Abstract Proactive self-tracking is a proliferating digital media practice that involves gathering data about the body and the self outside a clinical healthcare setting. Various studies have noted that self-tracking technologies affect people's everyday modes of thought and action and stick to their lifeworlds because these technologies seek to promote “improved” modes of behaviour. We investigate how the specific devices and interfaces involved in self-tracking attract and prescribe rhythmicity into everyday lives and elaborate on how human bodies and technical systems of self-tracking interact rhythmically. We draw from new materialist ontology, combining it with Henri Lefebvre's method of rhythmanalysis and his notion of dressage. We employ a collaborative autoethnographical approach and engage with both of our personal fieldwork experiences in living with self-tracking devices. We argue that rhythmicity and dressage are fruitful analytical tools to use in understanding human–technology attachments as well as a variety of everyday struggles inherent in self-tracking practices.
{"title":"Move, eat, sleep, repeat: Living by rhythm with proactive self-tracking technologies","authors":"Minna Vigren,Harley Bergroth","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0046","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Proactive self-tracking is a proliferating digital media practice that involves gathering data about the body and the self outside a clinical healthcare setting. Various studies have noted that self-tracking technologies affect people's everyday modes of thought and action and stick to their lifeworlds because these technologies seek to promote “improved” modes of behaviour. We investigate how the specific devices and interfaces involved in self-tracking attract and prescribe rhythmicity into everyday lives and elaborate on how human bodies and technical systems of self-tracking interact rhythmically. We draw from new materialist ontology, combining it with Henri Lefebvre's method of rhythmanalysis and his notion of dressage. We employ a collaborative autoethnographical approach and engage with both of our personal fieldwork experiences in living with self-tracking devices. We argue that rhythmicity and dressage are fruitful analytical tools to use in understanding human–technology attachments as well as a variety of everyday struggles inherent in self-tracking practices.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138532496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Gaming is a frequent source of conflict for families. Research on parents and gaming has identified a lack of gaming-related expertise, a general devaluation or fear of play, and authoritative and restrictive parenting styles as key sources of conflict. What happens when these deficits are addressed? What does mediation look like when parents are expert gamers, enjoy play, and encourage play for their children? Based on qualitative interviews with 29 parents who identify as gamers, we explore how gamer parents domesticate games. To explore the work of stabilising gaming as a wholesome and valued pastime, we combine domestication theory with overflows to address the struggles involved. The analysis investigates how gamer parents mediate play, with an emphasis on how games are interpreted, the family's player practices, and the role of gaming-related expertise in accordance with the three dimensions (symbolic, practice, cognitive) of domestication theory.
{"title":"The struggle and enrichment of play: Domestications and overflows in the everyday life of gamer parents","authors":"Kristine Ask, Ingvild Kvale Sørenssen, Stine Thordarson Moltubakk","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0044","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Gaming is a frequent source of conflict for families. Research on parents and gaming has identified a lack of gaming-related expertise, a general devaluation or fear of play, and authoritative and restrictive parenting styles as key sources of conflict. What happens when these deficits are addressed? What does mediation look like when parents are expert gamers, enjoy play, and encourage play for their children? Based on qualitative interviews with 29 parents who identify as gamers, we explore how gamer parents domesticate games. To explore the work of stabilising gaming as a wholesome and valued pastime, we combine domestication theory with overflows to address the struggles involved. The analysis investigates how gamer parents mediate play, with an emphasis on how games are interpreted, the family's player practices, and the role of gaming-related expertise in accordance with the three dimensions (symbolic, practice, cognitive) of domestication theory.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44776894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The implicit ambiguity of surveillance as both care and control has been a key theoretical issue in social science research on surveillance practices and technologies. This article addresses this ambiguity empirically by examining how parents using – or not using – location-tracking apps to monitor their children negotiate this tension. Drawing on 17 semistructured interviews conducted with parents in different regions of Denmark, we examine the struggles of these parents to fit this technology into their world and to reconcile their uses with ideals of trust, privacy, and good parenting. By highlighting how users and non-users perceive and negotiate the controlling affordances of tracking apps, we emphasise the potential for negotiation, contestation, and resistance raised by this technology, and the contingent nature of its appropriation and effects. Thereby, it brings nuances to techno-pessimistic accounts of child tracking and calls for further empirical studies examining how these technologies are experienced in practice.
{"title":"The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents","authors":"S. Widmer, Anders Albrechtslund","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0042","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The implicit ambiguity of surveillance as both care and control has been a key theoretical issue in social science research on surveillance practices and technologies. This article addresses this ambiguity empirically by examining how parents using – or not using – location-tracking apps to monitor their children negotiate this tension. Drawing on 17 semistructured interviews conducted with parents in different regions of Denmark, we examine the struggles of these parents to fit this technology into their world and to reconcile their uses with ideals of trust, privacy, and good parenting. By highlighting how users and non-users perceive and negotiate the controlling affordances of tracking apps, we emphasise the potential for negotiation, contestation, and resistance raised by this technology, and the contingent nature of its appropriation and effects. Thereby, it brings nuances to techno-pessimistic accounts of child tracking and calls for further empirical studies examining how these technologies are experienced in practice.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43511701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Sundhed.dk is Denmark's national eHealth platform allowing citizens to access their personal health data. Based on 16 qualitative interviews with patients, our aim in this article is to examine how patients engage with their health data. First, we illustrate how patients struggle in different ways to make sense of numerical measurements and written notes. Second, we examine the platform as a communicative space and suggest that a new “medical-domestic” space arises in which medical data is interpreted and negotiated at home. Third, we investigate how health data affects patients’ experiences of being involved as equal partners and how access to data potentially enhances patient empowerment, but also how expectations are sometimes unfulfilled. In conclusion, we argue for a broader public dialogue in order to make sure that the data provided actually creates an optimal starting point and does not foster insecurity or self-doubt on the patient's side.
{"title":"eHealth platforms as user–data communication: Examining patients’ struggles with digital health data","authors":"M. Mahnke, Mikka Nielsen","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0040","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Sundhed.dk is Denmark's national eHealth platform allowing citizens to access their personal health data. Based on 16 qualitative interviews with patients, our aim in this article is to examine how patients engage with their health data. First, we illustrate how patients struggle in different ways to make sense of numerical measurements and written notes. Second, we examine the platform as a communicative space and suggest that a new “medical-domestic” space arises in which medical data is interpreted and negotiated at home. Third, we investigate how health data affects patients’ experiences of being involved as equal partners and how access to data potentially enhances patient empowerment, but also how expectations are sometimes unfulfilled. In conclusion, we argue for a broader public dialogue in order to make sure that the data provided actually creates an optimal starting point and does not foster insecurity or self-doubt on the patient's side.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44485559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a tingling, static-like sensation in response to specific triggering audio and visual stimuli. Within recent years, ASMR has mostly been associated with videos on YouTube (technologically mediated ASMR) dedicated to make the users “tingle”, relax, and feel at ease. In this article, I explore the ambiguity of technology in relation to the ASMR experience and theoretically investigate how viewer-listeners might struggle to obtain an intimate and parasocial interaction in a technologically mediated ASMR context. The article introduces four types of intimacies as well as theoretical concepts of mediated intimacy, immediacy, and parasocial interaction, and I discuss these intimacies and concepts in relation to illustrative comments by some of the pacesetting power users of ASMR.
{"title":"The ambiguity of technology in ASMR experiences: Four types of intimacies and struggles in the user comments on YouTube","authors":"Helle Breth Klausen","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0045","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a tingling, static-like sensation in response to specific triggering audio and visual stimuli. Within recent years, ASMR has mostly been associated with videos on YouTube (technologically mediated ASMR) dedicated to make the users “tingle”, relax, and feel at ease. In this article, I explore the ambiguity of technology in relation to the ASMR experience and theoretically investigate how viewer-listeners might struggle to obtain an intimate and parasocial interaction in a technologically mediated ASMR context. The article introduces four types of intimacies as well as theoretical concepts of mediated intimacy, immediacy, and parasocial interaction, and I discuss these intimacies and concepts in relation to illustrative comments by some of the pacesetting power users of ASMR.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48989256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract As the dust of society-wide digitalisation settles, the search for meaningful technological encounters is becoming more urgent. While the Nordic countries embrace digitalisation, recent concerns regarding technology overuse have been gaining increased attention. This tendency is exemplified in practices of limiting digital use, called digital disengagement – an apparent paradox in Nordic societies where digital is the dominant paradigm. In this article, we explore the emergence of disconnection-centred devices called “dumbphones”, which cater to individuals wishing to escape hyperconnected lifestyles. Drawing on a new materialist perspective, we present a content analysis of dumbphones’ advertising material, followed by a collaborative autoethnographic study in which we replace our smartphones with dumbphones. We critically weigh the promises of the dumbphones against the actual experience of digital disengagement in Sweden. Our findings illustrate a struggle with digital technologies, even despite their absence, due to emerging workarounds and societal expectations of use.
{"title":"Going cold turkey!: An autoethnographic exploration of digital disengagement","authors":"C. Ghita, C. Thorén","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0047","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As the dust of society-wide digitalisation settles, the search for meaningful technological encounters is becoming more urgent. While the Nordic countries embrace digitalisation, recent concerns regarding technology overuse have been gaining increased attention. This tendency is exemplified in practices of limiting digital use, called digital disengagement – an apparent paradox in Nordic societies where digital is the dominant paradigm. In this article, we explore the emergence of disconnection-centred devices called “dumbphones”, which cater to individuals wishing to escape hyperconnected lifestyles. Drawing on a new materialist perspective, we present a content analysis of dumbphones’ advertising material, followed by a collaborative autoethnographic study in which we replace our smartphones with dumbphones. We critically weigh the promises of the dumbphones against the actual experience of digital disengagement in Sweden. Our findings illustrate a struggle with digital technologies, even despite their absence, due to emerging workarounds and societal expectations of use.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43416287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Maja Sonne Damkjær, Ane Kathrine Gammelby, Stine Liv Johansen, M. Mahnke
{"title":"Struggling with technology: Perspectives on everyday life","authors":"Maja Sonne Damkjær, Ane Kathrine Gammelby, Stine Liv Johansen, M. Mahnke","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0037","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42091172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract YouTube represents an increasingly popular cultural phenomenon in the contemporary Norwegian media landscape. Since the inception of the digital video platform over 15 years ago, personal videoblogging has emerged as one of its dominant types of user-generated content. In this article, I draw from New Rhetoric genre theory and netnographic approaches to explore the beauty and lifestyle sphere on YouTube, in which several emergent genres are situated within a new media ecosystem. Through a qualitative content analysis of seven established Norwegian YouTube channels, a total of 17 individual genres were identified. Furthermore, I elaborate upon how informational, instructional, and confessional communicative functions are utilised in audiovisual publications through conventionalised digital media production practices.
{"title":"The genre repertoires of Norwegian beauty and lifestyle influencers on YouTube","authors":"Aleksander Torjesen","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0036","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract YouTube represents an increasingly popular cultural phenomenon in the contemporary Norwegian media landscape. Since the inception of the digital video platform over 15 years ago, personal videoblogging has emerged as one of its dominant types of user-generated content. In this article, I draw from New Rhetoric genre theory and netnographic approaches to explore the beauty and lifestyle sphere on YouTube, in which several emergent genres are situated within a new media ecosystem. Through a qualitative content analysis of seven established Norwegian YouTube channels, a total of 17 individual genres were identified. Furthermore, I elaborate upon how informational, instructional, and confessional communicative functions are utilised in audiovisual publications through conventionalised digital media production practices.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44904078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Digital tools facilitating everything from health to education have been introduced at a rapid pace to replace physical meetings and allow for social distancing measures as the Covid-19 pandemic has sped up the drive to large-scale digitalisation. This rapid digitalisation enhances the already ongoing process of datafication, namely turning ever-increasing aspects of our identities, practices, and societal structures into data. Through an analysis of empirical examples of datafication in three important areas of the welfare state – employment services, public service media, and the corrections sector – we draw attention to some of the inherent problems of datafication in the Nordic welfare states. The analysis throws critical light on automated decision-making processes and illustrates how the ideology of dataism has become increasingly entangled with welfare provision. We end the article with a call to develop specific measures and policies to enable the development of the data welfare state, with media and communication scholars playing a crucial role.
{"title":"Fostering the data welfare state: A Nordic perspective on datafication","authors":"R. Andreassen, Anne Kaun, Kaarina Nikunen","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0051","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Digital tools facilitating everything from health to education have been introduced at a rapid pace to replace physical meetings and allow for social distancing measures as the Covid-19 pandemic has sped up the drive to large-scale digitalisation. This rapid digitalisation enhances the already ongoing process of datafication, namely turning ever-increasing aspects of our identities, practices, and societal structures into data. Through an analysis of empirical examples of datafication in three important areas of the welfare state – employment services, public service media, and the corrections sector – we draw attention to some of the inherent problems of datafication in the Nordic welfare states. The analysis throws critical light on automated decision-making processes and illustrates how the ideology of dataism has become increasingly entangled with welfare provision. We end the article with a call to develop specific measures and policies to enable the development of the data welfare state, with media and communication scholars playing a crucial role.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42605840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Indigenous journalism can facilitate the inclusion of Indigenous voices in the public sphere, thereby contributing to social change. Contemporary Indigenous journalism is in part facilitated by the introduction and diffusion of paradigmatic media innovations, including the Internet, mobile technology, and social media. Based on a literature review, we investigate how media innovations are understood to facilitate Indigenous journalism and find that few empirical studies directly address this question. Analyses of Indigenous journalism, reaching beyond the potential for increased access to media and for amplification of Indigenous voice, are lacking. Furthermore, little research investigates how the appropriation of new technological affordances influence the production of Indigenous journalism. Our review also indicates that while Indigenous political participation can be facilitated by media innovation, these innovations can also serve to reinforce existing power relations. We submit that more critical analytical approaches are required to investigate how media innovations might facilitate the potential of Indigenous journalism for social change.
{"title":"Indigenous journalism, media innovation, and social change: A review of previous research and call for more critical approaches","authors":"Niamh Ní Bhroin, S. Sand, Torkel Rasmussen","doi":"10.2478/nor-2021-0050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0050","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Indigenous journalism can facilitate the inclusion of Indigenous voices in the public sphere, thereby contributing to social change. Contemporary Indigenous journalism is in part facilitated by the introduction and diffusion of paradigmatic media innovations, including the Internet, mobile technology, and social media. Based on a literature review, we investigate how media innovations are understood to facilitate Indigenous journalism and find that few empirical studies directly address this question. Analyses of Indigenous journalism, reaching beyond the potential for increased access to media and for amplification of Indigenous voice, are lacking. Furthermore, little research investigates how the appropriation of new technological affordances influence the production of Indigenous journalism. Our review also indicates that while Indigenous political participation can be facilitated by media innovation, these innovations can also serve to reinforce existing power relations. We submit that more critical analytical approaches are required to investigate how media innovations might facilitate the potential of Indigenous journalism for social change.","PeriodicalId":45517,"journal":{"name":"Nordicom Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43949589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}