A Metacinematic Spectrum

Metacinematic moments in screen narrative regularly turn attention back toward film’s point of material origination—from story to the conditions of its technical mediation—without turning their back either on the plot or its cultural surround. This double slant of the screen story, both back toward medial operations and outward toward some thematic interface with its social setting, is what this chapter sets out to discriminate in its “technique\text/context” articulation. Revisiting moments of medial self-acknowledgment in films from Citizen Kane through Apocalypse Now to Blade Runner 2049 prepares terms for assessing a late installment in one of Hollywood’s ongoing CGI franchise blockbusters, Marvel’s Spiderman: Far from Home (2040). In that sci-fi plot both digital technique and context implode upon the developing narrative text in the irony of an international political deception perpetrated by Hollywood-schooled VFX (visual special effects) when deployed, not on some inset screen, but in real metropolitan space.

Political Mediation in Nuclear Waste Management: a Foucauldian Perspective

This paper aims to open up high-level waste management practices to a political philosophical questioning, beyond the enclosure implied by the normative ethics approaches that prevail in the literature. Building on previous insights derived from mediation theory (in particular the work of Verbeek and Dorrestijn), Foucault and science and technology studies (in particular Jasanoff’s work on socio-technical imaginaries), mediation theory’s appropriation of Foucauldian insights is shown to be in need of modification and further extension. In particular, we modify Dorrestijn’s figure of “technical determination of power relations” to better take into account the (literal and figurative) aspects of imagination, and complement Dorrestijn’s work with the figures of techno-scientific mediation, and the inherently political figures of socio-technical and state-technical mediation, both based on Foucault’s notion of governmentality. Our analysis implies that the practical implementation of a high-level nuclear waste (HLW) management strategy will require the “stitching together” of these different mediations, which is an inherently political task.

Styles of Objectivity in Scientific Instrumentation

This chapter theorizes the epistemic roles of technology. Focusing on the example of magnetic resonance imaging, it approaches scientific instruments as adaptive mediators. The notion of adaptive mediator is drawn from the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon. The proposed approach aligns with accounts that historicize the conditions of knowledge but differs by pushing into an ecological and operational conceptual terrain. Challenging the dichotomy between sensibility and understanding, the ecologicizing move has the effect of putting technical mediation at the center of epistemology. The chapter explores the philosophical implications of replacing the subject/object model with an organism/environment model, showing how the latter fosters a new notion of ecological relationality that differs in philosophically significant respects from the poststructuralist relationality that underpins much science studies research. It proceeds to examine the epistemological implications of ecological relationality, pointing to how the ecological model opens the way for new epistemologies beyond the deadlocked positions of the science wars.

Poetics of Archive as Urban Practices: Three Research Gestures in the Archive of the Photo-Documentation Laboratory Sylvio de Vasconcellos

This article presents three research gestures (enlarging, dismantling and diverting) undertaken at the photographic archive of the Sylvio de Vasconcellos Photo-Documentation Laboratory, in order to highlight aspects that have established a field of debate regarding city, technique and everyday life. This was engaged upon with sources from the Photo-Documentation Service in the School of Architecture at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, chiefly from the years 1954 to 1964. The research gestures, as poetics, experimented with ways of “making the archive speak”. They also provoked sounds when they brought into discussion the ordinary life captured through photography, and the implications of this technical mediation in the practice of the city and in constructing representations and discourses. By penetrating the devices of the patrimonial archive and focusing on the historical plot surrounding the vernacular, these gestures have glimpsed critical updates of what was discarded, and are also urban practices to the extent that they establish other ways with which to see the city (or un-see it, in the terms of Manoel de Barros and Rita Velloso).

Online parental mediation strategies in family contexts of Spain

This article explores online parental mediation strategies in Spain and their association with sociodemographic and family context factors. The results of a survey conducted at the end of 2018 are presented herein, based on a sample of 2,900 Spanish minors between 9 and 17 years of age who use Internet. The impact of the diverse parental mediation strategies applied to Internet use has been calculated by taking into account the sociodemographic factors of the participating minors (age and gender). Association analysis was performed using the SPSS statistical analysis programme. In this case, an extra analysis was carried out with regard to the relationship of influence between different strategies and the rules of behaviour and family support in the household context as perceived by the minor. Findings suggest that enabling and restrictive mediation strategies are very common in Spanish families, while technical mediation strategies have a very limited presence. It is noteworthy that restrictions and security strategies generally apply more to girls than to boys. Household rules related to the behaviour of minors have a positive correlation with an increase of influence of nearly all strategies. However, there is no relevant association between family support perceived by children and restrictive strategies and techniques applied by parents. Este artículo explora las estrategias de mediación parental online en España y cómo los factores sociodemográficos y del contexto familiar se asocian con ellas. Se presentan los resultados de una encuesta realizada a una muestra de 2.900 menores españoles usuarios de Internet, entre 9 y 17 años encuestados a finales del año 2018. La incidencia de las diferentes estrategias de mediación parental en el uso de Internet se ha calculado atendiendo a factores sociodemográficas de los menores (edad y sexo). Mediante un análisis de asociación realizado con el programa de análisis estadístico SPSS se explora también la relación de la incidencia de las diferentes estrategias con las reglas de comportamiento y el apoyo familiar en el contexto del hogar percibidas por el menor. Las estrategias de mediación habilitantes y restrictivas tienen una presencia importante en las familias españolas, mientras que las técnicas tienen una presencia muy limitada. Es remarcable que las restricciones y las estrategias de seguridad, generalmente se aplican más a las niñas que a los niños. Las reglas del hogar relacionadas con el comportamiento de los menores se correlacionan positivamente con el aumento de incidencia de casi todas las estrategias, sin embargo, no existe una asociación significativa entre el apoyo familiar percibido por niños y niñas y las estrategias restrictivas y técnicas aplicadas por los padres y las madres.

“Coronavirus EXPLAINED”: YouTube, COVID-19, and the Socio-Technical Mediation of Expertise

Since the coronavirus outbreak, YouTube has altered its content moderation policies to surface more “authoritative information” while removing videos that contain “medically unsubstantiated claims.” This was made urgent by incidents like a live-stream interview of renowned British conspiracy theorist David Icke—in which he falsely linked the spread of the coronavirus to 5G technology—that gained substantial traction online. Behind these events, however, lies a tension between the need for authoritative medical information and the socio-technical mediation that enables multiple, competing voices to lay claim to such authority on YouTube; a tension exacerbated by the current pandemic. Following an investigation into the sources and types of video content average users were likely to see when searching for information about the coronavirus on the site, we suggest that through its incentive structure and participatory affordances, YouTube may have subordinated expertise to a logic of likability—leaving institutional experts trailing behind.

Kontribusi Parental Mediation terhadap Kecenderungan Problematic Internet Use pada Remaja di SMP SFX

Continuous and uncontrolled internet usage in adolescents can lead to dependency on the internet or problematic internet use (PIU). To minimize this, parental mediation is needed to encourage teenagers to use internet wisely. This study aimed to determine the five types of parental mediation (restrictive mediation, active mediation of internet safety, active mediation of internet use, technical mediation, monitoring) contribution together towards the tendency of PIU in adolescents. This is a correlational-quantitative research using parental mediation and PIU scale. The participants were 214 adolescents of class VII-IX at SFX Junior High School who were selected by purposive sampling method. Around 71.97% of adolescents have a tendency to PIU classified as average-problem group. They use the internet to finding entertainment, opening social media, and chatting for 4-6 hours per day. The use of mediation strategies by parents in adolescents still varies, most adolescents perceive parents using technical mediation (around 25.23%) in assisting adolescents’ internet use. Through multiple regression analysis, the five types of parental mediation together do not have a significant contribution in predicting PIU. The greater contribution comes from variables outside the five types of parental mediation (around 95.2%), such as gender, purpose and time of internet use, socioeconomic condition, psychological condition, peers, and class environment. Based on the results of this study, it appears that parents still do not have deep knowledge about mediation strategies in addressing adolescents’ internet use. The recommendation is to provide training for parents to improve their knowledge and skills in assisting adolescents’ internet use.

Disciplinary Translations

Early in his career, Bruno Latour’s limited readership consisted mainly of the research community in science and technology studies (STS) that he helped to inaugurate. Today the situation could hardly be more different. Latour is now subject to the “translations”—the processes by which ideas travel—that he has provided such powerful tools for analyzing. He has become a “mutable mobile”—eminently transportable but always changing as he goes—that in different contexts exists as a variety of conceptual characters or figurations. As the Latour network continues to see significant extensions and transformations, it offers an instructive case for understanding the potentials and dynamics of traveling texts and ideas—and of their relation to existing disciplinary formations—as ecologies of knowledge change. This article examines the reception and adaptation of Latour’s ideas in two quite different intellectual contexts: anthropology and literary studies. The proliferation of Latour figurations is shown to be a consequence of interactions between, on the one hand, existing disciplinary constellations of ideas, concerns, and practices, and, on the other hand, his own often ambiguous arguments on topics including theory and method, nonhuman agency and politics, and technical mediation.