Pub Date : 2024-08-22DOI: 10.1177/14614448241270412
Spencer Kaplan
How does a community remain committed to an imagined digital future despite that future’s inherent contradictions? This article analyzes such a challenge as it was faced by Berlin’s NFT (non-fungible token) enthusiasts. Dominant narratives about NFTs and other blockchain technologies envision a virtual and ostensibly trust-free future, but these enthusiasts’ pursuit of such “trustless technologies” resulted in a double bind. In this bind, they repudiated trust relations on the web without the means to fully obviate such relations, leaving blockchain’s trustless future in doubt. To resolve this bind, Berlin’s NFT enthusiasts expanded their interactions by assembling in-person. In Berlin’s offline spaces, they found trust relations they deemed permissible according to the dominant blockchain ideology. Rather than blur the boundary between the virtual and physical, this community maintained distinct interactional norms in each, enabling them to maintain their imagined blockchain future.
{"title":"Facing blockchain’s double bind: Trustless technologies and “IRL friends” in Berlin’s NFT community","authors":"Spencer Kaplan","doi":"10.1177/14614448241270412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241270412","url":null,"abstract":"How does a community remain committed to an imagined digital future despite that future’s inherent contradictions? This article analyzes such a challenge as it was faced by Berlin’s NFT (non-fungible token) enthusiasts. Dominant narratives about NFTs and other blockchain technologies envision a virtual and ostensibly trust-free future, but these enthusiasts’ pursuit of such “trustless technologies” resulted in a double bind. In this bind, they repudiated trust relations on the web without the means to fully obviate such relations, leaving blockchain’s trustless future in doubt. To resolve this bind, Berlin’s NFT enthusiasts expanded their interactions by assembling in-person. In Berlin’s offline spaces, they found trust relations they deemed permissible according to the dominant blockchain ideology. Rather than blur the boundary between the virtual and physical, this community maintained distinct interactional norms in each, enabling them to maintain their imagined blockchain future.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142042537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-22DOI: 10.1177/14614448241270406
Dmitry Epstein, Nicholas John, Carsten Wilhelm, Andra Siibak, Christine Barats
The rapid adoption of digital technologies during COVID-19 lockdowns offers a unique perspective on differences in privacy cultures. In this study, we compare how cultural predisposition and identities relate to privacy during the transition to remote learning in higher education in Estonia, France, and Israel. We conducted 83 in-depth interviews with academics, who talked about their adoption of communication technologies and strategies for managing their self-presentation and relations with others. Patterns of tech adoption were most reflective of distinct privacy predispositions, with those coming from privacy-sensitive cultures conveying an individual and institutional resistance to privacy-invasive technologies. However, strategies for self-management in response to new patterns of visibility were similar across countries. Our findings make three contributions to privacy research: they (1) show how different identities (professional, national) underpin privacy attitudes and behaviors; (2) demonstrate the multidimensionality of privacy; and (3) point to institutional decision-making as the critical point for privacy-protecting interventions.
{"title":"A moment of turbulence: Privacy considerations in the pivot to distance learning during COVID-19 in higher education in Estonia, France, and Israel","authors":"Dmitry Epstein, Nicholas John, Carsten Wilhelm, Andra Siibak, Christine Barats","doi":"10.1177/14614448241270406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241270406","url":null,"abstract":"The rapid adoption of digital technologies during COVID-19 lockdowns offers a unique perspective on differences in privacy cultures. In this study, we compare how cultural predisposition and identities relate to privacy during the transition to remote learning in higher education in Estonia, France, and Israel. We conducted 83 in-depth interviews with academics, who talked about their adoption of communication technologies and strategies for managing their self-presentation and relations with others. Patterns of tech adoption were most reflective of distinct privacy predispositions, with those coming from privacy-sensitive cultures conveying an individual and institutional resistance to privacy-invasive technologies. However, strategies for self-management in response to new patterns of visibility were similar across countries. Our findings make three contributions to privacy research: they (1) show how different identities (professional, national) underpin privacy attitudes and behaviors; (2) demonstrate the multidimensionality of privacy; and (3) point to institutional decision-making as the critical point for privacy-protecting interventions.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142042538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-19DOI: 10.1177/14614448241270446
Friedrich Donner
Destructive or “toxic” behaviors in online gaming have received increased attention in recent years. These are forms of verbal harassment or behavioral misconduct which disrupt another’s experience of the game. While previous explanations have explained toxic behaviors as intentional acts of deviant individuals or a larger online “trickster” culture, this article provides empirical support for a recent “tilt”-based explanation in the literature. Toxic behavior is seen as situated within and emergent from specific social contexts—as a spur-of-the-moment loss of control (associated with the term “tilt”), triggered by contextual factors within the game. Based on interview data on the popular multiplayer game League of Legends, it is shown how weak normative and relational structures within a gaming context can lead to negative emotions in players, prompting toxic behaviors. Avenues for future research and implications for improving online social spaces are discussed.
{"title":"Structures that tilt: Understanding “toxic” behaviors in online gaming","authors":"Friedrich Donner","doi":"10.1177/14614448241270446","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241270446","url":null,"abstract":"Destructive or “toxic” behaviors in online gaming have received increased attention in recent years. These are forms of verbal harassment or behavioral misconduct which disrupt another’s experience of the game. While previous explanations have explained toxic behaviors as intentional acts of deviant individuals or a larger online “trickster” culture, this article provides empirical support for a recent “tilt”-based explanation in the literature. Toxic behavior is seen as situated within and emergent from specific social contexts—as a spur-of-the-moment loss of control (associated with the term “tilt”), triggered by contextual factors within the game. Based on interview data on the popular multiplayer game League of Legends, it is shown how weak normative and relational structures within a gaming context can lead to negative emotions in players, prompting toxic behaviors. Avenues for future research and implications for improving online social spaces are discussed.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142007459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-15DOI: 10.1177/14614448241270434
Jiali Fan
Existing scholarly discussions of the influencer industry often take a critical stance, marked by a narrow, westernised and homogenised theme of precarity. This raises the need to explore the empirical dynamics of precarity—how it is understood, managed, and ultimately lived for influencers from different social and cultural contexts. Based on in-depth interviews with 15 Instagram influencers and 12 from Xiaohongshu (Red), this article reveals that influencers adopt a positionality I term “in and against the platform.” This approach involves both collaboration with and resistance to platform rules and rituals, ultimately enabling influencers to establish a sustainable way of living amid precarity. I argue that this “in and against” framework as a condition of labour not only highlights the active agency and creativity often overlooked in academic discussions but also complicates our understanding of precarity, opening up new possibilities for coexistence with this condition.
{"title":"In and against the platform: Navigating precarity for Instagram and Xiaohongshu (Red) influencers","authors":"Jiali Fan","doi":"10.1177/14614448241270434","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241270434","url":null,"abstract":"Existing scholarly discussions of the influencer industry often take a critical stance, marked by a narrow, westernised and homogenised theme of precarity. This raises the need to explore the empirical dynamics of precarity—how it is understood, managed, and ultimately lived for influencers from different social and cultural contexts. Based on in-depth interviews with 15 Instagram influencers and 12 from Xiaohongshu (Red), this article reveals that influencers adopt a positionality I term “in and against the platform.” This approach involves both collaboration with and resistance to platform rules and rituals, ultimately enabling influencers to establish a sustainable way of living amid precarity. I argue that this “in and against” framework as a condition of labour not only highlights the active agency and creativity often overlooked in academic discussions but also complicates our understanding of precarity, opening up new possibilities for coexistence with this condition.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141991797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-15DOI: 10.1177/14614448241267731
Annika Pinch, Floor Fiers, Jeremy Birnholtz, Justine Fisher, Brigid Reilly
On social media, people often value authenticity and realness, yet the ways in which platforms promote authenticity may conflict with people’s goals to present an idealized self. Launched in 2020, the social media app BeReal encourages authenticity by prompting users to post unfiltered front and back camera photos at a particular time, thereby limiting control over their online self-presentation. We interviewed 25 BeReal users, exploring how they understand, perform, and evaluate authenticity given these unique constraints. Our findings reveal that participants resist BeReal’s prompts and encouragements, employing strategies to regain control over their self-presentation. Yet participants simultaneously ascribe to BeReal’s notion of realness, believing posts should appear effortless, branding themselves and others as fake when they ignore BeReal’s prompts. Ultimately, we discuss authenticity as sociotechnical and reflect on the ways in which people’s values around authenticity shift over time.
{"title":"“Is it time for me to be authentic?”: Understanding, performing, and evaluating authenticity on BeReal","authors":"Annika Pinch, Floor Fiers, Jeremy Birnholtz, Justine Fisher, Brigid Reilly","doi":"10.1177/14614448241267731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241267731","url":null,"abstract":"On social media, people often value authenticity and realness, yet the ways in which platforms promote authenticity may conflict with people’s goals to present an idealized self. Launched in 2020, the social media app BeReal encourages authenticity by prompting users to post unfiltered front and back camera photos at a particular time, thereby limiting control over their online self-presentation. We interviewed 25 BeReal users, exploring how they understand, perform, and evaluate authenticity given these unique constraints. Our findings reveal that participants resist BeReal’s prompts and encouragements, employing strategies to regain control over their self-presentation. Yet participants simultaneously ascribe to BeReal’s notion of realness, believing posts should appear effortless, branding themselves and others as fake when they ignore BeReal’s prompts. Ultimately, we discuss authenticity as sociotechnical and reflect on the ways in which people’s values around authenticity shift over time.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141991802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-14DOI: 10.1177/14614448241268896
Regina Cazzamatta
In a quantitative content analysis of 3,154 debunking articles from 23 fact-checking organizations, this study examines global misinformation trends and regional nuances across eight countries in Europe and Latin America (UK, DE, PT, SP, AR, BR, CL, and VZ). It strives to elucidate commonalities and differences based on political and media system indicators. Notably, countries with a substantial online presence of far-right parties avoid disclosing (fake) ordinary accounts to evade engaging in inauthentic coordinated actions. While entirely fabricated stories are infrequent, they stand out in Brazil and Spain, the two countries with higher political polarization. Despite variations, aggregated forms of fabrication (invented, manipulated, imposter, or decontextualized content) are more prominent in Latin America due to high social media use for news and low reliance on public media. Conversely, in Europe, countries are more impacted by misleading (cherry-picked, exaggerated, and twisted) information.
{"title":"Global misinformation trends: Commonalities and differences in topics, sources of falsehoods, and deception strategies across eight countries","authors":"Regina Cazzamatta","doi":"10.1177/14614448241268896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241268896","url":null,"abstract":"In a quantitative content analysis of 3,154 debunking articles from 23 fact-checking organizations, this study examines global misinformation trends and regional nuances across eight countries in Europe and Latin America (UK, DE, PT, SP, AR, BR, CL, and VZ). It strives to elucidate commonalities and differences based on political and media system indicators. Notably, countries with a substantial online presence of far-right parties avoid disclosing (fake) ordinary accounts to evade engaging in inauthentic coordinated actions. While entirely fabricated stories are infrequent, they stand out in Brazil and Spain, the two countries with higher political polarization. Despite variations, aggregated forms of fabrication (invented, manipulated, imposter, or decontextualized content) are more prominent in Latin America due to high social media use for news and low reliance on public media. Conversely, in Europe, countries are more impacted by misleading (cherry-picked, exaggerated, and twisted) information.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141986212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-10DOI: 10.1177/14614448241266770
Emily Setty, Emma Dobson
The lockdown imposed in England in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involved an unprecedented ‘shift to digital’, including in relationships between non-cohabiting individuals. This article examines young people’s perspectives on and experiences of using networked communication technologies (NCTs) in romantic relationships during lockdown, based on 14 focus groups (n = 80) and interviews (n = 38) conducted with young people in England during 2021–2022. Using critical realist theory, we identify interplays between lockdown as a condition, NCT affordances and wider norms, meanings and expectations for relationships. Participants were ambivalent about interacting online during lockdown, with interlocking risks and opportunities specific to and transcending lockdown as a condition. Implications are discussed regarding meanings and experiences of post-digital relationships for young people, both during and post-pandemic.
{"title":"Young people’s ‘post-digital’ relationships during COVID-19 ‘lockdowns’ in England","authors":"Emily Setty, Emma Dobson","doi":"10.1177/14614448241266770","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241266770","url":null,"abstract":"The lockdown imposed in England in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involved an unprecedented ‘shift to digital’, including in relationships between non-cohabiting individuals. This article examines young people’s perspectives on and experiences of using networked communication technologies (NCTs) in romantic relationships during lockdown, based on 14 focus groups (n = 80) and interviews (n = 38) conducted with young people in England during 2021–2022. Using critical realist theory, we identify interplays between lockdown as a condition, NCT affordances and wider norms, meanings and expectations for relationships. Participants were ambivalent about interacting online during lockdown, with interlocking risks and opportunities specific to and transcending lockdown as a condition. Implications are discussed regarding meanings and experiences of post-digital relationships for young people, both during and post-pandemic.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141915265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-07DOI: 10.1177/14614448241265230
{"title":"Corrigendum to “Flagging as a silencing tool: Exploring the relationship between de-platforming of sex and online abuse on Instagram and TikTok.”","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/14614448241265230","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241265230","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141904461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-07DOI: 10.1177/14614448241266392
{"title":"Corrigendum to “Friction in the Netflix machine: How screen workers interact with streaming data”","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/14614448241266392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241266392","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141904197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1177/14614448241263757
Julie Dereymaeker, Janneke M Schokkenbroek, Marijn Martens, Ralf De Wolf
Smart home technologies (SHT) are becoming more and more widespread. The commodification of the household and the surveillance of family life by companies have understandably sparked numerous questions. It should not be forgotten, however, that SHT also bring family members convenient tools to surveil each other. Parental and partner surveillance, further referred to as intimate surveillance, have rarely been studied with regard to the smart home. This article empirically explores intimate surveillance behaviours, intentions and motivations by drawing on an online survey study ( n = 715) with parents and partners. Overall, the results show that intimate surveillance takes place with SHT, that parental surveillance intentions are higher than partner surveillance intentions and that care is considered a relevant motivation for intimate surveillance. Furthermore, this study invites to be mindful of the specificities of surveillance practices, and encourages researchers to be explicit about their assumptions on the underlying motivations for intimate surveillance.
{"title":"Smarter homes, smarter surveillance? Exploring intimate surveillance practices in modern day households","authors":"Julie Dereymaeker, Janneke M Schokkenbroek, Marijn Martens, Ralf De Wolf","doi":"10.1177/14614448241263757","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241263757","url":null,"abstract":"Smart home technologies (SHT) are becoming more and more widespread. The commodification of the household and the surveillance of family life by companies have understandably sparked numerous questions. It should not be forgotten, however, that SHT also bring family members convenient tools to surveil each other. Parental and partner surveillance, further referred to as intimate surveillance, have rarely been studied with regard to the smart home. This article empirically explores intimate surveillance behaviours, intentions and motivations by drawing on an online survey study ( n = 715) with parents and partners. Overall, the results show that intimate surveillance takes place with SHT, that parental surveillance intentions are higher than partner surveillance intentions and that care is considered a relevant motivation for intimate surveillance. Furthermore, this study invites to be mindful of the specificities of surveillance practices, and encourages researchers to be explicit about their assumptions on the underlying motivations for intimate surveillance.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141862086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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