When digital natives instruct digital immigrants: active guidance of parental media use by children and conflict in the family

Based on the premise that children are active agents who influence their parents’ media use, this study investigated child–parent digital media guidance. Children often introduce new media into the family and influence parents’ media adoption and use. This study also investigated whether this child–parent digital media guidance is associated with media conflicts in the family. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 187 parent–child dyads in Flanders, Belgium. Paired samples t-tests and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. The results showed that both children and parents reported that children guide their parents how to use digital media, especially for newer media forms such as smartphones, tablets, and apps. Families where there was more child–parent digital media guidance reported more conflicts about media. These relationships were comparable in the parent and child reports.     

Oppositional consciousness,cultural preservation,and everyday resistance on the Uyghur Internet

The Internet has potential as a tool for propagation of minority cultures and identities. As China is a multi-ethnic, multilingual society, people of varying cultural backgrounds and across the Chinese diaspora may be found participating in Chinese language sites. However, little attention has been paid to the separate online activity among any of China’s 55 officially recognized ethnic minority groups, such as the Uyghurs, especially in their native languages. In this paper, we consider in what ways digital media such as interactive online community forums (UY: munbar) may be used by one ethnic group, Uyghurs, as a means of mobilizing their community to preserve their culture and support their community. As the majority ethnic group within a region of China noted as among China’s most politically sensitive, Uyghur use of computer-mediated communication provides a rich source of study.     

Algorithms (and the) everyday

ABSTRACT

Our everyday practices are increasingly mediated through online technologies, entailing the navigation and also oft-simultaneous creation of large quantities of information and communication data. The scale and types of activities being undertaken, the data that are being created and engaged with, and the possibilities for analysis, archiving and distribution are now so extensive that technical constructs are necessarily required as a way to manage, interpret and distribute these. These constructs include the platforms, the software, the codes and the algorithms. This paper explores the place of the algorithm in shaping and engaging with the contemporary everyday. It does this via an exploration of some particular instances of algorithmic sorting and presentation as well as considering some of the ways these contribute to shaping our everyday practices and understandings. In doing so, it raises questions about understandings of agency and power, shifting world views and our complex relationship with technologies.     

Ethnography and the digital fields of social media

Qualitative researchers struggle to study the transient fields of social network sites like Twitter through conventional ethnographic approaches. This paper suggests that, in order to step further, we should distinguish between the relatively stable ‘contextual’ fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, ‘meta-fields’ resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata. Both these two intertwined layers of the digital environment interplay with users’ online social practices – which are embedded within offline everyday life and vice versa. While Internet ethnography largely dealt with contextual digital fields, recent developments in the realm of online research allow the ethnographic exploration of digital meta-fields and their publics. This shift recalls Marcus’ appeal for a multi-sited ethnography but, in fact, goes further beyond, towards a truly ‘un-sited’ ethnography. I highlight and discuss the main methodological implications of meta- and contextual fieldworks by presenting an exploratory study of European exchange students’ Facebook identities.     

Analogue crisis,digital renewal? Current dilemmas of peacebuilding

ABSTRACT

The international architecture of peacebuilding and statebuilding, with the United Nations’ efforts central among them, is currently responding to a shift from ‘analogue’ to ‘digital’ approaches in international relations. This is affecting intervention, peacebuilding and development. This article analyses the potential that these new digital forms of international relations offer for the reform of peacebuilding – namely, the enhancement of critical agency across networks and scales, the expansion of claims for rights and the mitigation of obstacles posed by sovereignty, locality and territoriality. The article also addresses the parallel limitations of digital technologies, as well as the risk of co-optation by historical and analogue power structures, existing modi operandi and agendas of the United Nations, and other international actors. We conclude that though aspects of emerging digital approaches to peacebuilding are promising, they cannot yet bypass or resolve older, analogue conflict dynamics revolving around the state, territorialism, and state formation.     

A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements. Media ecology and media practice approaches

Abstract

The article tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies. In particular, the article argues that media ecology and media practice approaches serve well to reach this objective as: they recognize the complex multi-faceted array of media technologies, professions and contents with which social movement actors interact; they historicize the use of media technologies in social movements; and they highlight the agency of social movement actors in relation to media technologies while avoiding a media-centric approach to the subject matter. Second, this article employs a media practice perspective to explore two interrelated trends in contemporary societies that the articles in this special issue deal with: the personalization and individualization of politics, and the role of the grassroots in political mobilizations.     

创新、升级与培育——2013上海文化消费报告

在全国文化消费方兴未艾的背景下,上海文化消费尤为繁盛。在载体方面,创新与多元化趋势增强。由政府主导的基础型公共文化服务体系进一步完善,消费产品更加多样化,但仍存在公共文化机构数量不足、消费理念薄弱等问题。电影节、书展、动漫节、艺术节、艺博会五大节庆类公共文化平台在消费产品多元化、亲民化、国际化方面的趋势更加明显。新媒体作为市场主导的自主型文化消费载体,发展迅猛。网购、APP、微博经济、网络文学消费稳步增长。在客体方面,假日旅游和出境游消费火爆,私人影院等体验式消费备受青睐,演艺、奢侈品消费呈爆发式增长。在主体方面,上海已形成高、中、低3类消费主体并存的文化消费格局,阶层化倾向日趋明显。     

Techno-Wizardry and movie magic: the trace of labour (or lack thereof) in 3D digital animation

ABSTRACT

This paper will argue that 3D digital animation, unlike its 2D and stop-motion counterparts, currently lacks recognisable self-reflexive aesthetic devices through which the trace of animators’ labour can be made visible. It will open with a brief history of how animation has previously shown its workings; from the pencil-wielding hand of Émile Cohl to the opening seconds of South Park, plus the intentional and unintentional smears and multiples visible on animation cells. These devices will then be discussed in relation to Marx’s analysis of the commodity in Capital Vol. 1, and how the process of fetishisation is momentarily disrupted by imperfections in the object which have been caused by production errors. These faults reconnect the object to its producer through the trace of (imperfect) labour which remains visible on the surface. In animation, similar (albeit consciously made) ‘errors’ connect the perceptive viewer directly to the work of 2D or stop-motion animators. This paper will argue the need for an equivalent to emerge in 3D digital animation, as well as highlighting some contemporary animators testing and subverting the limits of 3D and sketching some possible ways these might encourage further formal innovations.     

Lesbians and tech: Analyzing digital media technologies and lesbian experience

The rise of the popular Internet has coincided with the increasing acceptance, even assimilation, of lesbians into mainstream society. The visible presence of lesbians in the tech industry and in digitally mediated spaces raises a set of questions about the relationship between queer identities and Internet technologies. This introduction to a special issue of Journal of Lesbian Studies explores some of these questions and provides an overview of the articles that follow.     

Gifts,commodities, and social relations: A Maussian view of exchange

Sociologists have drawn on anthropological studies of gift exchange systems to help develop models of exchange in social life. This paper presents a reconsideration of the relatively neglected Maussian view of gift and commodity exchange, drawing on both Mauss'sThe Gift and recent work by anthropologists who have extended his ideas. The Maussian model illustrates the partiality of some sociological models of exchange by showing that people, objects, and social relations form a whole that is created and recreated in different ways when people transact with each other in gift and commodity relations. The paper concludes with an illustration of the utility of Mauss's model, showing how it can extend recent sociological discussions of the social meaning of objects.     

The capacity of elderly citizens to access digital media in Andalusia (Spain)

In most of the European Union (EU) countries, including Spain, there has been an increase in the number of inhabitants aged 55 years or older. As of 2014, in the EU (27) more than 65% of the population uses the internet daily. However, among the elderly, the percentage is drastically lower. This type of occurrence is found in technologically advanced societies, and turns the older citizens into a forgotten collective. With the digital divide (defined as physical access to the internet) surmounted in these countries, a new divide is becoming apparent in terms of personal use and societal participation. In this article, through the use of multivariate analysis techniques, we identify a new divide in Andalusia, Spain, with respect to the frequency of access to new media and the use citizens make of them. We will discuss the influence of the elderly's immediate environment as a source of opportunity for the Information and Communication Technologies to improve our quality of life and as a medium for more active social participation.     

#IAmNotAfraidToSayIt: stories of sexual violence as everyday political speech on Facebook

ABSTRACT

The debate about the power and influence of networked publics often focuses on large-scale political events, activist campaigns and protest activity – the more visible forms of political engagement. On the other hand, digitally mediated activism is often questioned and sometimes derided as a lesser form of dissent, as it is easier to engage in, highly affective, and offers few assurances of sustainability of the change it calls for. But what about everyday political speech online, where social media platforms can contribute to a personalisation of politics? Can social media users express their views online and make a difference? This paper analyses around 3500 Facebook posts stemming from the #ЯНеБоюсьСказати (Ukrainian for #IAmNotAfraidToSayIt) online campaign that was started in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook in July 2016 by a local activist to raise awareness of how widespread sexual violence and sexual harassment are in the Ukrainian society. The paper argues that networked conversations about everyday rights and affective stories about shared experiences of injustice, underpinned by the affordances of social media platforms for sharing and discussing information and participating in everyday politics, can emerge as viable forms of networked feminist activism and can have real impact on the discursive status quo of an issue, both in the digital sphere and beyond it.     

Nigerians in China: Health maintenance,circulation and everyday transnationalism in Guangdong Province

The challenges facing Africans in Chinese cities have been examined from different perspectives, including healthcare-related challenges and barriers. However, how they navigate health problems through circulation and transnational practices has received scant attention. The article explored the importance of circulation and everyday transnationalism in health maintenance using qualitative data from 37 Nigerians in Guangdong Province, China. It revealed that transnational practices involving the flows of people, medicinal commodities and information were crucial in managing their health issues with circulating migrants, family members and healthcare professionals at home playing important roles. Circular migrants import herbal medicines and hard-to-acquire pharmaceutical drugs between Nigeria and China, family members and relatives also send over-the-counter drugs to migrants and health professionals in Nigeria supply medical information through transnational consultation. The article advanced the literature as it responds to the growing call for adopting a transnational lens for interrogating the link between migration and health.     

Local Identity, Cultural Commodities, and Development in Rural Japan: The Potential as Viewed by Cultural Producers and Local Residents

Abstract:  This paper considers the development potential of rural and highly peripheral areas of Japan, focusing on local factors of development, together with local identity and cultural commodities, as these are incorporated into what has been called the culture economy. Based on a survey of informed local residents and another of local cultural commodities producers, the paper alludes to what constitutes a culture economy for rural settings and identifies several key aspects related to the process of such a cultural commodities-based approach to development. While confirming the importance of identity and cultural commodities in the local development profile of rural settings, the paper sets the groundwork for further research concerning the complex process for how such development can be achieved. The main themes identified for further research include both the nature and role of residents' solidarity together with the combinative nature of government support and local entrepreneurship in the local culture economy on the one hand, and the character of the advertising and media representation by which cultural commodities are created and maintained on the other.     

Pierre Bourdieu: theorizing the digital

ABSTRACT

Pierre Bourdieu is known for his research in the areas of education and cultural stratification that led to a number of theoretical contributions informing the social sciences. Bourdieu’s interrelated concepts of field, capital, and habitus have become central in many approaches to inequality and stratification across the social sciences. In addition, we argue that Bourdieu’s ideas also feature in what is increasingly known as ‘digital sociology.’ To underscore this claim, we explore the ways in which Bourdieu’s ideas continue to have a major impact on social science research both on and with digital and Internet-based technologies. To do so, we offer a review of both Bourdieusian theorizing of the digital vis-à-vis both research on the social impacts of digital communication technologies and the application of digital technologies to social science research methods. We contend that three interconnected features of Bourdieu’s sociology have allowed his approach to flourish in the digital age: (1) his theories’ inseparability from the practice of empirical research; (2) his ontological stance combining realism and social constructionism; and (3) his familiarity with concepts developed in other disciplines and participation in interdisciplinary collaborative projects. We not only reason that these three factors go some way in accounting for Bourdieu’s influence in many sociological subfields, but we also suggest that they have been especially successful in positioning Bourdieusian sociology to take advantage of opportunities associated with digital communication technologies.     

On being affected: feeling in the folding of multiple catastrophes

ABSTRACT

How possible is it for a life of ongoing feeling to hold, given the world’s current becomings? Much of this article will consider three of the most pervasive of the current disruptions as disruptions of living and feeling: climate change, social change, and, in more detail, what I will call a ‘third media revolution’. All three of these disruptions (and many others) are themselves multiple. They all fold through each other. Living and feeling thus find themselves in the midst of catastrophic multiplicity. This catastrophic multiplicity haunts much of what’s going on. Questions concerning what can be felt within this folding of catastrophes into each other are important contemporary questions. Feeling itself – what it is, what it does, and what the future of feeling might be – has become both a field of struggle, and a complex and open-ended question. A secondary set of questions here will concern the future of studies in relation to these questions of living and feeling – of Cultural Studies, Media Studies, disciplinarity in general, and finally ‘study’, as discussed by Moten and Harney (2013. The undercommons. New York: Minor Compositions).     

Technological capital and digital divide among young people: an intersectional approach

This article explores the digital divide among young people in Spain by examining four traditional socio-demographic variables (gender, age, education and employment situation). It proposes the concept of ‘technological capital’ as a means to put people’s socioeconomic conditions of existence into relation with the different forms of accessing and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Methodologically, a quantitative approach is taken, based on the National Statistics Institute’s survey of ICT Equipment in households, which makes use of both bivariate and multivariate analysis. Finally, a typology of young users of the Internet is proposed (1 – Digitally Excluded; 2 – Basic Users; 3 – Users in Mobility; 4 – Cyber Consumers; 5 – Cyber Experts) which takes into account the importance of technological capital, the socio-economic position and cultural resources of subjects in their incorporation of ICTs into their daily life.     

Revisiting the digital divide in Canada: the impact of demographic factors on access to the internet,level of online activity,and social networking site usage

The present study relies on the 2010 Canadian Internet Use Survey to investigate differences in people's access to the internet and level of online activity. The study not only revisits the digital divide in the Canadian context, but also expands current investigations by including an analysis of how demographic factors affect social networking site (SNS) adoption. The findings demonstrate that access to the internet reflects existing inequalities in society with income, education, rural/urban, immigration status, and age all affecting adoption patterns. Furthermore, the results show that inequality in access to the internet is now being mimicked in the level of online activity of internet users. More recent immigrants to Canada have lower rates of internet access; however, recent immigrants who are online have significantly higher levels of online activity than Canadian born residents and earlier immigrants. Additionally, women perform fewer activities online than men. People's use of SNSs differs in terms of education, gender, and age. Women were significantly more likely to use SNSs than men. Interestingly, high school graduates had the lowest percentage of adoption compared to all other education categories. Current students were by far the group that utilized SNSs the most. Canadian born, recent, and early immigrants all showed similar adoption rates of SNSs. Age is a strong predictor of SNS usage, with young people relying heavily on SNSs in comparison to those aged 55+. The findings demonstrate that the digital divide not only persists, but has expanded to include inequality in the level of online activity and SNS usage.     

Older audiences in the digital media environment

Relying on Jensen and Helles’ model for studying the Internet as a cultural forum, this study aimed to explore the extent to which traditional media are displaced by innovative communication practices within the older audience of new media. The study was based on a cross-European survey of 1039 Internet users aged 60 years and up. Results indicated that older Internet users are significantly more inclined to use traditional mass media than new social media and prefer synchronous to asynchronous mass media. This audience, however, is not homogeneous, as four subsegments were identified. These groups differed in their media repertoires, sociocultural background and leisure preferences. The findings suggest that despite the increasing percentage of older Internet users, this audience tends to adhere to familiar media practices, with only a minority making intense use of new practices. With very few cross-national differences, this tendency appears to be universal, suggesting overall media use traditionalism and a second-level digital divide among the older audience.     

Paradoxes of late-modern autonomy imperatives: Reconciling individual claims and institutional demands in everyday practice

Governmentality studies and social theories agree that in contemporary societies the idea of autonomy is no longer simply an ideal or an individual aspiration but a social obligation. In an attempt to clarify the meaning of autonomy in this day and age, this paper asks how individuals perceive and negotiate the various dimensions of autonomy and how this affects the functioning of late-modern institutions. The empirical insights derived from a qualitative study provide a differentiated picture of how individuals pursue their claims to autonomy and comply with institutional demands for autonomy in everyday practice. By presenting seven types of late-modern “autonomy managers,” the analysis evinces a usurpation of autonomous agency that renders individuals the institutional editors of the contemporary contradictions, deficits, and tensions that occur in their everyday interactions. This comes at the price of notionally free but exhausted actors running short of all kinds of resources.