This is a video "trailer" created for Dr. Michael Wesch's "Digital Ethnography" course at Kansas State University.  We're studying how we are mediated in our everyday lives and the impact that has on our education system.  Credits for the music belong to Strange Zero for the song "Mirteaux," on the album "Newborn Butterflies."  This video is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.  I'd be happy to let anyone remix it -- just drop me a message =)

Purpose

Hello =)

My name is Steven Kelly, and if you happen to be reading this--well, thanks!  This is my first blog, so take it easy on me.  I'm currently in my last semester at Kansas State University, having spent the last four-and-a-half years studying anthropology, political science, history, and international studies.  I must admit that the reason I started this blog is because it was an assignment given to me in one of my anthropology classes this semester, Digital Ethnography with Dr. Michael Wesch.  In essence, this class is about learning how to utilize digital technologies in performing ethnographic research--a form of anthropological research that involves studying a particular culture or subculture from that culture's point of view, on its own terms.  More specifically, Dr. Wesch will lead a small group of students and me to better understand how we are "mediated" in our culture (i.e. how the various technological/digital media that permeate virtually every level of our society affect how we live) and how others in other cultures are mediated as well.  It's going to be some adventure, one that will likely push the boundaries of my intellect as well as my (sadly, but not sadly) limited technological skills.  I hope you'll keep up with my blog and share in this adventure with me =)

All this being said, it's perfectly natural if you're a "smidge" curious about the title of my blog and my first post (the selection from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings), since the connection between them and this class is relatively obscure.  To start with, I'm a complete Tolkien nut.  Don't get me wrong--in virtually all other aspects I'm about as normal an almost-23-year-old college guy as you get (including my fondness for cold beer, late-night pepperoni and jalapeno pizza, football games, Ridley Scott films, and so forth).  But when it comes to Tolkien's fantastical realm of Middle-earth, my "nerd factor" is through the roof.  One of my informal life missions is to show that loving LOTR and fantasy fiction/film is not abnormal at all--but my thoughts on that matter is probably best left to another post (or another blog altogether, really).  For now, just take my word for it ;) 

To get back to the original curiosity, the reason I chose to lead off my blog with this particular passage from LOTR is that it is a great example of how people's lives in Middle-earth are/were/would-have-been mediated.  The palantiri, or seeing stones (trans. as "far-seeing" in Quenya Elvish), were about as close to the Internet as the denizens of Middle-earth got.  These dark spheres of crystalline stone, hailing from the ancient days of that fantasy realm, allowed the possesor/viewer to instantly communicate with the other stones and to see people and places far away.  If you're familiar with the story, you'd know that they are very dangerous and powerful tools that were exceptionally rare, exceptionally valuable, and used only by those of exceptional will and skill.  In that way they are very different from most digital technologies today, which are now about as common as table salt.  The principle, however, remains essentially the same.  The palantiri mediated the lives of people in Middle-earth just as many of our technologies mediate our lives in the actual world today.  In both cases there are also benefit and pitfalls of using these technologies--what matters is to determine how to effectively and responsibly use them.  

So, there it is.  I greatly look forward to exploring the methods of digital ethnography and researching how people are mediated in their daily lives.  Don't fret--I won't incorporate applications from Middle-earth in many of my posts from here on out.  It would be a disservice to force the two subjects together when the connection isn't substantially there.  (I would, however, expect to see me relate some of my interests in Middle-earth with a possible individual research project in this class: online fan communities.)  Feel free to comment on my posts and provide constructive criticism if you'd like.  Like I said, I'm new to this kind of thing and would appreciate feedback.  

And with that, I'll sign off and end with one of my favorite quotations that I think is wonderfully applicable here.  "'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door,' [Bilbo] used to say.  'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"

Inspiration

“‘The palantiri came from beyond Westernesse, from Eldamar.  The Noldor made them.  Feanor himself, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago that the time cannot be measured in years…

‘What did the men of old use them for?’ asked Pippin, delighted and astonished at getting answers to so many questions, and wondering how long it would last.

‘To see far off, and to converse in thought with one another,’ said Gandalf.  ‘In that way they long guarded and united the realm of Gondor.  They set up Stones at Minas Anor, and at Minas Ithil, and at Orthanc in the ring of Isengard.  The chief and master of these was under the Dome of Stars at Osgiliath before its ruin.  The three others were far away in the North.  In the house of Elrond it is told that they were at Anuminas, and Amon Sul, and Elendil’s Stone was on the Tower Hills that look towards Mithlond in the Gulf of Lune where the grey ships lie.

‘Each palantir replied to each, but all those in Gondor were ever open to the view of Osgiliath.  Now it appears that, as the rock of Orthanc has withstood the storms of time, so there the palantir of that tower has remained.  But alone it could do nothing but see small images of things far off and days remote.  Very useful, no doubt, that was to Saruman; yet it seems that he was not content.  Further and further abroad he gazed, until he cast his gaze upon Barad-dur.  Then he was caught!’”

~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers (2004 [1954]), pp. 597-8.  New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.