field; title: Localizing the Internet; title: Research setting; title: Smarting partners; title: Personal media; title: Internet dramas; title: Residential socialities; title: Conclusion.