Another baroque angel? A bibliographic review on anthropology of the information from texts searched on Google

Abstract

A theoretical review of Anthropology of the Information was the start point for a survey of texts using the Google search site. Eight texts were selected to verify how the relationship between anthropology and information was approached. These texts have diverse formats, lengths and approaches, but have a general concern – how the human being, in the daily process of culture production, is involved, how he relates and suffers the impact of the information technologies. Then, the texts have their particular characteristics: some discuss how anthropology can help to understand the specialists in information technology and those that integrate the productive sphere of ‘information culture’; others discuss how, along the history, information technologies had reconfigured and also potentialized the work... of the anthropology itself! The review includes a description of the trajectory of anthropology and knowledge for the understanding of the social relations in the cyberspace; the combination of methodologies of social sciences and anthropology for the study of hypermedia organizations and review on cyberculture on the light of the concepts and ideas of Walter Benjamin. The diversity of these results confirms the multiple lines of direction, pointed by the theoretical review, for the discussion of this subject in Information Science.