1.
Hård af Segerstad, Ylva, 1969, et al.
(författare)
Sharing Vulnerability: Intimate Conversations on Love and Loss on The Red Hand Files
2023
Ingår i: Death Online Research Symposium (DORS#6), Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. May 31st – June 2nd 2023.
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
You can ask me anything. There will be no moderator. This will be between you and me. Let's see what happens. Much love, Nick. Following the death of his teenage son, legendary Australian musician Nick Cave started an online correspondence page called The Red Hand Files. With the invitation above he encouraged fans to ask him anything and he attempts to answer. In this paper I explore the profound exchanges between the artist and his fans relating to grief and loss, which give voice to a sort of collective reimagining of life and self after the loss of a child. The study draws on the publicly available correspondence on the Red Hand Files and published interviews with the artist (e.g. BBC News interview, 2022). In processing his own grief so publicly and in the profound exchanges with his fans, Cave has become a sort of guide to others who mourn, and an example of how grief and loss may be naturally integrated in one’s ongoing life. Drawing on these explorations, we build on recent theoretical understandings of grief (e.g. Christensen, 2021; O’Connor & Kasket, 2022) and connect with previous research on bereaved parents’ use of online support groups as resources for coping with their loss (e.g. Hård af Segerstad & Kasperowski, 2015)20. The results contribute to challenging old normative assumptions of grief which construct grievers as “passive agents to which grief happens” (O’Connor & Kasket, 2022). Christensen’s approach to grief as identity work (2021), is eloquently expressed by Cave on the Red Hand Files (Cave, 2019): […] my son’s death – something that both destroyed me and ultimately defined me. […] My son’s death brought me to the essence of my formed self. [it may be] something that eventually obliterates you, but also brings you back to life, transforming you into something beyond yourself.
2.
Hård af Segerstad, Ylva, 1969, et al.
(författare)
A Posthumanist Approach to Continuing Bonds: On the Ephemerality and Obsolescence of Digital Remains
2021
Ingår i: 5th International Symposium of the Death Online Research Network (#DORS5).
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Our lives are increasingly saturated by digital devices. Mobile phones, laptops and tablets mediate our everyday engagement through social media and digital services. Moreover, with a posthumanist approach, mobile phones may even be regarded as “prostheses”, transcending the limitations of the physical human form by extending and enhancing our human senses and abilities allowing for telepresence and remote communication (Bolter, 2016; Haraway, 2007; Wolfe, 2010). The digital devices themselves contain and connect to what can be described as the digital remains we leave behind when we die. These remains contain the “essence” of the deceased one (writings, online behaviour, photos, videos) as a result of the increasing ubiquity of digital media in our lives. In addition, these remains left behind by the dead may function as transitional objects (Mowlabocus, 2016), helping bereaved individuals to adapt to a reality without the lost loved ones and to continue bonds (Klass, Silverman, & Nickman, 1996; Klass & Steffen, 2017; Neimeyer, 2001; Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004). However, as noted by Walter (2015), these remains are ephemeral. Both in terms of hardware and digital content, obsolescence is built in by design. So, like our physical selves these digital remains are mortal, they are designed to ‘die’. Based on interview and survey data gathered from the contexts of Israel, the UK and Sweden, we explore how bereaved individuals engage with the digital remains of their deceased loved ones and how both the digital devices themselves and their digital content constitute potential tools for coping with loss. We focus on what is preserved, how long it is preserved for, how it changes over time, what happens when it ‘dies’, and what this means for ‘continuing bonds’, meaning making and memorialisation. In doing so we seek to contribute to a better understanding of the (post) human encounter with death.
3.
Hård af Segerstad, Ylva, 1969, et al.
(författare)
A Sort of Permanence: Digital Remains and Posthuman Encounters with Death
2022
Ingår i: Conjunctions Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 2246-3755. ; 9:1, s. 1-12
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
Digital remains, in the shape of devices and traces of digital content and interaction stored on the devices them selves and online, left behind by the deceased have come to play important parts in the lives of those who live on. With a posthumanist perspective we explore how user-driven engagement with digital remains are changing and diversifying existing practices related to loss and grieving. The digital remains can be seen to contain the “essence” of the deceased person embodied within the digital device. Based on interviews and observations gathered from the contexts of Israel, the UK and Sweden, we investigate the role of digital remains in bereavement and what implications the eventual obsolescence of these remains might have for continuing bonds. In doing so we seek to increase our understanding of the (post)human encounter with death and the human capabilities of digital remains.
4.
Yeshua-Katz, Daphna, 1973, et al.
(författare)
Catch 22: The Paradox of Social Media Affordances and Stigmatized Online Support Groups
2020
Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : SAGE Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 6:4
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
This study highlights the challenges of computer-mediated communication for vulnerable individuals and groups, by studying boundary work in stigmatized communities online. Five stigmatized online communities with different affordances were studied: (1) ?pro-ana? blogs; (2) an infertility discussion board; (3) a Facebook group for bereaved parents; and (4) two WhatsApp groups for Israeli veterans of war with post-traumatic stress disorder. In-depth interviews with members and administrators (n?=?66) revealed that social media affordances such as low anonymity and high visibility may marginalize those living with stigma. While research literature applauds social media for allowing the formation and maintenance of social capital, our study highlights the paradox caused by these very same affordances. To offer safe and functioning environments of support, the communities must guard against impostors whose presence threatens their safe havens. Simultaneously, this may make these groups inaccessible to those who truly need support and remove such groups from the public eye.
5.
Bunting, Leona, 1970, et al.
(författare)
Swedish teachers' expectations and appropriation of digital personalised learning technologies in the English classroom
2021
Ingår i: EUROCALL2021.
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This study explores Swedish primary school teachers' expectations and appropriation of a system for children’s personalised reading skill development in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. The system consists of two student applications that are used on tablets, a reader app and an app with mini-games. There is also an app in which the teacher can organise and assign activities for particular students. We focus on how appropriating such a system may offer opportunities for teachers’ professional development as they learn to use the apps in their teaching. The study is part of a larger project developing personalised learning technologies scaffolding students’ reading skills using especially developed applications. Understanding the context in which such technologies are appropriated is important if we want them to be adopted and used successfully. To learn how the technology and system work and can be used in the teaching is part of teachers’ professionalisation. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 15 primary school teachers who undertook to use the system for a minimum of 10 weeks. All teachers were interviewed before starting to use the system in class. 5 were interviewed again after having used the technologies for a minimum of 5 weeks, and 7 after they finished using the technology. Our analysis shows that Swedish teachers expect the system to provide opportunities for personalised learning which enhance the individual students’ choices and privacy allowing for inclusive teaching and learning, rather than relying on "one size fits all”. The teachers experience large differences in competence in English between the students in their classes. They consider personalised learning technologies a promising way to mitigate these differences and provide opportunities for individual students to work at their own level without having to show everybody what they do. However, they also express that it takes time and effort to appropriate the system into their teaching. Considering these findings, we discuss the potential and problems when introducing and implementing the use of personalised learning technologies for learning English in Swedish schools.
6.
7.
Döveling, Katrin, et al.
(författare)
“Safe havens”. Online peer grief support and emotion regulation in coping with the loss of a close relative
2016
Ingår i: 6th European Communication Conference (ECREA).
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat) abstract
The loss of a close relative can be a devastating experience, sometimes plunging mourners into deep and intense grief. Furthermore, in most Western societies, a cultural avoidance of talking about death limits the possibilities for coping and adaptation (cf. Brotherson and Soderquist, 2002). It is here, where social media provide new opportunities for sharing and coping, enabling support and aiding in emotion regulation The overall aim of the present study was to analyse and compare international research findings from Germany and Sweden in terms of coping resources and emotion regulation in different online peer grief-support communities. More specifically, what differences or similarities exist? Can such differences and similarities be traced to types of loss, age of mourner, affordances of various online environment or norms for grieving and emotion regulation? Are there more general patterns or traits to be found transcending specific online communities? The study compared current the usage of five different online grief-support communities in Germany (4) and Sweden (1), using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The German data set focused on four different specifically designed bereavement networks, addressing different kinds of mourners. These were examined qualitatively as well as quantitatively in a two-step content analysis (N postings = 1032), generating insight into online-shared grieving processes. The Swedish data set focused on a closed group on Facebook for bereaved parents. Data consisted of a survey (N=54) and semi structured interviews (N=4) with members in the community, as well as continuous observation of patterns of interaction and content analysis of postings in the group. Despite differences in the compared communities’ composition, types of loss and affordances, as well as different methodological approaches, a common pattern of coping and support emerged. Users in both Germany and Sweden expressed a lack of social support or understanding of their needs offline. A common underlying need to communicate with peers who share similar loss and experience was emerged. Online support communities need to be understood as important resources for coping with grief and emotion regulation. The communities seem to complement and compensate for the lack of social support and insufficiency of the health care system by providing constant, immediate support from a large number of peers. By sharing their thoughts and emotions online, members learn vital aspects of coping with grief, and engage in active emotion regulation. Mourners also receive practical advice for everyday situations and on more philosophical, existential matters. In such a way, the communities offer safe havens in which the members can express their grief and all emotions involved. In both the German and the Swedish communities, data show that over time mourners evolve from ”takers” of support to ”givers” within their respective communities. Furthermore, the communities offer possibilities for the members to compare experiences, which seems to be a prerequisite for learning to cope with grief and emotion regulation. The implications of this study for both bereaved individuals and practitioners in health care are discussed.
8.
Ess, Charles, et al.
(författare)
INTERNET RESEARCH ETHICS: NEW CONTEXTS, NEW CHALLENGES – NEW (RE)SOLUTIONS?
2015
Ingår i: AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research.
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat) abstract
Especially the second set of AoIR guidelines for research ethics (Markham and Buchanan 2012) demonstrate that progress can be made in laying out useful approaches for analyzing and resolving at least very many of emerging ethical challenges facing Internet researchers. But of course, new research possibilities, contexts, and approaches continue to issue in sometimes strikingly novel ethical difficulties that may challenge in turn more established frameworks and guidelines. Critical to the ongoing development of Internet Research Ethics (IRE), then, is to bring forward new cases and difficulties that, as in previous cycles of guideline development, will serve as fruitful foci for reflection and deliberation that then contribute to both improving our abilities to respond to such new challenges and, eventually, the articulation of subsequent guidelines. Hence, our roundtable showcases important examples of contemporary research ethics issues – most especially as these are evoked by new research contexts and foci, and, in several instances, new methodological approaches. Our goal is to evoke dialogue and collective reflection on how these issues may be best resolved, and to thereby lift them up as reference points within and constituents of the evolving development of IRE. Following brief presentations from each of our contributors, our two respondents, both long-time and prominent members of the AoIR ethics committee, will offer comments before then opening the roundtable to discussion with the audience.
9.
Ess, Charles, et al.
(författare)
THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL RESEARCH ETHICS: THREE CASES
2020
Ingår i: AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2020. - : University of Illinois Libraries. - 2162-3317.
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat) abstract
AoIR and the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (JICES) share common interests in critical reflection on the ethical and social dimensions of the internet and internet-facilitated communication, and have begun a collaboration aimed at collecting ethically-focused AoIR conference submissions for presentation and critique at AoIR, with a view towards subsequent publication in a special issue of JICES. This panel collects three papers that address these shared interests as specifically focused on research ethics. Paper 1, Integrating Mobile Eye-Tracking in a Mixed Methods Research Design: Ethical Standards and Practical Requirements, addresses the social and data ethical dimensions of the increasing use of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies in public spaces. Paper 2, The complex balancing act of researchers’ ethical and emotional capacities and responsibilities, takes up these issues from the first-hand experience of a researcher-participant who, as a bereaved parent, was requested to research a closed community for bereaved parents on Facebook. The wide range of ethical challenges here includes informed consent as distinctively difficult in these contexts. Paper 3, Digital Ethics and the Situationist Challenge to Virtue Ethics, evaluates recent applications of virtue ethics in digital media, arguing instead for a pragmatist, situation-based approach. These three papers thus expand AoIR’s signature focus on Internet Research Ethics through two empirically-oriented papers on research ethics/methods in two specific contexts, complimented by a more theoretical exploration of virtue ethics and pragmatism – and thereby dovetail with JICES’ interests in the ethics and social dimensions of ICTS.
10.
Grigic Magusson, Anita, 1980, et al.
(författare)
Complexities of Managing a Mobile Phone Ban in the Digitalized Schools’ Classroom
2023
Ingår i: Computers in the Schools. ; 40:3, s. 303-323
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat) abstract
This longitudinal qualitative study followed a teacher team at an upper secondary school during the implementation of a mobile phone ban during class, which was an initiative the team had jointly decided upon. Data consist of audio-recorded weekly team meetings, during which the teachers discussed their initiative. The teachers’ implementation strategy was to inform the students about the ban at the start of the semester, and to collect their mobile phones before starting each class with the motivation that the ban would improve the learning environment. This strategy failed. Exceptions were made to the ban for several reasons. The collection procedure was cumbersome, time-consuming, and caused negative tensions between teachers and students. The team discussions made it apparent that with the teachers’ consent, the students’ mobile phones were already used as pedagogical tools complementary to other digital technologies in class.
