Convergence (London, England)最新文献

This article maps out and analyzes relationships shaping production in a growing cultural field of online gaming media production called 'Actual Play' (AP). AP occupies an ambiguous economic space between fan production and professional media and is marked by widespread monetization. Drawing on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 24 AP producers, this article uses actor-network theory and the concept of cultural fields to understand that space through an account of the actors constituting it. This maps the how AP producers develop their practices through complex relational networks. The analysis identifies 'key actor types' - the varieties of technological, human and corporate actors whose activities give shape to producers' practices. The article concludes that despite pervasive pressures to professionalize, the field offers limited pathways to vocational sustainability.

This article considers artistic engagements with string figure performance and collection as 'imaginary' articulations of digital media. As an object of anthropological inquiry, the string figure emerges in 1888 with a short paper by Franz Boas. Encouraged by more mainstream publications by Caroline Furness Jansen (2008) and Kathleen Haddon (1930), over the course of the 20th century the string figure would become a model through which largely western writers and artists have explored both the anxieties and dreams of ideal, embodied and networked communication technologies. The present article explores, specifically, the collecting projects and films of Harry Smith in the 1960s and 1970s; the video-performance piece of 1974, titled String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video, by the interdisciplinary artist Vera Frenkel; and the string figure exhibit at David Wilson's Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California. Through a media-archeological lens, the history of string figure fascination takes shape as a repository of dreams about (digital) communication, which, it is additionally suggested in a final section, might yet allow for the expansion and enlargement of conceptions of both digitality and media.

In recent years, location-based real-time dating apps like Grindr and Tinder have assumed an increasingly pivotal role in brokering socio-sexual relations between men seeking men and have proven to be fertile ground for the study of identity negotiation and impression management. However, current research has given insufficient consideration to how various contextual elements of technology use interact with one another to shape self-presentation behaviour. Through analysis of interview data, we found impression construction on these apps reflects tensions between authentic depiction of the self-concept and self-enhancement via deception. Whether and the extent to which one engages in deception depends on how a number of technological affordances, platform-specific community norms and userbase characteristics interact with each other. Self-presentational choices were a result of a combination of deception facilitators, for example, belief in the normalcy of lying, and constraining determinants, for example, the expectation of brokering physical connection. Impression construction determinants also interact in ways where the influence of any one element is dependent on others. This was most plainly evidenced in the interactions between stigma management concerns, the affordances of audience visibility/control and locatability and common ground reinforcing social hierarchy.

We describe a novel computational dictionary for the study of right-wing populist conspiracy discourse (RPC) on the internet, specifically in the context of contemporary German politics. After first presenting our definition of conspiracy discourse and grounding it in antecedent research on mediated rhetoric at the intersection of right-wing populism and conspiracy theory, we proceed by outlining our approach to dictionary construction, relying on a combination of manual and automated methods. We validate our dictionary via parallel manual coding of 2,500 sentences using the categories contained in the dictionary as labels and compare the consensus result with the label assigned to each sentence by the dictionary, achieving satisfactory results. We then test our approach on two different datasets composed of alternative news articles and Facebook comments that spread conspiracy theories. Finally, we summarize our observations both on the methodological premises of the approach and on the object of populist right-wing conspiracy discourse and its dynamics more broadly. We close with an outlook on the potentials and limitations of the dictionary-based approach and future directions in applications of content analysis to the study of conspiracy discourse.

In the past few years, the discussion of conspiracy theories has embroiled researchers, politicians and the public alike. During the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, the term 'conspiracy theory' became a buzzword in the news media, public communication and everyday discussions. The pandemic also demonstrated that conspiratorial narratives disseminated online are not benign, obscure and eventually harmless ideas, but can mislead policy making, hinder crisis relief and public health efforts, or undermine trust in institutions and science. Factors contributing to the prevalence of conspiracy theories are complex and include psychological as well as socio-political factors. This special issue focuses specifically on the role of digital media and how they shape the dissemination and mitigation of, as well as research on, conspiracy theories. The special issue includes 13 research articles by authors from 11 countries and regions, which provide timely insights into the phenomenon of conspiracy theories with cross-cultural and cross-platform advances.

Commercial game makers at all scales of production have increasingly come to incorporate livestreaming into every stage of the game development cycle. Mainstream hits like Fortnite and League of Legends owe their ongoing success in no small part to their massive uptake by streamers, and triple-A releases from major publishers can reliably expect significant attention on streaming platforms. But what about smaller, lower budget games? For independent game developers, the costs and benefits of streaming are less clear. Based on interviews with small commercial indie developers in Toronto and Montréal, this article critically examines different discourses around streaming and commercial indie games, focusing on developer perceptions of the benefits and risks of streaming and its impacts on indie game-making practices, including production, promotion, and community-building. Contrary to persistent popular myths about streaming as the key to 'discoverability', commercial indie game development remains a precarious form of cultural work, and indie games collectively attract only a tiny fraction of the overall audience on streaming platforms. There is a high level of uncertainty about the factors that led to a given game's success, leaving many indie developers ambivalent about leveraging influencer attention and even as they commit significant time and energy trying to doing so.

Ageism is the most invisible form of discrimination. While there is some awareness of gender, racial, and socioeconomic discrimination on digital platforms, ageism has received less attention. This article analyzes some tools that are frequently embedded on digital platforms from an old-age perspective, in order to increase awareness of the different ways in which ageism works. We will firstly look at how innovation teams, following homophilic patterns, disregard older people. Secondly, we will show how ageism tends to be amplified by the methods often used on digital platforms. And thirdly, we will show how corporate values contradict the usability issues that mainly affect people with a low level of (digital) skills, which is more common among older people. Counterbalancing the abusive power control of the corporations behind digital platforms and compensating for the underrepresentation of groups in less favorable situations could help to tackle such discrimination.