Category Insight

This report and film is the result of our ethnographic observational study of the Volvo Subject60 tour in Berlin, London, Milan, Paris and Madrid. At each event experiments were weaved into the party environment to trigger the participant’s naughty behavior. An anthropologist was engaged at each event to execute observations with focus on behavior, facial expressions, party mood and reactions to the ‘hidden’ experiments.

Media, especially for young users, is about a complete integration with everyday life, which constantly is ongoing. It is no longer about the “new” in media technologies that should be problematizied in order to understand the use and impact – it’s about to see media as a cultural expression that mediates social relations. Only then one can also understand how media works and how it affects everyday life. This is what “old” media logic has difficult to relate to. Today they still use rigid metrics that fail to measure a total integrated behavior.

By using ethnography one can identify key patterns in the users´ emotinal, functional and social needs. That is what real “trendspotting” is – detailed analysis of behaviour in order to predict change. One have to know that human behavior is likely to lead to some development, such as the human need for comfort is often a stronger driving force rather than attitude and lifestyle.

The term Generation “Noll koll” is spreading. Our expression refer to the notion that we have a younger generation that doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s used as an allusion to how younger people define media, namely “to know what’s going on”, or in Swedish “att ha koll”. This phenomenon is getting increasingly attention and the phrase is gradually being adapted by journalists and bloggers. Read a good article in Computer Sweden by Johan Hallsenius.

Apparently fashion and the way people dress and choose their clothes is still a much disputed topic. Young adults are often the aim for this discussion. And more often it is older people who are the ones who points fingers.

Ethnography reveals what people really do. It allows you to see patterns of behavior in a real world context. The method answers how and why by everyday life participant observation study.  Saying and acting are separate phenomenon. Ethnography gain insights into how people define and create meaning. Designers, communicators and product developers need to understand the relationship between what they produce and the meaning their products and messages have for the consumers.

SVT´s new show Landet brunsås was aired 3 weeks ago and as an anthropologist I can´t overlook the anthropological aspect of the show. Food discussions are very common in the anthropological arena and as the late cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas stated in her book Purity and Danger (1966) schemes of classification regarding food exists everywhere.

I make my own muesli – I enjoy picking out the most delicious looking almonds, the most healthy seeds, the most colourful fruits and mix it with organic and fairtrade oatmeal. In that way I start my morning just the way I like it  And, yes, it is very boboitian!

Watching a beautiful reunion of a wild lion with its former owner brings many people to tears. Laughing at a little kitten or a cute panda sneezing, or the latest; a baby elephant sneezing and scaring itself. These are sweet little youtube-clips that may brighten our day.

There are of course millions – billions maybe?! – other clips that make us laugh, cry, feel sympathy, nauseaus or even disgust. The interesting part is that we get a second hand feeling.