People Are Not Fixed Media by Ritwik Banerji
Ritwik published an article titled People Are Not Fixed Media on Platypus, the CASTAC (Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing) blog.
Ritwik's article describes our fixed media are the dominant media form social scientists and humanists use to depict human practice. He argues that if the goal is to portray human beings as they are, the dominant media form used to do this in the humanities and social sciences is incommensurate with the basic indeterminacy and reactivity of the subject they attempt to represent: the human being.
From the article:
"As basic as this point is, while ethnographic fixed media allow the viewer or listener to see or hear a social environment, these fixed media are unable to see, hear, or respond to the viewer or listener. As a result, the viewer or listener does not experience the basic consequences and contingencies that arise as other human beings see, hear, and otherwise sense their presence, an experience that is a fundamental element of sensation as a cultural practice. To put it very directly, people are not fixed media."
To read the full article, please visit here!