Pub Date : 2024-08-14DOI: 10.1177/13548565241268062
Helene Fiane Teigen
Living with technology often entails work related to management and repair of it. The emerging literature on the work that goes into managing home networks and digital technologies has described it as ‘digital housekeeping’. Within this literature, a single person is often identified as being responsible for the domestic tech work and this is the same person who initiated bringing the technology into the home. However, remaining household members and persons who have been gifted with such technologies are under-researched, despite studies showing them to be vulnerable to skewed power dynamics and technical malfunctions when the responsible person is not around. Applying digital housekeeping as a theoretical lens, this article explores how people identified as ‘non-initiators’, that is, those living with smart home technologies but who did not initiate bringing the technology into their home, deal with malfunctioning devices. Drawing upon interviews with five identified non, this study provides an in-depth exploration of their troubleshooting routines conceptualized as diagnosing, performing, and delegating. Findings suggest that non-initiators also engage in digital housekeeping through troubleshooting, although this work is largely unacknowledged by themselves and others. Moreover, the image of non-initiators as vulnerable is nuanced by highlighting their active participation in the connected home. Non-initiators use smart home devices for daily activities, and they have the knowledge, skills, and resources to draw upon when encountering malfunctions. Furthermore, the non-initiators’ troubleshooting routines are affected by the devices’ materiality, the household’s social dynamics, and to some degree by societal perceptions of technology, age, and gender. This paper contributes to the existing literature on smart homes and digital housekeeping by emphasizing non-initiators’ contribution to digital housekeeping and by highlighting how their agency is asserted in line with their interests and needs.
{"title":"Troubleshooting the connected home: Exploring the perspectives of non-initiators","authors":"Helene Fiane Teigen","doi":"10.1177/13548565241268062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241268062","url":null,"abstract":"Living with technology often entails work related to management and repair of it. The emerging literature on the work that goes into managing home networks and digital technologies has described it as ‘digital housekeeping’. Within this literature, a single person is often identified as being responsible for the domestic tech work and this is the same person who initiated bringing the technology into the home. However, remaining household members and persons who have been gifted with such technologies are under-researched, despite studies showing them to be vulnerable to skewed power dynamics and technical malfunctions when the responsible person is not around. Applying digital housekeeping as a theoretical lens, this article explores how people identified as ‘non-initiators’, that is, those living with smart home technologies but who did not initiate bringing the technology into their home, deal with malfunctioning devices. Drawing upon interviews with five identified non, this study provides an in-depth exploration of their troubleshooting routines conceptualized as diagnosing, performing, and delegating. Findings suggest that non-initiators also engage in digital housekeeping through troubleshooting, although this work is largely unacknowledged by themselves and others. Moreover, the image of non-initiators as vulnerable is nuanced by highlighting their active participation in the connected home. Non-initiators use smart home devices for daily activities, and they have the knowledge, skills, and resources to draw upon when encountering malfunctions. Furthermore, the non-initiators’ troubleshooting routines are affected by the devices’ materiality, the household’s social dynamics, and to some degree by societal perceptions of technology, age, and gender. This paper contributes to the existing literature on smart homes and digital housekeeping by emphasizing non-initiators’ contribution to digital housekeeping and by highlighting how their agency is asserted in line with their interests and needs.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-13DOI: 10.1177/13548565241270691
Stéfany Boisvert
Canadian subscription-video-on-demand (SVOD) services have commissioned French-language ‘original’ content to attract local audiences. ICI TOU.TV, Club Illico and Crave have indeed commissioned more than a hundred French-language scripted series, mostly produced in the Quebec province. However, the current state of research only marginally documents these services. Even in Canada, most research focus on US-owned streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon, thus providing little information on Canadian national SVOD services, and their affordances in terms of storytelling and representation. Current research also completely overlooks French-language original content. This paper therefore discusses the results of the very first research project to specifically focus on the production of original French-language series for Canadian streaming services. After reviewing all original (scripted and unscripted) French-language content available on Canadian-owned SVOD services, a textual analysis of more than 40 scripted series has been conducted, which led to intricate insights regarding prevailing narrative trends and characteristics of main and secondary characters. In so doing, the objective was also to determine the level of diversity included within this so-called original content. In a context characterized by an unprecedented proliferation of scripted series, it indeed becomes crucial to ascertain whether a greater quantity of productions necessarily leads to a greater diversity in representation, that is, the inclusion of a ‘multiplicity of forms’, and an equitable plurality of cultural expressions and identities. This research produced several findings that testify to a significant inclusion of sexual, gender, and racial diversity, as well as a noticeable trend towards intersectional representation. Yet, the analysis also led to identify persistent issues, such as the qualitative marginalization of non-normative characters (queer, BIPOC, with disability, etc.), as they mostly are relegated to supporting roles. These findings therefore call for a nuanced assessment of the ‘progress’ in representation on streaming services.
{"title":"Streaming Diversité: Exploring representations within French-language scripted series on Canadian SVOD services","authors":"Stéfany Boisvert","doi":"10.1177/13548565241270691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270691","url":null,"abstract":"Canadian subscription-video-on-demand (SVOD) services have commissioned French-language ‘original’ content to attract local audiences. ICI TOU.TV, Club Illico and Crave have indeed commissioned more than a hundred French-language scripted series, mostly produced in the Quebec province. However, the current state of research only marginally documents these services. Even in Canada, most research focus on US-owned streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon, thus providing little information on Canadian national SVOD services, and their affordances in terms of storytelling and representation. Current research also completely overlooks French-language original content. This paper therefore discusses the results of the very first research project to specifically focus on the production of original French-language series for Canadian streaming services. After reviewing all original (scripted and unscripted) French-language content available on Canadian-owned SVOD services, a textual analysis of more than 40 scripted series has been conducted, which led to intricate insights regarding prevailing narrative trends and characteristics of main and secondary characters. In so doing, the objective was also to determine the level of diversity included within this so-called original content. In a context characterized by an unprecedented proliferation of scripted series, it indeed becomes crucial to ascertain whether a greater quantity of productions necessarily leads to a greater diversity in representation, that is, the inclusion of a ‘multiplicity of forms’, and an equitable plurality of cultural expressions and identities. This research produced several findings that testify to a significant inclusion of sexual, gender, and racial diversity, as well as a noticeable trend towards intersectional representation. Yet, the analysis also led to identify persistent issues, such as the qualitative marginalization of non-normative characters (queer, BIPOC, with disability, etc.), as they mostly are relegated to supporting roles. These findings therefore call for a nuanced assessment of the ‘progress’ in representation on streaming services.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-13DOI: 10.1177/13548565241270897
Cathrin Bengesser, Jannick Kirk Sørensen
While globally operating SVoDs have discovered identity-based diversity as a branding strategy, diversity has a longer history and broader meaning in public service media (PSM) tied to the foundational ideals of universality and pluralism that oblige PSM to speak to all members of a society and to offer diverse programmes and viewpoints. We investigate: How are these two understandings of ‘diversity’ expressed 1) in legal and policy requirements to the PSM, 2) in strategy papers and audits issued by PSM, 3) in the presentation and exposure of content in VoD interfaces? And 4) How can PSMs' practice around diversity on VoD be tracked methodologically? The article examines these questions by comparing: BBC iPlayer (UK), DRTV (Denmark) and ARD Mediathek (Germany). A document analysis examines how legal remits and strategies governing these institutions talk about diversity. We analyse the presentation and exposure of ‘diversity’ in VoD content via longitudinal datasets that document the three VoD landing pages daily between early 2022 and late 2023, recording the position of every programme title at the VoDs’ front pages, as well as deck titles. We test four approaches to this dataset: Spotting diversity in deck titles, looking for content tagged as diverse on IMDb and by Chat GPT, calculating diversity of exposed content with the Gini-Simpson-Index and assessing diversity through a manual coding of deck titles and sampling content displayed in selected decks. The article shows how differently diversity can be conceptualised and operationalised in VoD practice and concludes that multi-dimensional methodological approaches are needed. This article is a report on different publishing strategies for ‘diversity content’ in PSM VoD interfaces; a discussion of the conflicting relation between public service ideals and the notion of identity-based ‘branded diversity' of globally operating VoDs; and a contribution to developing methods for monitoring diversity on VoD.
{"title":"Different diversities: Policies and practices at three European public service VoD services","authors":"Cathrin Bengesser, Jannick Kirk Sørensen","doi":"10.1177/13548565241270897","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270897","url":null,"abstract":"While globally operating SVoDs have discovered identity-based diversity as a branding strategy, diversity has a longer history and broader meaning in public service media (PSM) tied to the foundational ideals of universality and pluralism that oblige PSM to speak to all members of a society and to offer diverse programmes and viewpoints. We investigate: How are these two understandings of ‘diversity’ expressed 1) in legal and policy requirements to the PSM, 2) in strategy papers and audits issued by PSM, 3) in the presentation and exposure of content in VoD interfaces? And 4) How can PSMs' practice around diversity on VoD be tracked methodologically? The article examines these questions by comparing: BBC iPlayer (UK), DRTV (Denmark) and ARD Mediathek (Germany). A document analysis examines how legal remits and strategies governing these institutions talk about diversity. We analyse the presentation and exposure of ‘diversity’ in VoD content via longitudinal datasets that document the three VoD landing pages daily between early 2022 and late 2023, recording the position of every programme title at the VoDs’ front pages, as well as deck titles. We test four approaches to this dataset: Spotting diversity in deck titles, looking for content tagged as diverse on IMDb and by Chat GPT, calculating diversity of exposed content with the Gini-Simpson-Index and assessing diversity through a manual coding of deck titles and sampling content displayed in selected decks. The article shows how differently diversity can be conceptualised and operationalised in VoD practice and concludes that multi-dimensional methodological approaches are needed. This article is a report on different publishing strategies for ‘diversity content’ in PSM VoD interfaces; a discussion of the conflicting relation between public service ideals and the notion of identity-based ‘branded diversity' of globally operating VoDs; and a contribution to developing methods for monitoring diversity on VoD.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"1524 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The unprecedented growth of video-on-demand (VOD) streaming platforms has brought both new optimism and new complications to concerns around screen ‘diversity’. To what extent have major global and smaller regional VOD platforms invested in screen diversity, at the level of genres, languages, country-of-origin, social representation or creative labour? Just how ‘diverse’ are the catalogues of VOD services? How is this content represented to audiences and made discoverable through platform interfaces and recommendation systems? How might this vary across the major US-based services, compared with smaller and more niche platforms, or with local broadcaster VODs, or with national public service VODs? This introduction to a special collection on diversity in the streaming era surveys recent developments in screen and media studies scholarship that attempt to address these questions. In doing so, we examine how streaming platforms are addressing diversity at the levels of industry, policy, texts, technologies and audiences. At each level, we observe different definitions, operationalisations, and practices of ‘diversity’ that are informed by a range of disciplinary theorisations, policy histories and priorities, and national and regional contexts, all of which come to intersect with each other in new and challenging ways in the VOD era. In conclusion, we argue that to properly respond to the problem of ‘diversity’, research on screen diversity and on VODs must engage with these diverse dimensions of ‘diversity’.
{"title":"Streaming diversity: Studying screen diversity in the streaming era","authors":"Maura Edmond, Olivia Khoo, Claire Perkins, Verity Trott","doi":"10.1177/13548565241270887","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270887","url":null,"abstract":"The unprecedented growth of video-on-demand (VOD) streaming platforms has brought both new optimism and new complications to concerns around screen ‘diversity’. To what extent have major global and smaller regional VOD platforms invested in screen diversity, at the level of genres, languages, country-of-origin, social representation or creative labour? Just how ‘diverse’ are the catalogues of VOD services? How is this content represented to audiences and made discoverable through platform interfaces and recommendation systems? How might this vary across the major US-based services, compared with smaller and more niche platforms, or with local broadcaster VODs, or with national public service VODs? This introduction to a special collection on diversity in the streaming era surveys recent developments in screen and media studies scholarship that attempt to address these questions. In doing so, we examine how streaming platforms are addressing diversity at the levels of industry, policy, texts, technologies and audiences. At each level, we observe different definitions, operationalisations, and practices of ‘diversity’ that are informed by a range of disciplinary theorisations, policy histories and priorities, and national and regional contexts, all of which come to intersect with each other in new and challenging ways in the VOD era. In conclusion, we argue that to properly respond to the problem of ‘diversity’, research on screen diversity and on VODs must engage with these diverse dimensions of ‘diversity’.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1177/13548565241270868
Kristian H Jensen, Thomas AM Skelly
Food consumption in video gaming culture has been linked to convenience, nutritionally poor food, and unconventional eating norms. However, little attention has been given to video gaming and food interactions in mundane settings. This article explores how video gaming and food practices compete for time and attention in everyday life. We use theories of practice approach and data from a qualitative study on young Danish adults who frequently play video games. The findings suggest the competition between video gaming and food is decided by the practice that best realizes the desire to be sociable and gendered commitments to healthiness and housekeeping. We discuss the sociable appeal of video gaming over extensive performances of cooking and eating in relation to the individualization of daily social encounters and interrogate the conventional perceptions of food in video gaming culture in the context of inattention to gender differentiation.
{"title":"Sociable desires and gendered commitments: Video gaming and food in everyday life","authors":"Kristian H Jensen, Thomas AM Skelly","doi":"10.1177/13548565241270868","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270868","url":null,"abstract":"Food consumption in video gaming culture has been linked to convenience, nutritionally poor food, and unconventional eating norms. However, little attention has been given to video gaming and food interactions in mundane settings. This article explores how video gaming and food practices compete for time and attention in everyday life. We use theories of practice approach and data from a qualitative study on young Danish adults who frequently play video games. The findings suggest the competition between video gaming and food is decided by the practice that best realizes the desire to be sociable and gendered commitments to healthiness and housekeeping. We discuss the sociable appeal of video gaming over extensive performances of cooking and eating in relation to the individualization of daily social encounters and interrogate the conventional perceptions of food in video gaming culture in the context of inattention to gender differentiation.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Delivery platforms use algorithmic control mechanisms to control couriers’ work. Despite studies looking at how algorithmic control manifests on different delivery platforms, there is a dearth of research exploring how delivery platforms communicate their approaches to algorithmic control, what kinds of strategies delivery workers adopt to mitigate algorithmic control, and to what extent information regarding such ‘algoactivistic approaches’ is shared among communities of delivery couriers who in many cases are in direct competition with one another. To that end, two studies are conducted. Study 1 analyses five publicly listed delivery companies’ annual reports ( n = 14), highlighting a lack of transparency on how the platforms’ algorithms function. In Study 2, a netnographic approach is used to conduct interviews ( n = 12) and a qualitative analysis of delivery workers’ online discussion forum posts ( n = 830) on the discussion forum Reddit. Four approaches to mitigating algorithmic control are found, and the way these are shared among couriers is considered.
{"title":"Strategies for communicating and mitigating algorithmic control on delivery platforms","authors":"Aarni Tuomi, Brana Jianu, Maizi Hua, Maartje Roelofsen, Mário Passos Ascenção","doi":"10.1177/13548565241270908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270908","url":null,"abstract":"Delivery platforms use algorithmic control mechanisms to control couriers’ work. Despite studies looking at how algorithmic control manifests on different delivery platforms, there is a dearth of research exploring how delivery platforms communicate their approaches to algorithmic control, what kinds of strategies delivery workers adopt to mitigate algorithmic control, and to what extent information regarding such ‘algoactivistic approaches’ is shared among communities of delivery couriers who in many cases are in direct competition with one another. To that end, two studies are conducted. Study 1 analyses five publicly listed delivery companies’ annual reports ( n = 14), highlighting a lack of transparency on how the platforms’ algorithms function. In Study 2, a netnographic approach is used to conduct interviews ( n = 12) and a qualitative analysis of delivery workers’ online discussion forum posts ( n = 830) on the discussion forum Reddit. Four approaches to mitigating algorithmic control are found, and the way these are shared among couriers is considered.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-04DOI: 10.1177/13548565241270674
Melina Meimaridis, Daniela Mazur, Daniel Rios
This article investigates the complex interplay between subscription video on-demand services (SVODs) and the representation of Brazilianness in global media. Focusing on Brazil’s video streaming landscape, our study delves into the challenges of representing the diverse tapestry of national culture, particularly in content commissioned by foreign platforms. These challenges include technical barriers, such as the concentration of audiovisual production infrastructure in the Rio-São Paulo axis, and textual hurdles, like the perpetuation of stereotypes and exoticization of Brazilian narratives. Our investigation includes a review of historical limited portrayal of Brazilianness on domestic television, an analysis of SVOD content from 2016 to 2023, and a case study of two Brazilian original series: Cangaço Novo and How to be a Carioca. These series illuminate different aspects of Brazilian reality. Cangaço Novo depicts a less fictionalized ‘Brasil’ prevalent in mainstream media, featuring themes of drought, the sertão, and local resistance. In contrast, How to be a Carioca presents a more stereotyped ‘Brazil’ tailored for international audiences, focusing on preconceived notions about Rio de Janeiro. Our findings reveal a paradox in the role of SVODs: they perpetuate national stereotypes even as they provide global access to Brazilian content. These platforms shape and export perceptions of Brazil, influencing how the country is viewed both domestically and globally. We explore the tensions between local content creation and global distribution, emphasizing the complexities of globalization, diversity, and cultural identity within the markets of the Majority World.
本文探讨了订阅视频点播服务（SVODs）与全球媒体中的巴西形象之间复杂的相互作用。我们的研究以巴西的视频流媒体景观为重点，深入探讨了表现民族文化多样性的挑战，特别是在外国平台委托制作的内容中。这些挑战包括技术上的障碍，如视听制作基础设施集中在里约-圣保罗轴心地带，以及文本上的障碍，如对巴西叙事的刻板印象和异国情调的延续。我们的调查包括回顾历史上国内电视对巴西的有限描述，分析 2016 年至 2023 年的 SVOD 内容，以及对两部巴西原创剧集的案例研究：Cangaço Novo 和 How to be a Carioca。这两部剧集展现了巴西现实生活的不同侧面。Cangaço Novo》描绘的是主流媒体中不那么虚构的 "巴西"，以干旱、塞唐和地方反抗为主题。与此相反，《如何成为一名卡里奥卡人》则为国际受众量身打造了一个更加刻板的 "巴西"，重点是关于里约热内卢的先入为主的观念。我们的研究结果揭示了 SVOD 所扮演角色的悖论：它们在向全球提供巴西内容的同时，也延续了对本国的刻板印象。这些平台塑造并输出了人们对巴西的看法，影响了国内和全球对巴西的看法。我们探讨了本地内容创作与全球发行之间的紧张关系，强调了多数世界市场中全球化、多样性和文化认同的复杂性。
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Pub Date : 2024-08-04DOI: 10.1177/13548565241270889
Ranjana Das
Datafication, across private and public sectors demonstrably touches upon, and indeed, alters, with profound consequences, diverse domains of people’s daily lives. However, also, increasingly, critical scholarship on datafication is the locus of careful attention to not solely platform and algorithmic power but also people’s sociocultural practices to make sense of, cope with, feel and show new literacies with data and datafied systems. It is in this context of genuinely listening to what people do with, through and around data, and to what end, that this special issue invites us to ponder the notion of data reflexivity. In this paper, I adopt a working definition of data reflexivity as – a vernacular and relational set of practices and strategies in relation to data and data infrastructures, working with, within and sometimes against platforms, where, such practices and strategies morph and change across the life course, through a web of cross-cutting relationships with individuals, communities and institutions. I draw upon illustrative instances from a project in England which explored parents’ perspectives on personal data and algorithms in the context of raising children. First – I suggest that we approach data reflexivity through a relational lens rather than as an individual and inward-looking strategy, where such relationality is experienced in relation to institutions, individuals, families, friendships, and networks. Second – I suggest that we look at data reflexivity as a fluid, lifelong journey – where a life course approach enables us to consider how data reflexivity morphs, adapts and transitions through the course of life, involving numerous acts of unspectacular, ephemeral agency. I conclude with a reminder that attention to data reflexivity, or indeed, more broadly, people’s agency, must not mean a shift of focus away from scrutinising and holding accountable, powerful institutions, both public and private.
{"title":"Data reflexivity as work-in-progress","authors":"Ranjana Das","doi":"10.1177/13548565241270889","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270889","url":null,"abstract":"Datafication, across private and public sectors demonstrably touches upon, and indeed, alters, with profound consequences, diverse domains of people’s daily lives. However, also, increasingly, critical scholarship on datafication is the locus of careful attention to not solely platform and algorithmic power but also people’s sociocultural practices to make sense of, cope with, feel and show new literacies with data and datafied systems. It is in this context of genuinely listening to what people do with, through and around data, and to what end, that this special issue invites us to ponder the notion of data reflexivity. In this paper, I adopt a working definition of data reflexivity as – a vernacular and relational set of practices and strategies in relation to data and data infrastructures, working with, within and sometimes against platforms, where, such practices and strategies morph and change across the life course, through a web of cross-cutting relationships with individuals, communities and institutions. I draw upon illustrative instances from a project in England which explored parents’ perspectives on personal data and algorithms in the context of raising children. First – I suggest that we approach data reflexivity through a relational lens rather than as an individual and inward-looking strategy, where such relationality is experienced in relation to institutions, individuals, families, friendships, and networks. Second – I suggest that we look at data reflexivity as a fluid, lifelong journey – where a life course approach enables us to consider how data reflexivity morphs, adapts and transitions through the course of life, involving numerous acts of unspectacular, ephemeral agency. I conclude with a reminder that attention to data reflexivity, or indeed, more broadly, people’s agency, must not mean a shift of focus away from scrutinising and holding accountable, powerful institutions, both public and private.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-03DOI: 10.1177/13548565241264002
Jessica Balanzategui, Djoymi Baker, Georgia Clift
In line with international trends, increasing numbers of children in Australia use streaming video platforms to watch television on-demand from extensive catalogues. Child viewers thus tend to negotiate platform interfaces organised by algorithmic curation to select content, rather than accessing content via scheduled linear TV. The deeper implications of this substantial shift in child audience habits around television have yet to be robustly reckoned with across scholarly and national policy approaches. Indeed, policy settings in Australia have not kept pace with these transformations, one result of which has been that 84% less Australian content was aired on free-to-air commercial broadcasters in 2022 compared to 2019. Key producer bodies fear the sector is in serious peril and may not withstand the current instability. Given that local children’s television meets Australian children’s best interests by situating them within their own socio-cultural context, the issue has become a site of significant policy, industry, and cultural concern. At this precarious time for the Australian children’s television sector, this article outlines key findings of a mixed method study with Australian children aged 7–9 ( n = 37) and their adult guardians to illustrate how children understand, identify, and discover ‘local’ and ‘children’s’ content on streaming platforms. This child audience research contributes to current policy and scholarly debates around the ‘routes to content’ audiences develop in the streaming era. A focus of our analysis is how and if children find Australian content. Our aim is to shed light on how ‘discoverability’ issues compound the current state of turmoil for the sector. We elucidate children’s digital fluencies with platform interfaces but highlight their limited cultural literacies with the content itself, which poses significant implications for industry and policy strategy around local content discoverability for child audiences on streaming platforms.
{"title":"What is ‘children’s television’ in the streaming era?: Assessing content discoverability through Australian children’s streaming platform fluencies","authors":"Jessica Balanzategui, Djoymi Baker, Georgia Clift","doi":"10.1177/13548565241264002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241264002","url":null,"abstract":"In line with international trends, increasing numbers of children in Australia use streaming video platforms to watch television on-demand from extensive catalogues. Child viewers thus tend to negotiate platform interfaces organised by algorithmic curation to select content, rather than accessing content via scheduled linear TV. The deeper implications of this substantial shift in child audience habits around television have yet to be robustly reckoned with across scholarly and national policy approaches. Indeed, policy settings in Australia have not kept pace with these transformations, one result of which has been that 84% less Australian content was aired on free-to-air commercial broadcasters in 2022 compared to 2019. Key producer bodies fear the sector is in serious peril and may not withstand the current instability. Given that local children’s television meets Australian children’s best interests by situating them within their own socio-cultural context, the issue has become a site of significant policy, industry, and cultural concern. At this precarious time for the Australian children’s television sector, this article outlines key findings of a mixed method study with Australian children aged 7–9 ( n = 37) and their adult guardians to illustrate how children understand, identify, and discover ‘local’ and ‘children’s’ content on streaming platforms. This child audience research contributes to current policy and scholarly debates around the ‘routes to content’ audiences develop in the streaming era. A focus of our analysis is how and if children find Australian content. Our aim is to shed light on how ‘discoverability’ issues compound the current state of turmoil for the sector. We elucidate children’s digital fluencies with platform interfaces but highlight their limited cultural literacies with the content itself, which poses significant implications for industry and policy strategy around local content discoverability for child audiences on streaming platforms.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-02DOI: 10.1177/13548565241270669
Maria Gemma Brown, Nicholas Carah, Xue Ying (Jane) Tan, Daniel Angus, Jean Burgess
The #nostalgiacores are a series of interrelated hashtags on Instagram and TikTok where users recirculate content from the digital and consumer cultures of the 1990s and 2000s – childhood play centres, dead malls, long-gone toys, and superseded game consoles and phones. In this article, we explore these digital cultures using a critical platform studies approach that involves a combination of network analysis and close textual analysis augmented with purpose-built machine vision tools. We scrape a collection of 359,150 images from Instagram that used one or more of 30 ‘-cores’ hashtags (such as #y2kcore, #webcore and #childhoodcore) that we chose following a period of immersive qualitative investigation of #nostalgiacore scenes on Instagram during 2021 and 2022. 10,000 Instagram images were then randomly selected and processed using a purpose-built unsupervised machine vision model that clusters images together based on their similarities. This research is part of a multi-year project where we develop hybrid digital methods for critically simulating and exploring the interplay between our image-making practices and the algorithmic systems that cluster and curate them. By combining computational approaches with critical platform and cultural studies approaches we speculatively explore both practices of curation and their interplay with the algorithmic classification and recommendation models of digital platforms. Our platform-oriented mode of textual analysis helps us to explore how our digital cultures are both symbolically and technically nostalgic. Instagram users in the #nostalgiacore scene recirculate images from the past as part of practices of critically reflecting on digital platforms and consumer cultures. At the same time those images are recuperated as archives used to train the algorithmic models that optimise attention on digital media platforms like Instagram.
{"title":"Finding the future in digitally mediated ruin: #nostalgiacores and the algorithmic culture of digital platforms","authors":"Maria Gemma Brown, Nicholas Carah, Xue Ying (Jane) Tan, Daniel Angus, Jean Burgess","doi":"10.1177/13548565241270669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270669","url":null,"abstract":"The #nostalgiacores are a series of interrelated hashtags on Instagram and TikTok where users recirculate content from the digital and consumer cultures of the 1990s and 2000s – childhood play centres, dead malls, long-gone toys, and superseded game consoles and phones. In this article, we explore these digital cultures using a critical platform studies approach that involves a combination of network analysis and close textual analysis augmented with purpose-built machine vision tools. We scrape a collection of 359,150 images from Instagram that used one or more of 30 ‘-cores’ hashtags (such as #y2kcore, #webcore and #childhoodcore) that we chose following a period of immersive qualitative investigation of #nostalgiacore scenes on Instagram during 2021 and 2022. 10,000 Instagram images were then randomly selected and processed using a purpose-built unsupervised machine vision model that clusters images together based on their similarities. This research is part of a multi-year project where we develop hybrid digital methods for critically simulating and exploring the interplay between our image-making practices and the algorithmic systems that cluster and curate them. By combining computational approaches with critical platform and cultural studies approaches we speculatively explore both practices of curation and their interplay with the algorithmic classification and recommendation models of digital platforms. Our platform-oriented mode of textual analysis helps us to explore how our digital cultures are both symbolically and technically nostalgic. Instagram users in the #nostalgiacore scene recirculate images from the past as part of practices of critically reflecting on digital platforms and consumer cultures. At the same time those images are recuperated as archives used to train the algorithmic models that optimise attention on digital media platforms like Instagram.","PeriodicalId":47242,"journal":{"name":"Convergence-The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies","volume":"217 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141883748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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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