4.Ontological Turns

   “Culture” is one of the most fundamental concept in anthropology and it is always the subject in the course of the development of anthropology. Ontological turn which relates to anthropological and philosophical disciplines implies that culture are bound with metaphysic and leads scholars to focus more on being in the world. People with different perspectives view the world with various world views which are relative with different living conditions or education quality. However, the world is real existing and all the subjects in the world are perceived by different degrees of cognition.  Paolo Heywood (2017)states that “cultures” may differ, but nature does not. Ontological turn proposes that we get rid of the metaphysical implications and accept all the different perceptions of the world because all the world views are equal and valid.

   Our perception and description of a phenomena or things depend on themselves. Paolo Heywood argues that culture is a kind of form used to describe a phenomenon which does not exist. While the conception of nature is cultivated by human beings and the relative nature would be in the particular cultural phenomena. The ability of understanding of anthropologists would be limited if they follow the path of particular culture. Because in some context, the difference and similarity could shift across nature and culture. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro put forward the concept of “multinaturalist” (1988). For example, the Europeans and Americans in terms of living areas or demographic composition are different species while they share the similar culture, perception and soul. In this way, culture and nature are not absolutely opposite and they could overlap. What’s more, all the subjects could share the similarity with others but the subjects themselves could be different. For instance, Americans and Amerindians who live in the relative same region naturally while their cultures still have their own features. Although all the perceptions and understandings could be accepted in the course of researching, the difference and similarity of cultures and nature could still hinder the ability of anthropologists.

Reference：

Bessire, L. & D. Bond. (2014) Ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique. American Ethnologist 41.

Paolo Heywood. (2017) Ontological Turn. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology.

Tom Boellstorff. (2016) For Whom the Ontology Turns. Theorizing the Digital Real.

3.Platform Analysis

Platforms contain many tangible and intangible meanings. For instance, the computational meaning of platforms refer to infrastructures that support the designs and use of particular applications. While in the architectural meaning, it is a concrete platforms (a physical structure) where lecturers could address audience openly. In the form of political meaning, platform is not only a functional shape but also a progressive and egalitarian arrangement for supporting whom stand on it (Tarleton Gillespie, 2010). The emergence of Web.2.0. provides more opportunities for users to engage in relatively democratic cyberspace freely. For example, YouTube as the top video watching platform creates an open-armed and egalitarian environment for users and producers. In participatory culture, YouTube is a more democratic platform which is not controlled by elitists gatekeepers. Although it operates on the basis of advertisements, YouTube keeps B to B connection with advertisers and offers them resources to contact with users. Users could leave comments on videos or even themselves could be video producers. Video producers are empowered by the support of views and could find mass of niche and opportunities. All of these conditions break the control of traditional media and with media emergence cyberspace could be more and more democratic.

However, in these democratic media platforms there are still some drawbacks behind. For instance, some creative and original ideas of audience are hard to be protected. Some of them may be plagiarized and applied for commercial use without creators’ consent. These creators work like free labors because they are not paid some money or give certificate for their work. In some degree it could be regarded as a kind of plagiarism and exploitation.

In platform analysis, configuration is a device which articulates the relationships between the visible figuration of a social-technical system and something invisible behind the system (Suchman, 2012). These two parts fold and mix together and create a heterogeneous relationship with each other. YouTube platform as I mentioned is sponsored by advertisements. As Burgess and Green(2008:1) state that YouTube provides “patronage” for user expression. Behind some of vivid and well-organized videos, advertisers are likely to pay much money for these video produces and in much degree they would control the main purpose of video. For example, some vloggers who make videos about cosmetics and advertisers provide free cosmetics products and a bunch of money for these vloggers who own quite a lot of fans. Viewers who watched the promotion would buy these products owing to their trust to these vloggers. However, the video producers are more likely not to use these products at all. In some degree, advertisements behind the platform materialize and commercialize the original intention of producing videos.  

Therefore, in these participatory platforms, further innovations and regulations are needed.

Reference:

Cammaerts, B. (2008) ‘Critiques on the Participatory Potentials of Web 2.0’, Communication, Culture & Critique 1(3): 358–77.

Jean Burgess and Joshua Green .(2008) YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture.

Tarleton Gillespie. (2010) The politics of ‘platforms’, New Media & Society, Cornell University, USA.

2.Visual Analysis

Photograph is not only restricted to their visual meaning but also its cultural meanings and associations. To fully understand a photograph, its denotation and connotation are expected to be used. Barthes(1964) argues that images can signify but never autonomously. The polysemic photograph contains multiple meanings that are understood by different viewers with various cognition. Therefore some viewers would overly interpret the inherent meaning of photograph. The excess of significations sometimes are confused and vague. I argue that over-interpretation is a pseudo concept because viewers’ interpretation could only be judged “good”, “ordinary” or even “bad”. It is well-known that over-interpretation derives from original meaning of the author. When viewers interpret the meaning of a photograph, in most cases, they discuss and analyze the photograph itself instead of returning to the author’s initial intention. Once a photograph is taken or drawn, it is a real-existing object interpreted by different viewers from various and multiple angles. Andrei Tarkovsky said once a film is created, it belongs to the audience instead of the producer which is similar with the photograph. Viewers are able to understand and interpret the photograph from different perspectives with different levels of cognition. W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. (1954) put forward the concept of intentional fallacy which means that people are used to describing the problem inherent in trying to judge a work of art by assuming the intent or purpose of the artist who created it. When viewers are understanding a photograph, they do not need to regard the author’s intention as the only standard answer. Therefore, the interpretation of a photograph would not be right or wrong and the over-interpretation would not exist.

Donald Davidson(1984) argues that in his Radical interpretation, interpreters could not understand each other totally and no photograph could be interpreted absolutely which in some degree is unnecessary. I argue that interpretation are supposed to be a dynamic and multidimensional process rather than absolute and static. Each photograph has infinite possibilities to be interpreted and understood. However, it does not mean that interpretation could be arbitrary without limitations. Some viewers not only misunderstand the original meaning of the author but also conjecture groundlessly which could cause dispute and bad interpretation.

In conclusion, over-interpretation of a photograph is hard to be judged and understanding depends on viewers themselves. In most cases, creators are likely to produce a photograph with more inherent elements for viewers to explore and interpret. Interpretations are not supposed to be restricted from a single angle and have a standard of evaluating.

Reference:

Davidson, Donald. (1984) “Radical interpretation”, in: Donald Davidson, Inquiries into truth and interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 125-139.

Huge McCabe.(2009) The Rhetoric Of The Image.

Roland Barthes.(1964) Elements of Semiology.

Personally, I think there is a paradox in photography towards its relationship with reality. Firstly, compared with text, the information in photographs seems to be more authentic. This is because the images may be more convincing than the descriptions in words. Even in the novel 1984, a photo is the only evidence which can represent ‘truth’. However, photographs can also be a tool manipulated by people to produce the illusion. Advertisement is a good example to illustrate this point since producers always create wonderful scenes to attract consumers. The advertisement of Ford mentioned in the class, for instance, tries to use an image to prove that if you bought the car in the advertisement, you will live a brilliant life. This image is not real, but a fake ‘reality’ created by using symbols like canoes, sea, and cliff. This paradox may also explain why images have become a common tactic for producers to promote their products. They associate their products with signs that have good meanings. These associations are not necessarily real, but are processed by subjectivity. Because people unconsciously consider their visual experiences as authentic experiences, they are more likely to rise to the baits of advertisers. From this, I would like to talk about the meaning of photography. It is no doubt that in the overwhelming consumer society, people mainly focus on the functional meaning of images which can bring them benefits. As a spectator, those images seem dispensable to me. Just like what Barthes says: “I look at them without assuming a posture of existence.” To be honest, nowadays most of the photos on the Internet seem dispensable. They show the individuals’ catering to signs and the merchants’ eagerly conquering consumers by using signs. These signs construct what Debord calls “spectacles” (Debord, 1995). Then there is an inversion between spectacle and reality. Therefore, it is hard to say that this kind of photographs is meaningful because even the reality is undermined. Besides, some of the photos make me feel extremely disgusted. Nobuyoshi Araki, who is a famous Japanese photographer, is an example. I often feel angry about his works for his disrespect to the subjects who are photographed and his insult to women. It is a truth that he is touted as a rare master of photography and many people uphold for him by saying that all he did was for art. I still cannot see his works as meaningful because photographers do not have the right to demand their subjects to sacrifice for their own works. By contrast, I love photos which can “animate me” (Barthes, 1982, P.20). From them, I can feel the charm of humanity or nature. They are always meaningful for me.     

1.Difficulties in Research

There are many difficulties that researcher may face when doing researches. One of the difficulties is to identify and delineate the research problems which could imply the purpose of the research. A meaningful research problem on the basis of existing knowledge could be helpful to further researches and investigation which is even deviated from norms and standards. In my view, a well-defined problem is supposed to be viable and valuable. The problem put forward should be supported by efficient data base or textual analysis materials which are relevant to it. What’s more, for researches, it is difficult to select target data because there is much data available online. The chosen data should be relevant to the problem and become valuable evidence to improve the problem. Moreover, the defined problem could direct the readers’ attention which should be not only concise but also logic. I argue that the purpose of the problem should be worth of future researches. Precise purpose of problem contributes to make the structure of the research process even without step by step procedures and could offer   specific indications for researchers and expand scope of researches.

In the process of doing researches, how to find study participants is another problem. The suitable target participants could consist of your base data and expand possibility and scope of the researches. On the premise of saving money and energy, Internet is a good choice for many student researchers.  

It should be noted that the problem put forward should be ethical. Researchers are faced with ethical moral constraints in all stages of the study, from designing the problems to report the analysis. These include anonymity, confidentiality, informed consent and so on. Researchers have the responsibility to follow the ethical guidelines. Whatever in qualitative studies or in quantitative, researchers are supposed to consider the target audience not just focus on results of researches.