The emotive politics of digital mood tracking

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 2039-2057
Author(s):  
Luke Stark
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Values In Design

Through a values in design (VID) analysis, this article assesses two mood-tracking apps (Moodscope and MoodPanda) to argue the particular interface design choices of these applications serve to influence their users’ sense of sociality and self-fashioning. The design features of these artifacts signal a broader shift in the sociotechnical definitions and discourses of the feeling of an individual, enabling an emergent emotive politics at work across contemporary digital media technologies.

Coda: The Rosetta Stone

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Schotter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Digital Code ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Rosetta Stone ◽  
The World ◽  
Western Imagination ◽  
Origin Point

Hieroglyphs have persisted for so long in the Western imagination because of the malleability of their metaphorical meanings. Emblems of readability and unreadability, universality and difference, writing and film, writing and digital media, hieroglyphs serve to encompass many of the central tensions in understandings of race, nation, language and media in the twentieth century. For Pound and Lindsay, they served as inspirations for a more direct and universal form of writing; for Woolf, as a way of treating the new medium of film and our perceptions of the world as a kind of language. For Conrad and Welles, they embodied the hybridity of writing or the images of film; for al-Hakim and Mahfouz, the persistence of links between ancient Pharaonic civilisation and a newly independent Egypt. For Joyce, hieroglyphs symbolised the origin point for the world’s cultures and nations; for Pynchon, the connection between digital code and the novel. In their modernist interpretations and applications, hieroglyphs bring together writing and new media technologies, language and the material world, and all the nations and languages of the globe....

“Tradition,” Vernacularism, and Learning to Be a Folk Musician With Social Media

2020 ◽  
pp. 442-466
Author(s):  
Simon Keegan-Phipps ◽  
Lucy Wright
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping

This chapter considers the role of social media (broadly conceived) in the learning experiences of folk musicians in the Anglophone West. The chapter draws on the findings of the Digital Folk project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and begins by summarizing and problematizing the nature of learning as a concept in the folk music context. It briefly explicates the instructive, appropriative, and locative impacts of digital media for folk music learning before exploring in detail two case studies of folk-oriented social media: (1) the phenomenon of abc notation as a transmissive media and (2) the Mudcat Café website as an example of the folk-oriented discussion forum. These case studies are shown to exemplify and illuminate the constructs of traditional transmission and vernacularism as significant influences on the social shaping and deployment of folk-related media technologies. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the need to understand the musical learning process as a culturally performative act and to recognize online learning mechanisms as sites for the (re)negotiation of musical, cultural, local, and personal identities.

Operational analysis: A method for observing and analyzing digital media operations

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482199864
Author(s):  
Kathrin Friedrich ◽  
A S Aurora Hoel
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Task Orientation ◽  
Operational Analysis ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Robotic Radiosurgery ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Operational Models ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Media Applications ◽  
Tracking Devices

Interventional digital media applications such as robotic surgery, remote-controlled vehicles or wearable tracking devices pose a challenge to media research methodologically as well as conceptually. How do we go about analyzing operational media, where human and non-human agencies intertwine in seemingly inscrutable ways? This article introduces the method of o perational analysis to systematically observe and critically analyze such situated, interventional and multilayered entanglements. Against the background of ongoing efforts to develop operational models for understanding digital media, the method of operational analysis conceptually ascribes to media technologies a real efficacy by approaching them as adaptive mediators. As an operational middle-range approach, it allows to integrate theoretical discussions with considerations of the situatedness, directedness, and task-orientation of operational media. The article presents an analytical toolbox for observing and analyzing digital media operations while simultaneously testing it on a particular application in robotic radiosurgery.

scholarly journals The Impact of digitization on the religious sphere: televangelism as an example

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Shaimma El Naggar
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Social Media Networks ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Impact

<p>Over the past few decades, televangelism has emerged as one important media phenomenon, inter alia, among Muslim communities. As a phenomenon, televangelism is interesting in many respects; it is a manifestation of the phenomenon of "info-tainment" as televangelists integrate entertainment features such as sound effects and music in their sermons. It is also a manifestation of the rise of the celebrity culture as televangelists have become 'media celebrities' with thousands of hundreds of fans and followers on social media networks.</p><p> </p><p>Thematically, this study is divided into two main sections. First. I delineate the characteristics of televangelism as a novel form of religious expression in which televangelists adopt a modern style and use colloquial language; and in which televangelists present religion as a source of individual change. I have argued that these features seem to have granted televangelists popularity particularly among Muslim youth who view televangelism as a new form of religious expression that is modern in appearance and relevant to their everyday lives.</p><p>The study has further highlighted the importance of digital media technologies in popularizing televangelists' programmes and sermons. Drawing on two case studies of popular televangelists, namely Amr Khaled and Hamza Yusuf, the study has shown that televangelists draw on a plethora of digital media tools to extend the visibility of their programmes including websites and social media networks. The study has found that televangelists' fans play an important role in popularizing televangelists' programmes. Moreover, the study relates televangelism to the rise of digital Islam. The study has argued that digitization and the increase of literacy rates have changed the structure of religious authority in the twenty first century, giving rise to new voices that are competing for authority. </p><p>Having provided an explanatory framework for the phenomenon of televangelism, the study moves in the second section to critique televangelism as an 'info-tainment' phenomenon.</p>Drawing on Carrette and King's <em>Selling Spirituality, </em>one issue that the study raises is the extent to which televangelism fits into the modern form of 'spiritualities'. Rather than being a critical reflection of the consumer culture, modern spiritualities seem to 'smooth out' resistance to the hegemony of capitalism and consumerism. I have proposed that it is through a content-related analysis of televangelists' sermons that one can get a nuanced understanding of how the discourses of particular televangelists can possibly relate to dominant (capitalist) ideologies, how structures of power are represented in their discourses and what their texts may reveal about the socio-historical contexts of Muslims in the twenty first century.

scholarly journals Digital action campaigns in the global public sphere

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jumoke Giwa
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
New Media Technologies

<p>This research project undertakes a critical analysis of the use of new media technologies by community activists engaging in local and global communities. Increasingly, community organizations are using digital media to augment their various activities and conduct campaigns. I will consider this development with regard to WorldPulse.com, a global organization whose aim is to foster and facilitate civic engagement. More specifically, the website attempts to function and serve as a global public sphere and vehicle for the expression and discussion of political, social and cultural issues relevant to women. The analysis conducted in this thesis focuses on the website’s digital action campaigns on gender-based violence, girl child education, and women’s access to technology between 2012 and 2014, and its ‘Voices of Our Future’ citizen journalism training program.  This project employs digital ethnographic methods using content and discourse analysis, participant observation, online web survey, semi-structured email interviews and a researcher’s journal to examine the potential of worldpulse.com to serve as a global public sphere for women. The research makes use of critical studies theories and data triangulation methodologies in order to identify and evaluate if, and to what extent, the site facilitates public sphere activity and activism. I have developed an inductive typology to assess levels and kinds of civic engagement that is enabled and augmented by the interconnection of online and offline advocacy. This thesis aims to contribute to the body of scholarly literature researching and evaluating the extent to which new media technologies enable and facilitate public sphere engagement.</p>

scholarly journals SELF-TRACKING ‘FEMTECH’: COMMODIFYING & DISCIPLINING THE FERTILE FEMALE BODY

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Roetman
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Feminine Subjectivity ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Fertile Female ◽  
User Data

This paper engages with feminist political economists to explore questions of affective labour and value-production in self-tracking technologies designed for the female body (‘femtech’). Self-tracking femtech is largely characterised by smartphone applications and smart devices that track user data relating to menstruation, fertility periods, sexual activity, ovulation, hormones, and health and wellbeing. This data can be collected through self-reporting or through automated transmission from sensory devices attached to the body. By reflecting on my own experiences with these technologies, this paper argues that users of self-tracking femtech perform the labour of reproducing our bodies and our affective relations in ways that are amenable to both capitalist and patriarchal structures of power. Situated within the broader shifts of care and social reproduction, self-tracking femtech can be understood as affective infrastructures that re-stabilise gender norms and continue to unevenly push the burden of reproduction onto a class of unpaid women. I explore the ways that affective experiences are shaped and modulated by self-trackers to (re)produce and discipline the fertile and sexual female body to be $2 a productive labouring body and heterosexually attractive feminine subjectivity. The labour of reproduction is further intertwined here with the labour of producing data for digital media industries that generates profit in the advertising marketplace. By examining co-constitutive and paradoxical forms of value at play, I dually situate self-tracking femtech within broader political struggles and locate the spaces of agency in our everyday entanglements with digital media technologies.

scholarly journals Pear Square: Design And Development Of Inclusive Digital Media Technology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Legros
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Academic Accommodations ◽  
Current Development ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Development Processes

This project investigates the development process of accessible digital media technologies using Pear Square, a web platform aimed at assisting post-secondary students with their academic accommodations, as the research basis. Current development processes are contextualized by identifying relating concepts and resources that demonstrate approaches in creating accessible systems. The research process consists of technical analysis of several accessibility tools and their influence on the development processes of websites, such as colour and contrast or screen reader functionality for people with low or no vision. The development of the Pear Square platform consists of identifying key user-case scenarios and ensuring the developed features accommodate current accessibility standards. Through the analysis of the development process of Pear Square, the objective of this research is to assess current development technologies and propose future solutions that enable efficient accessible development processes.

scholarly journals Screening Affect: Rape Culture and the Digital Interface in The Fall and Top of the Lake

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 569-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Horeck
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Crime Drama ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Feminist Politics ◽  
Crime Dramas ◽  
The Many

Although it often goes unremarked, digital screens are a key point of commonality across the many different transnational renditions of the story of violence against girls and women found in contemporary TV crime drama. The Fall (United Kingdom, 2013–) and Top of the Lake (United Kingdom/Australia/New Zealand/United States, 2013–) are two striking examples of TV crime dramas that frame their self-conscious interrogation of rape culture through digital media. Considering the mutual imbrication of feminist politics and the deployment of new media technologies on these shows, this essay considers how the digital interface functions as a way of mediating viewer response to violence against women. Resisting a reading of digital technologies as either inherently oppressive or inherently liberatory, the essay explores how these TV series navigate the tension between the simultaneous violence of new media and its investigative/feminist/affective potential.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Germaine R. Halegoua
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Digital City ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Cautionary Tales

This chapter provides an overview of the territory and arguments that The Digital City explores. In recent work on digital and mobile media technologies, scholarly perspectives have broadened to recognize positive associations between digital media and experiences of place. Humans and machines are no longer readily perceived as mutually exclusive categories, nor are they treated as separate considerations for designers of everyday experience. People work with technologies to move through and experience places. This book aims to illustrate and analyze the ways actors are actually using digital technologies and practices to re-embed themselves within urban space and to create a sense of place for themselves and others. Although there are copious cautionary tales around the potential for digital media to dissociate or liberate us from the confines of physical locations, we’ve lacked careful attention to the ways people actually use digital media to become placemakers. Creating and controlling a sense of place is still the primary way that we connect with our environments, interact with others, and express our identities. The Digital City offers a new theoretical framework for thinking about our relationship to digital media by reconceptualizing common, everyday interactions with digital media as placemaking activities.

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