Inclusive sensory ethnography: Studying new media and neurodiversity in everyday life

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 3560-3579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meryl Alper
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Sensory Ethnography ◽  
Spatial Positioning ◽  
Social Engagements ◽  
Media And Communication

Media and communication studies has recently begun to ethnographically explore the sensory dimensions of how individuals experience and perceive technology. This turn toward the sensorial has centered primarily on the five “external” senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) and less so on “internal” vestibular and proprioceptive systems that concern bodily spatial positioning. I propose inclusive sensory ethnography to account for greater neurodiversity in how humans process sensory input, as well as a fuller range of multi-sensory encounters with new media. I ground this conceptualization in a qualitative study of young children on the autism spectrum with difficulties processing sensory information and their social engagements with print, screen, and interactive media. Inclusive sensory ethnography reveals novel understandings of how the internal senses shape and are shaped by mediated relationships, practices, and intimacies. I discuss further implications for how disability and inclusive sensory ethnography can enrich the study of everyday technology use.

scholarly journals Researching ELT 4.0 and Transmediality: Fostering Transliterate Reading through Transmedia Storytelling

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Della N Kartika Sari Amirulloh ◽  
Muhammad Amir Zikri
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Classroom Observation ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Story Comprehension ◽  
Transmedia Storytelling ◽  
Class A ◽  
Reading Activities

The notion of Education 4.0 has directed to the utilization of various media platforms in teaching, which, in this context, is the adoption of Transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is the material presented to the students during the teaching and learning session that aims at fostering students transliterate reading. Through transmedia storytelling students are introduced to reading activities that enable them to read through multiple media platforms presented in class. A number of studies have been done in researching transmediality in the area of communication studies, however only little is known in ELT research. Therefore, this paper endeavors to explore the ways in which transmedia storytelling helps foster students’ transliterate reading. Adopting Transmedia Play and Storytelling theories grounded in transmediality, the paper utilizes a case study as the research design. Employing classroom observation and students’ response sheets, the findings reveal that transmedia storytelling promotes students transliterate reading through facilitating them in engaging with multiple types of visual, audio and interactive media activities. It helps them develop awareness in three areas: 1) awareness of the function of pictures for story comprehension and vocabulary acquisition; 2) awareness of the way sound helps for narrative elements interpretation; 3) awareness of the needs of text-reader transaction through new media for comprehension.

scholarly journals On the relativity of old and new media: A lifeworld perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Menke ◽  
Christian Schwarzenegger
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Media Change ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Accurate Observation

It is an old, yet, accurate observation that the ‘newness’ of media is and most probably will continue to be a catalyst for research in media and communication studies. At the same time, there are numerous academic voices who stress that studying media change demands an awareness of the complexities at play interweaving the new with the old and the changes with the continuities. Over the last decades, compelling theoretical approaches and conceptualizations were introduced that aimed at grasping what defines old and new media under the conditions of complex, disruptive media change. Drawing from this theoretical work, we propose an empirical approach that departs from the perception of media users and how they make sense of media in their everyday affairs. The article argues that an inquiry of media change has to ground the construction of media as old or new in the context of lifeworlds in which media deeply affect users on a daily basis from early on. The concept of media ideology (Gershon, 2010a, 2010b) is used to investigate notions of ‘oldness’ and ‘newness’ people develop when they renegotiate the meaning of media for themselves or collectively with others. Based on empirical data from 35 in-depth interviews, distinct ways how the relativity but also relationality of old and new media are shaped against each other are identified. In the analysis, the article focuses on the aspects of rhetoric, everyday experiences, and emotions as well as on media generations, all of which inform media ideologies and thereby influence how media users define old and new media.

Indigenous Media and Social Media Convergence: Adaptation of Storytelling on Twitter, SoundCloud and YouTube

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110491
Author(s):  
Phillip Mpofu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Media Convergence ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Indigenous Media ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
Secondary Form ◽  
Media And Communication

Storytelling is ordinarily trivialised as an antiquated oramedia genre, and of less significance in Zimbabwean mainstream media and communication studies, hence it is understudied. Recent studies largely take a literary gaze on storytelling, and do not theorise it from an indigenous media viewpoint or appreciate its convergence with social media. Drawing on concepts of media convergence and the digital public sphere, this netnographic study examines the adaptation of storytelling on Twitter, SoundCloud and YouTube, focusing on patterns of production, delivery, participation, language forms, reception and audiences. The article shows inventive re-embodiment and adaptation of storytelling on online spaces, that is, the endurance and remaking of indigenous media in the context of new media and communication technologies. The manifestation of the folktale narrative style on social media exhibits the rise of a secondary form of orality recreated, reproduced and applied in the digital form and on social media. While digital and social media are perceived as threatening the continued existence of indigenous media, this article attests social media as breathing spaces for indigenous media.

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.

scholarly journals Sensory over-responsivity is related to GABAergic inhibition in thalamocortical circuits

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily T. Wood ◽  
Kaitlin K. Cummings ◽  
Jiwon Jung ◽  
Genevieve Patterson ◽  
Nana Okada ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Network Connectivity ◽  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Resonance Spectroscopy ◽  
Gamma Aminobutyric Acid ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Brain Responses

AbstractSensory over-responsivity (SOR), extreme sensitivity to or avoidance of sensory stimuli (e.g., scratchy fabrics, loud sounds), is a highly prevalent and impairing feature of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD), anxiety, and ADHD. Previous studies have found overactive brain responses and reduced modulation of thalamocortical connectivity in response to mildly aversive sensory stimulation in ASD. These findings suggest altered thalamic sensory gating which could be associated with an excitatory/inhibitory neurochemical imbalance, but such thalamic neurochemistry has never been examined in relation to SOR. Here we utilized magnetic resonance spectroscopy and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the relationship between thalamic and somatosensory cortex inhibitory (gamma-aminobutyric acid, GABA) and excitatory (glutamate) neurochemicals with the intrinsic functional connectivity of those regions in 35 ASD and 35 typically developing pediatric subjects. Although there were no diagnostic group differences in neurochemical concentrations in either region, within the ASD group, SOR severity correlated negatively with thalamic GABA (r = −0.48, p < 0.05) and positively with somatosensory glutamate (r = 0.68, p < 0.01). Further, in the ASD group, thalamic GABA concentration predicted altered connectivity with regions previously implicated in SOR. These variations in GABA and associated network connectivity in the ASD group highlight the potential role of GABA as a mechanism underlying individual differences in SOR, a major source of phenotypic heterogeneity in ASD. In ASD, abnormalities of the thalamic neurochemical balance could interfere with the thalamic role in integrating, relaying, and inhibiting attention to sensory information. These results have implications for future research and GABA-modulating pharmacologic interventions.

scholarly journals Teaching Media Literacy in Colleges of Education and Communication

Comunicar ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (44) ◽  
pp. 187-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura López-Romero ◽  
María de la Cinta Aguaded-Gómez
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Media Education ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Colleges Of Education ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Teaching Pedagogy ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Language Technology ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Spanish Universities

This work is part of an R&D project involving thirteen Spanish universities in which needs and wants in the field of media education in higher education are studied in the areas of Communication (Communication Studies, Journalism and Advertising) and Education (Teaching, Pedagogy, Psychology and Social Education). The objective of this study focuses on analysing the college textbooks directly related to Media Education most used in Education and Communication,. The report has been developed based on six educational competence dimensions: language, technology, interaction processes, production and distribution processes, ideology and values and aesthetics. Using each of these parameters the scope of the analysis and the scope of the expression were taken into account, based on guidelines set by Ferrés and Piscitelli in their well-known proposal of indicators for defining new media competence and which is structured around two areas of work: the production of own messages and interaction with others. The results were obtained by applying a quantitative methodology through a content analysis of semantic fields. The main conclusions point to a greater presence of the «Ideology and Values» dimension, and almost non-existent representation of the «Aesthetics» indicator.El presente trabajo forma parte de un proyecto I+D integrado por trece universidades españolas en el que se estudian las necesidades y carencias en materia de educación mediática en el ámbito de la enseñanza superior, tanto en las áreas de Comunicación (Comunicación Audiovisual, Periodismo y Publicidad) como de Educación (Magisterio, Pedagogía, Psicopedagogía y Educación Social). Esta investigación centra su objeto de estudio en el análisis de los manuales universitarios más utilizados en Educación y Comunicación, en asignaturas directamente relacionadas con la educación mediática. Este informe se ha desarrollado en base a seis dimensiones competenciales mediáticas: lenguajes, tecnología, procesos de interacción, procesos de producción y difusión, ideología y valores y estética. De cada uno de estos parámetros se ha tenido en cuenta el ámbito del análisis y de la expresión, partiendo de las pautas señaladas por Ferrés y Piscitelli en su conocida propuesta articulada de indicadores para definir la nueva competencia mediática, que se ha estructurado en torno a dos ámbitos de trabajo: el de la producción de mensajes propios y el de la interacción con otros ajenos. Los resultados han sido obtenidos mediante la aplicación de una metodología cuantitativa, a través de un análisis de contenido por campos semánticos. Las principales conclusiones extraídas apuntan hacia una mayor presencia de la dimensión Ideología y Valores, y una casi inexistente representación de la dimensión Estética.

Investigating Digital (Re)Mediation in the Performing Arts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan On
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Theatrical Space ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Immersive Theatre ◽  
Video Calling

As digital technology progresses, it increasingly mediates human interaction. Simple discussion has shifted from occurring only in person to being mediated by telephone, texting, video calling, Twitter, Facebook and a myriad of other technologies and services. Likewise, theatre has been undergoing a similar shift from an art form that only occurs 'in person' to one in which technology often mediates presence. In his book Liveness, Philip Auslander traces the roots of digital mediation back to the advent of television and the resulting cycle of reinterpretation, or remediation as it is termed by Bolter and Grusin, of different art mediums within one another. Innovative Canadian artists Robert Lepage and Kim Collier are currently engaging in the remediation of traditional art mediums on the stage by taking a distinctly cinematic approach to theatre. This study intends to evaluate the remediation of these mediums both in the theatre and in live performances such as sporting events. It will then consider current trends in integrating interactive ‘new’ media into live and pre-recorded events, and how these ‘new’ media may already be manifesting themselves elsewhere via remediation. This discussion will give special consideration to immersive theatre, in which audiences are free to navigate theatrical space autonomously and observe as they wish. Key questions to be considered include: What are the tools of mediation, and what are their effects? How might digital (re)mediation be reinventing the way we tell and receive stories in the theatre? In what ways can the theatre further reinterpret ‘new’ interactive media?

Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Age: A View from Egypt

2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Herrera
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Political Repression ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Biographical Research ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Generational Consciousness ◽  
Active Generation

Youth are coming of age in a digital era and learning and exercising citizenship in fundamentally different ways compared to previous generations. Around the globe, a monumental generational rupture is taking place that is being facilitated—not driven in some inevitable and teleological process—by new media and communication technologies. The bulk of research and theorizing on generations in the digital age has come out of North America and Europe; but to fully understand the rise of an active generation requires a more inclusive global lens, one that reaches to societies where high proportions of educated youth live under conditions of political repression and economic exclusion. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), characterized by authoritarian regimes, surging youth populations, and escalating rates of both youth connectivity and unemployment, provides an ideal vantage point to understand generations and power in the digital age. Building toward this larger perspective, this article probes how Egyptian youth have been learning citizenship, forming a generational consciousness, and actively engaging in politics in the digital age. Author Linda Herrera asks how members of this generation who have been able to trigger revolt might collectively shape the kind of sustained democratic societies to which they aspire. This inquiry is informed theoretically by the sociology of generations and methodologically by biographical research with Egyptian youth.

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