Mapping Media Anthropology: Thinking through the Possibilities and Shifts

This paper is on the trajectories, possibilities and shifts of media anthropology or anthropology of media. Media anthropology is a ‘buzz word’, in discussions on media or communication studies. A niche for media anthropology is sought within the genealogy and critique of media theory to provide a muchneeded context and conceptual clarity for the same. Media anthropology's theoretical and historical location is sought in the performative and embodied aspects of media studies. Mapping of media anthropology debates from the 90’s to the contemporary Indian context is done to understand what it like is to do media anthropology. Media anthropology, and its whats and hows, are placed between technologies and mediations to think through the constitutions of media and media theories. The paper asks, ‘should media theory pave a theoretical and conceptual way for media anthropology’?

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