ABSTRACT
Media exerts a powerful influence on cultures, shaping ideas and changing practices. Today’s new technologies such as the Internet and social media provide people unprecedented access to information and the ability to shape the public sphere. Yet these technologies have also reinforced structures of inequality and created new ones, as women, the poor, the elderly, and inhabitants of the Global South are less likely to reap the benefits of new media. Some Indigenous groups have used media technologies to advance their causes, although these efforts are not without pitfalls. States also make use of technology for social engineering projects, while bloggers document abuses by state forces and develop networks that have on occasion toppled governments. New media have also transformed people’s intimate lives and enabled them to form new social relations. No technology is ever neutral, how people use it and to what ends, whether to benefit or harm, are matters that anthropologists are particularly well placed to understand.
