Subject
digital culture, visual culture, Malaita, Solomon Islands, [SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology

Domains
Anthropologie, Culture, Sciences Sociales, Informatique & télécommunications, Sciences humaines

Description

International audience The people of the Lau Lagoon in North East Malaita adopted mobile phones, including smart phones, en masse between 2012 and 2014. While telephonic activity has been restricted due to prohibitively high operational costs these devices have resulted in an explosion of visual media production and consumption, jpegs, gifs and mp4s or images both still and moving. This presentation focuses on the side of consumption and on a comparative analysis of the locally celebrated genre of Western, or cowboy, movies versus the irritatingly alien genre of science fiction, or new technology movies. It explores a crisis of confidence, the renegotiation of ‘fact and fiction’ in response to the Lau Lagoon’s sudden exposure to global visual media.

Keywords
Anthropology, Ethnology

Language
English (en-GB)

Creators
Hobbis, Geoffrey

Contributors
Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie (CREDO) ; École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), The British Museum

Sources
Melanesian Research Seminar, https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01276378, Melanesian Research Seminar, The British Museum, Jan 2016, London, United Kingdom

Relation

Coverage
Melanesia

Name of newspaper