A New Website for the Society for Visual Anthropology:

http://societyforvisualanthropology.org/
Author(s): Kate Hennessy and Craig Campbell
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Sep., 2009), pp. 387-390
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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 mH| Visual Anthropology

REPORT

A New Website for the Society for Visual

Anthropology:
http://societyforvisualanthropology.org/
KATE HENNESSY AND CRAIG CAMPBELL
Society for Visual Anthropology Web Committee

ABSTRACT In 2008, the Society for Visual Anthropology reconceived and redesigned its website t
tructure that is sustainable, flexible, aesthetically engaging, and responsive to the needs of diver
and social-media principles to more efficiently distribute information and to promote and archive th
Film, Video, and Interactive Media Festival and Visual Research Conference. [Keywords: social media,
information architecture, web design]

terly publication
In November of 2008, after a year of investigation, plan-of the journal Visual Anthropology Review
as well
ning, and consultation, the Society for Visual as the production of two key SVA events held in
Anthropol-
conjunction
ogy's (SVA) web committee launched a new home for withthe
the Annual Meetings of the American
SVA on the Internet. The site was redesigned,Anthropological
reconceived,Association: the Film, Video, and Interac-
and reconstructed from the ground up with tivea Media
simpleFestival
goaland the Visual Research Conference (see
Figures
of making an accessible, attractive, resilient, and1 easily
and 2). up-
dated information hub for visual anthropologists. To highlight
We rec- visual elements, we have designed a site
ognize that the site is a critical tool for with clean navigation and a simple background to promi-
communicating
with our membership and interested others. nently feature still and moving images, interactive media,
Furthermore,
for the foreseeable future, the website will and textual content.
continue to beBeyond the design and information ar-
the society's central means of communication.chitecture, our intention in redesigning the website should
The website
is also an important archive that establishesbe aunderstood as a larger approach to creating the infras-
new baseline
for institutional memory and disciplinary tructure
history. forBuilt
a new on
communications paradigm that is sus-
an open-source platform called WordPress, tainable,
we expect flexible,
theand responsive to the needs of users who
are with
role of the website to increase in significance increasingly coming to expect greater functionality. The
the addi-
tion of new functionality enabled through platform for the website is extensible; it anticipates new
state-of-the-art
applications and design. directions and it is built in a way that the content can be
The primary goal for the redesign was relatively easily migrated and shared in new media environ-
to facilitate
increased communication between SVA members and to ments. Although we have embraced some freely available
better convey information to the public and potential mem- technologies (such as WordPress and the image-viewing
application LightBox) to make this transition to greater
bers about the SVA;s core activities. This includes the quar-

American Anthropologist, Vol. 111, Issue 3; pp. 387-394, ISSN 0002-7294 online ISSN 1 548-1433. 2009 by the American Anthropological Associatio
All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1 1 1 1/J.1 548-1433.2009.01 140.x

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388 American Anthropologist Vol. 111, No. 3 September 2009

FIGURE 1. Annual Visual Research Conference.

FIGURE 2. Annual Film, Video and Interactive Media Festival (with links to program previews).

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 Visual Anthropology 389

FIGURE 3. Announcements with social-networking functionality.

interactivity, we continue to explore ways of balancing pub- We have introduced other new features aimed at net-

licity and communication with questions of copyright and working members and featuring the products of their work
remix potential that are raised by new media practices. in visual anthropology. A Calendar of Events, powered by
Google, is embedded in the site and can be easily updated by
approved SVA members. Further, responding to the need to
NEW FEATURES
promote visual media in the website, we have implemented
a photo gallery. We are currently exploring solutions to
In the past, communicating information to our member-
better serve video and interactive media as well. These gal-
ship required sending an e-mail to the mailing-list manager,
leries are meant to promote the work of members and to
who then approved the post and mailed it to the member-
ship. An e-mail also had to be sent to the webmaster:,provide
who a forum for discussing and commenting on these
works.
would post the announcement to the site using HTML au-
thoring software. These announcements were difficult to The SVA Film, Video, and Interactive Media Festival's
presence on the website is enlivened with an interactive
archive and could not be easily searched for on the website.
The new SVA website now enables one person to post programan featuring preview video clips of festival selections.
announcement to the homepage and simultaneously These
dis-clips currently exist on static pages within our web-
site. be
tribute it to all subscribers, using an RSS feed that can It is our intention to integrate these clips into a search-
received with most Internet-enabled devices (such as able
com- online database of SVA Festival selection previews that
areposts
puters, mobile phone, and other peripherals). These tagged, searchable, and could be seamlessly embedded
are archived on the website and can be searched for by intocat-
the SVA website. Although we could use YouTube for
egory (e.g., Festivals, Conferences, or AAA Meetings)this purpose, we are still investigating archiving options
or by
that better meet the society's particular needs and goals for
"tags" assigned to each post that more specifically reference
online availability of festival previews.
the content of the announcement. Further, the application
"Share This," a button at the end of each post, allows users
to instantly e-mail, link to, or post the announcement to
PARTICIPATION
their Facebook, MySpace, Technorati, and a host of other
social-networking applications that spread the news
The and
web committee has launched a website that will al-
promote the SVA more widely (see Figure 3). low the SVA to grow through the development of new an

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390 American Anthropologist Vol. 1 1 1, No. 3 September 2009

relevant systems for collaboration, networking, dissemina-
tion of ideas and information, and for greater participation
and exchange among members and interested public. With
adequate attention and planning, this society's website
will also help to mediate and maintain the community of
visual anthropologists that is generated through face-to-
face contact in the annual meetings of the American An-
thropological Association. Like our collaborations off-line,
which are only productive through mutual interaction and
sustained contribution, the new SVA website will most pro-
ductively amplify its value with content generated through
participation of both members and nonmembers. Design
and information architecture aside, it is the generation of
current information about related events, research, and net-
working opportunities, along with growing contributions
of media-producing anthropologists and dissemination of
activities of the SVA, that will truly be indicators of the new
website's success.

FILM REVIEWS

The Business of Being Born. Abby Epstein,able maternity

dir. 87 min.care. The United States spends more on ma-
ternity
New York: Red Envelope Entertainment, 2008. care than other Westernized nations, yet women
and infants in this country suffer from poorer birth out-
ERICA GIBSON comes. Midwifery care costs about a third of biomedical
maternity care, yet women and practitioners struggle with
University of South Carolina
getting coverage from insurance companies for this type of
care. Anthropologists have been comparing models of ma-
In the documentary The Business of Being Born,ternity
executive
care and birthing traditions since the 1970s, noting
that
producer Ricki Lake and director Abby Epstein thethe
take United States is lagging behind other nations in
the quality of maternity care given (Jordan 1993). As one
viewer through a holistic journey of the commoditization
of birth in the United States. This film explores the history,
of the doctors in the film notes, cheaper maternity care may
in factshifts
politics, economic implications, and sociocultural be better.

that have taken maternity care out of the hands of The interviews with the midwives and their clients
women
show a different side of birth in the United States that few
and placed it firmly within the realm of biomedicine.
women choose to access. These births are in stark contrast
Some anthropologists may feel that this documentary
should not be considered ethnography because of its
to the
setting
earlier harried clips of hospital delivery. The focus is
(Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs) or its on the bud-
large laboring woman and her experience as well as the
get; however, the filmmakers turn their lens on themselves of the neonate. The film nicely contrasts sev-
health status
and their culture to create an eye-opening glimpseeralinto
experts'
the interviews: some doctors refer to studies that
system of maternity care that many of those living in thethat home birth is a safe method of delivery for
have shown
United States take for granted. Women around the low-risk
world women, while others were horrified by the thought
have traditionally relied on midwives to help them through a woman to give birth outside of the hospital.
of allowing
the birth process, but in the early 20th century, One doctor,
doctors in however, admitted to not knowing what prepa-
ration was
the United States began to vilify midwives as ignorant andinvolved in a home birth. Several of the experts
dirty to shift birth from home to hospital. in the film advocate for a maternity system similar to many
European systems that rely on midwives for the majority of
The Business of Being Bom focuses on how maternity
care has become a business in which birth has become de- care, allowing emergencies and high-risk cases to be han-
humanized, mothers are objectified, and babies are viewed dled by the obstetric surgeons.
as products. Clips of popular television series are shown de- The most powerful scenes are at the end of the film,
picting birth as a time of crisis: the focus of the medical staffwhen Epstein, who is pregnant during filming, becomes a
is on technology, rather than women, to deliver the perfectparticipant rather than just an observer. Epstein goes into
product. The film also shows an alternative to the biomedi-labor five weeks earlier than expected at home with her
cal birth framework by interweaving scenes of hospital caremidwife in attendance. The fetus is a breech, and Epstein
with midwifery care in birth centers and homes. is taken to the hospital to undergo an emergency cesarean
Epstein interviews key informants such as mothers,section. Her midwife and doctor work together to provide
doctors, midwives, pregnant women, childbirth activists, maternity care. All of the other home births in the film
and others involved in international and U.S. birth re- showcased women assisted by midwives who successfully
delivered healthy babies, but when intervention became
search. Anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd discusses smear
necessary in Epstein's case, the doctor and medical tech-
campaigns against midwives, the socialization and train-
nology were available.
ing of doctors, hospital procedures and interventions that
are routine yet unnecessary, and the lobbying power of the Through interviews with many people in the birthing
American Medical Association, and how these things have community and the filmmakers themselves, this docu-
led to a shifting framework of what is and is not accept-
mentary provides a different perspective of maternity care

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