Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taina Bucher
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Media And Communication

Algorithms and software are starting to catch the interest of social scientists and humanities scholars, having become somewhat of a buzzword in media and communication studies during the past years. Yet we are only at the beginning of understanding how algorithms and computation more broadly are affecting social life and the production and dissemination of knowledge as we know it. The introductory chapter sketches the contours of an algorithmic media landscape as it is currently unfolding by focusing on the ways in which Facebook friendships are programmatically organized and shaped through algorithmic systems. The chapter introduces the concept of “programmed sociality” to draw attention to software and computational infrastructure as conditions of possibility for sociality in digital media.

scholarly journals Advancing digital disconnection research: Introduction to the special issue

2021 ◽  
pp. 135485652110575
Author(s):  
Stine Lomborg ◽  
Brita Ytre-Arne
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Methodological Development ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
The Past ◽  
Tourism Studies ◽  
The Face ◽  
Media And Communication

Over the past decade, scholarly interest in “digital disconnection” and related concepts has grown in media and communication studies, and in related disciplines. The idea of digital disconnection explicitly references digitalization as a key societal development, creating conditions of intensified and embedded media involvement across social life. The notion of digital disconnection thereby represents a critical response to mediated conditions that characterize our societies and permeate our everyday lives. In this special issue, we take stock of the contributions, challenges, and promises of digital disconnection research. We showcase how digital disconnection scholarship intersects with other developments in media and communication research, and is part of debates and empirical analysis in related disciplines from tourism studies to psychology. We argue that one of the key strengths of the emergent work is the variety of social domains and conceptual debates that are included and explored in digital disconnection research. On the other hand, we also point to the need for further methodological development, conceptual consolidation, and empirical diversity, particularly in the face of global inequalities and ongoing crises.

scholarly journals Mobile bystanders and rubbernecks, disaster tourists, and helpers. Towards a theoretical framework for critically studying action possibilities at accident sites

2021 ◽  
pp. 205015792098482
Author(s):  
Linus Andersson ◽  
Ebba Sundin
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Media Practices

This article addresses the phenomenon of mobile bystanders who use their smartphones to film or take photographs at accident scenes, instead of offering their help to people in need or to assist medical units. This phenomenon has been extensively discussed in Swedish news media in recent years since it has been described as a growing problem for first responders, such as paramedics, police, and firefighters. This article aims to identify theoretical perspectives that are relevant for analyzing mobile media practices and discuss the ethical implications of these perspectives. Our purpose is twofold: we want to develop a theoretical framework for critically approaching mobile media practices, and we want to contribute to discussions concerning well-being in a time marked by mediatization and digitalization. In this pursuit, we combine theory from social psychology about how people behave at traumatic scenes with discussions about witnessing in and through media, as developed in media and communication studies. Both perspectives offer various implications for normative inquiry, and in our discussion, we argue that mobile bystanders must be considered simultaneously as transgressors of social norms and as emphatic witnesses behaving in accordance with the digital media age. The article ends with a discussion regarding the implications for further research.

Rationalitäten des Lebensendes

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Chronic Diseases ◽  
Terminal Care ◽  
Hospice Care ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Nursing Science ◽  
Media And Communication

In recent decades, the cultural, social, medical and political handling of the end of life has been subject to fundamental change. Against the background of the rise of chronic diseases and longer dying processes, new problems have occurred, leading, amongst other things, to new conceptions of terminal care. In this volume, experts from various disciplines (ethnology, history, media and communication studies, medicine, nursing science and sociology) analyse the current debate on dying, death and bereavement and its relevance to society. The articles the book contains focus on key developments at the end of a life, such as current concepts in palliative and hospice care, individual prevention practices and public representations in the (digital) media landscape, and address their institutional and sociocultural contexts. In doing so, they challenge several truisms of previous research that arose due to close connections between social protest and scholarship. With contributions by Florian Greiner; Julia Dornhöfer; Anna Wagner, Manuel Menke, Susanne Kinnebrock and Marina Drakova; Michaela Thönnes; Lilian Coatas; Mara Kaiser; Sabine H. Krauss; Anna Kitta; Anna D. Bauer; Anke Offerhaus; Thorsten Benkel and Werner Schneider

scholarly journals Introduction: Researching online worlds: challenging media and communication studies

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (47) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Kjetil Sandvik
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Asynchronous Communication ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media And Communication

Digital media and network communication technology have not changed this setup, but rather have opened the possibility for encountering and experiencing additional types of worlds and performing additional types of spatial practices. Being situated online and being globally networked with the possibility of both synchronous and asynchronous communication, digitally mediated worlds provide possible interactions between users which are radically more independent of time and place than the ones facilitated by older media. From this perspective, the concept of online worlds both challenges and broadens our understanding of how media shape the world and how the media technology creates new social structures.

scholarly journals Digital distinctions: mechanisms of difference in digital media use

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (58) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Stina Bengtsson
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Business Administration ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
Empirical Material

This article aims at understanding to understand the distinctive mechanisms of digital media use, seen in relation to cultural practices at large. The empirical material is a survey study of university students at the Business Administration, Media and Communication Studies, Political Science and Philosophy departments at Södertörn University, Sweden. The empirical analysis deals with the students’ digital media use and preferences, and how these are related to their broader cultural practices and preferences. Specific attention is paid to the webpages the students mention in the survey, and how these are distributed among the groups. By showing detailed information on these areas, the mechanisms of difference of digital media use are revealed.

The Digital Divide: Addressing Artificial Intelligence in Communication Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-482
Author(s):  
Regina Luttrell ◽  
Adrienne Wallace ◽  
Christopher McCollough ◽  
Jiyoung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Communication Education ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Exhaustive List

Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained both momentum and importance within society over the past several years. This article provides an opening for further discussion to the broader social and digital media research community and those interested in answering important questions related to these areas by leveraging a focused, productive approach. In supporting future educational endeavors within the communication classroom, and specifically to this topic, we propose five important considerations that will move the conversation forward. The considerations within this article are meant to engage scholars in intellectual conversation and to provide an initial foundation for the direction of communication education. They are not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather initiate discussions within education and research addressing implications emerging technologies have had on our field and what could be incorporated into the media and communication curriculum to prepare educators and students alike.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

Mapping Logistical Capitalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 026327642199042
Author(s):  
Eugene Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Class Composition

This review article engages with a rich field of scholarship on logistics that has gathered momentum over the past decade, focusing on two new publications by Laleh Khalili and Martín Arboleda. It contextualizes how and why logistics is bound up with the militarization of contemporary political and social life. I argue that the later 20th century rise of logistics can be better understood as both a response to and symptom of capitalist crisis and I situate this scholarship on war and logistics in relationship to Giovanni Arrighi’s account of crisis and ‘unravelling hegemony’. I also show how logistics provides essential critical and visual resources that contribute to efforts to map global capitalism and to debates on totality and class composition in contemporary critical theory. Finally, contemporary events such as the ongoing Coronavirus crisis and the reemergence of Black Lives Matter are considered in light of this analysis with reference to the centrality of logistics to racial capitalism.

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