Southern knowledge online? Climate change research discoverability and communication practices

The networked age promises global digital cultures with flattened power relations, given the affordances of information and communication technologies to collapse distance, enable easier cross-country collaborations and create new opportunities for knowledge production and sharing. In the academic domains, indications are that knowledge patterns continue to reflect physically based geopolitical realities – where knowledge from the South is still peripheral while knowledge from the North still dominates in terms of all the conventional metrics. This study explores the potential role of digital affordances to challenge structural Northern bias and generates questions about knowledge production and dissemination in the climate change knowledge domain. It is framed by the field of scholarly communication within an African setting and by the emergent field of climate change which is fraught with debates and contestations, particularly regarding mitigation and adaptation. It draws on Southern theory which interrogates the global dynamics of knowledge production and dissemination. It explores the intersection of the discoverability and visibility of local climate change research methodologically from the outside in, through an experiment of searches for ‘climate change/South Africa’ and from the inside out by reviewing the online presence of one climate change group in a top-ranked African university.     

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.     

New politics and satire: the Euro financial crisis and the one-finger salute

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the conventional conceptualization in political science of politics is problematic, that it is overly narrow and constrained. This is because it excludes a range of actions like satire and humour which have come to play an increasing role in inspiring and provoking powerful political emotions and in informing the political agenda. Drawing on the work of critical scholars, it is argued that emotion, ethics and art can be deeply political. Moreover, new forms of media have encouraged new–old forms of political action often at the hands of young people who hitherto have been marginalized from the public sphere. Digital technology enables the production of user-generated content, opening new spaces for information, the exchange of ideas and mobilization. This article highlights the work of the young German satirist Jan Böhmermann to demonstrate how expressive art is playing a major role in shaping public opinion, in contesting power elites and informing political debate. In short, I use Böhmermann’s 2015 satire depicting Greco-German relations in the midst of a financial crisis and fears of loan defaults to argue for a broader understanding of politics that is inclusive of activities conventionally deemed non-rational.     

Navigating the technology-media-movements complex

Abstract

In this article we develop the notion of the technology-media-movements complex (TMMC) as a field-definition statement for ongoing inquiry into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in social and political movements. We consider the definitions and boundaries of the TMMC, arguing particularly for a historically rooted conception of technological development that allows better integration of the different intellectual traditions that are currently focused on the same set of empirical phenomena. We then delineate two recurrent debates in the literature highlighting their contributions to emerging knowledge. The first debate concerns the divide between scholars who privilege media technologies, and see them as driving forces of movement dynamics, and those who privilege media practices over affordances. The second debate broadly opposes theorists who believe in the emancipatory potential of ICTs and those who highlight the ways they are used to repress social movements and grassroots mobilization. By mapping positions in these debates to the TMMC we identify and provide direction to three broad research areas which demand further consideration: (i) questions of power and agency in social movements; (ii) the relationships between, on the one hand, social movements and technology and media as politics (i.e. cyberpolitics and technopolitics), and on the other, the quotidian and ubiquitous use of digital tools in a digital age; and (iii) the significance of digital divides that cut across and beyond social movements, particularly in the way such divisions may overlay existing power relations in movements. In conclusion, we delineate six challenges for profitable further research on the TMMC.     

Affective networks: how WeChat enhances Tencent’s digital business governance

An emerging body of literature has revealed that social media enhance digital business governance to facilitate Internet companies in generating profit throughout regulating the everyday lives of users. However, although existing debates are often contextualized in the West, little attention has been paid to China, where social media are widely used. To fill this knowledge gap, this article investigates the digital business governance practiced by Chinese Internet companies such as Tencent. Specifically, I employ an affective lens to analyze how WeChat, the most popular social media application launched by Tencent, allows this Internet company to influence users for its own business purposes. Chinese college students, which constitute a representative group of young people, were early adopters of WeChat, and they have led the trend of social media use in China. Based on a yearlong netnographic study of Chinese college students, the results reveal that the affective design of WeChat captured their attention and influenced their everyday practices. These results provide insight into how digital business governance operates in the Chinese context, in which authoritarianism and capitalism work closely together.     

Managing Serials in an Institutional Repository: An Interview With Kay Teel

ABSTRACT

In this interview from March 2017, Kay Teel, metadata librarian for serials and arts resources at the Stanford University Libraries, discusses the issues involved in providing access to serials through an institutional repository.     

The ‘digital glimpse’ as imagining home

This paper proposes the concept of the ‘digital glimpse’, which develops the existing framing of imaginative travel. Here it articulates the experiences of mobile workers digitally connecting into family life and everyday rituals when physically absent with work. The recent embedding of digital communication technologies into personal relationships and family life is reconfiguring how absence is experienced and practiced by workers on the move, and through this, new digital paradigms for life on-the-move are emerging. This paper explores how such social relationships are maintained at-a-distance through digital technology – using evidence from qualitative interviews with mobile workers and their families. Digital technology now enables expressive forms of ‘virtual travel’, including video calling, picture sharing, and instant messaging. This has implications for the ways in which families can manage the social and relational pressures of being apart. Experiences of imaginative travel created through novel media can enrich the experience and give a greater sense of connection for both those who are at home and those who are away. While technology is limited in its ability to replicate a sense of co-presence, ‘digital glimpses’ are an emergent set of sociotechnical practices that can reduce the negative impact of absence on family relationships.     

数字阅读泛化对大学生学习能力影响分析

随着时代的进步,科技日新月异地发展以及网络的普及化,我们迎来了全新的数字化时代,人们的工作学习生活已经网络化了。阅读作为人们获取知识最基本的手段,强烈地受到了网络新媒体的冲击。在高校中,数字阅读已经成为大学生获取信息、进行交流的主要方式,并呈现出泛化的倾向,这也冲击着大学生的学习能力。文章在观察大学生数字化阅读现状的基础上,分析其利与弊,积极探讨如何更好地利用微信、微博、QQ等信息传播手段,规避弊端,提升学习效果,增强理性阅读能力,丰富自身知识结构。     

(Un)ethical practices: intimacy and Internet in the media coverage of the Ashley Madison hack

In the summer of 2015, the “cheating website” known as Ashley Madison came under scrutiny, as a group calling itself the Impact Team revealed users’ private information. This case study explores the controversy’s Canadian media coverage and sheds light on the main discourses about intimacy and the Internet that were made visible during this event. It interrogates how cheaters, hackers, and the company were represented. To varying degrees, the mainstream press condemns the cheaters, the hackers, and the company for their behaviour. The article also addresses the ways intimate practices are politicized and commercialized in the digital context, including a discussion of the emphasis on “privacy.” To conclude the article, I discuss the transparency and privacy issues implicated in digital intimacies and the power–knowledge (im)balance implied by hackers’ online anonymity.