In their post entitled Argonauts of the Internet: Anthropology and Community Management Mx. Moellenberndt describes what the discipline of anthropology is 'good' at doing...and (drum roll) it turns out to be quite a lot.
Mx. Moellenberndt works in a field that is populated largely by those with marketing and business backgrounds and yet, the author finds that their anthropological training sets them up to ask questions that drive the very work that they do: While all of those fields can provide the bulk of the skills needed to be good community managers, it is anthropology that holds a key in tying all of these threads together for effective community management.
Mx. Moellenberndt argues that While this may not be “fieldwork” in the traditional sense of going into a foreign culture and living in it for long periods of time, it is still fieldwork and the work that comes out of it can be ethnography (basically, this is kind of the end result of fieldwork; the write-up of what was observed and concluded). Without good, grounded ideas as to who your community is, what they want, and how they function, you can’t be an effective community manager.
Read more about Mx. Moellenberndt's work at Reddit and the role of anthropology from our quick links.
Quick Links:
- Applying an anthropological perspective in health Anthro Everywhere! (April 27 2017)
- #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms Anthro Everywhere! (June 05 2017)
- Anthropology in a Tag Line Anthro Everywhere! (July 20 2017)
- Argonauts of the Internet: Anthropology and Community Management, Christine Moellenberndt Reddit Blog (May 16 2017)
- To PhD or not to PhD... Anthro Everywhere! (July 13 2017)
- Undergrad & MAs career paths Anthro Everywhere! (May 22 2017)
- Our page featuring many interesting career paths anthropologists are pursuing: Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university