| 1. |
- Andersson, Linus, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Where were you when Facebook went out? Experiences of involuntary disconnection from social media
- 2023
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - London : Sage Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents findings from an online questionnaire that collected experiences from the Facebook outage on October 4th, 2021, an event that affected approximately three billion users around the globe. The purpose of the study is to contribute to recent discussions digital disconnection and digital wellbeing by using an extraordinary event of involuntary disconnection as point of departure. Our research questions were: Where were people when the services shut down, what did they think and what did they do? What correlations can be found between usage/attitudes to social media and the experiences of the outage? How can the outage of October 4th be understood as a snapshot of our cultural condition? The questionnaire was distributed to 463 Swedish university students and 191 responses were received. Our analysis shows how the involuntary disconnection caused by the outage was an event that highlights the ambivalence of digital life. It also points to some correlations between general social media use and attitudes, and the experiences and activities during the outage. The paper ends with a discussion on the implications that these findings may have for further research into digital disconnection.
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| 2. |
- Bergström, Annika, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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E-books: In the shadow of print
- 2020
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 26:4, s. 895-911
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The e-book has gained a large number of readers in many countries. However, the growth rate, as well as the market penetration of e-books, varies considerably between countries and language areas. In the United States and other English-speaking countries, the use of e-books is more widespread than in many European countries, such as Sweden. In both the United States and Swedish markets, the growth rate has slowed down during the latest 2 years, and the majority of readers still seem to prefer printed books. This article aims to reveal the relationship between attitudes and use of e-books and to contextualize this in relation to socio-demographic background, library use and reading habits. The results, based on national, representative surveys in Sweden during 2013 and 2014, show that people’s attitudes are a significant and important factor for the choice of e-books instead of print, but this is probably a two-way relationship. It is also evident that e-books serve a complementary rather than displacement function in relation to print.
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| 3. |
- Bolter, Jay
(författare)
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New Media and the Permanent Crisis of Aura
- 2006
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - Luton : Sage. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 12:1, s. 21-39
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Walter Benjamin is best known for his essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, (Benjamin, 1968b) in which he argues that film and other mechanical technologies are destroying the aura that had belonged to traditional art. In this article we apply Benjamin’s concept of aura to new (digital) media, and in particular to ‘mixed reality’, a group of technologies that blend computer-generated visual, aural, and textual information into the user’s physical environment. We argue that mixed reality increases the options for designer-artists and apparently allows the invocation of aura in new ways. Our culture’s pursuit of auratic experience remains problematic in mixed reality as it was for Benjamin in the case of film. New media maintain aura in a permanent state of oscillation or crisis, and this crisis is a key to understanding new media.
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| 4. |
- Brusk, Jenny, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Marvinter : A case study of an inclusive transmedia storytelling production
- 2021
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : Sage Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 27:1, s. 103-123
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines how the unique characteristics of Marvinter, an inclusive transmedia Advent calendar, affected its production and the individual media workers involved in this. In the native transmedia Marvinter project, a radio series and a mobile game were created and released simultaneously. Using ‘partly shared’ resources, the project was developed by two collaborating, non-profit organisations. Each chapter of the digital game had to match the corresponding radio episode. The whole had to be designed to provide a shared cultural experience that included people with hearing or visual impairments. The authors of the present article were part of the game development team and thus directly experienced the complexity of developing a digital game as part of a transmedia project. This article presents the results of a case study with an insider perspective. It is supplemented by semi-structured interviews with key people in the project. The transmedia nature of Marvinter was justified by the need to include people with complementary disabilities. Although sometimes associated with negative connotations of ‘naked commercialisation’ in transmedia contexts, the marketing strategy was here an important element in promoting inclusivity. However, owing to the concurrent work processes, game production became overly complex.
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| 5. |
- Bäcke, Maria, 1969-
(författare)
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Make-Believe and Make-Belief in Second Life Role-Playing Communities
- 2012
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : Sage Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 18:1, s. 85-92
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This feature article applies the concepts of ‘make-believe’ and ‘make-belief’ formulated by performance theorist, Richard Schechner, in a study of two role-play communities, Midian City and Gor in the online 3D environment Second Life. With make-believe fantasy role-play at their core, members of the two communities negotiate the social and political norms, the goals of the com- munity and as well as the boundaries of the virtual role-play. The article explores the innovative forms of interaction at play in these negotiation processes, using (cyber)ethnographic methods and the analysis of various textual sources, Goffman’s theories of social performance as well as various types of performance discussed by Schechner and Auslander. The innovative forms of interaction are analysed in the light of the new technology and as performances and make-belief strategies directed towards realizing performative utopias, towards influencing the direction in which leaders and residents of this digital context want the role-play to develop, and towards shaping the emer- gent social and cultural rules and the political framework of the role-play.
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| 6. |
- Carpentier, Nico, et al.
(författare)
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Waves of media democratization: A brief history of contemporary participatory practices in the media sphere
- 2013
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Ingår i: Convergence. - : SAGE Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 19:3, s. 287-294
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article aims to provide a more historically grounded approach to the relationship between communication and participation, by distinguishing different waves of media democratization. The article first discusses the concept of participation and some of its complexities, and then sketches a series of intense moments of participation in and through the media in (mainly the second half) the 20th and the 21st century. At the same time, care is taken not to organize a linear-historical narrative, keeping in mind that the history of the democratization of Western societies and their media spheres is characterized by a series of continuities and discontinuities, dead ends and sedimented practices. Despite these ever-present fluctuations, the article argues that we can still see that structures, cultural resources and subjective dispositions have over time been geared more towards participation and equality, also within the media sphere.
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| 7. |
- Dahlberg-Grundberg, Michael, 1983-
(författare)
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Technology as movement : on hybrid organizational types and the mutual constitution of movement identity and technological infrastructure in digital activism
- 2016
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 22:5, s. 524-542
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- New communication technologies bring about new ways for political groups and movements to mobilize and organize. A consequence of this might be that established interpretations of and attitudes towards social movements may have to be revisited, for example, when it comes to their internal constitution and their modes of working. This interview case study looks at the digital activist cluster Telecomix and its interventions during the Arab Spring. The study addresses how the network used technological and communicational infrastructures and platforms and how it was organizationally affected by these. By using concepts such as ‘one media bias’, ‘media ecology’, ‘hybridity’ and ‘cognitive praxis’, the article aims to conceptualize how the identity of a movement and its technological infrastructure mutually constitute each other.
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| 8. |
- Eklund, Lina, 1982-
(författare)
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Doing Gender in Cyberspace : -the performance of gender by female World of Warcraft players
- 2011
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 17:3, s. 323-342
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This explorative study focuses on the performance of gender and sexuality in World of Warcraft (WoW), an online game, following Butler’s performance theory. Through interviews with female WoW players, gender and sexuality is analysed. The article argues that we cannot study gender online without also looking at sexuality. Gender performances are discussed within the framework of four themes: the avatar; strategies; sexuality, and the contextual importance of WoW. Results show that gender identity construction in WoW is an ongoing process highly dependent on the social context of play. The women interviewed created gendered and sexualized identities constrained and empowered by the rules of the game and the opportunities it offers as well as of their social relations. Although a heterosexual norm rules, there are possibilities hitherto unrecognized for queer performance within the gendered role play in WoW and the game offers the possibility of multiple and alternative performances of the self.
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| 9. |
- Eklund, Lina, 1982-
(författare)
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Kinwork revisited : The gendered work of keeping up with family through communication technology
- 2023
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : Sage Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 29:6, s. 1592-1608
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Kinwork is the maintenance of cross-household kin and family ties through both physical and mediated means and is a type of unpaid labour historically performed by women. However, changing gender norms, new communicative practices such as networked individualism, and internet and communication technologies are changing how kinwork is done. This study explores how these changes affect the gendered nature of kinwork. Swedes from multigenerational, cross-household families residing in Sweden and the United States took part in primarily home-based interviews (n=40). This empirical study explores current practices of kinwork, focusing on three empirical cases, Christmas cards for seasonal greetings, phone calls for birthday well-wishes, and digital communication for everyday contact. Results highlight how kinwork in the sample is performed by both men and women through a wide range of communication technologies. The study shows that due to new gendered norms, women in the younger generations are less willing to do kinwork for men than older generations in the same kinship networks, indicating generational differences rather than family differences. In the study, men use new internet and communication technology to both do and sometimes take responsibility for kinwork while older communication technologies retain a feminine coding, sometimes resulting in abandonment. Contemporary digital communication technology supports a shift to individual communication rather than group-based which further supports men’s increased engagement in kinwork. The study concludes that kinwork in the studied sample is performed by both men and women and that contemporary kinwork can only be understood by looking at the complex entanglements of evolving gender equality norms, trends towards more individual communication patterns, and affordances of communication technology. Together these result in new ways and opportunities for doing kinwork, which becomes less the work of women and more the work of networked individuals, whatever gender.
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| 10. |
- Ekman, Mattias, 1974-
(författare)
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The great replacement : Strategic mainstreaming of far-right conspiracy claims
- 2022
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Ingår i: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 28:4, s. 1127-1143
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper assesses how the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory (the idea that ethnically homogeneous populations in European nations are being ‘replaced’ by people of non-European origin) is articulated online by three different actors. By analyzing argument patterns and multimodal features of the cases, the paper shows that the conspiracy theory is a flexible political discourse that can be used strategically by both far-right and mainstream right-wing actors. It highlights the role of affect in online communication, and particularly how anti-immigration actors feed off circulating emotions such as insecurity and fear among the citizenry. The results show that processes of demographic change, caused by immigration, are negatively politicized through the use of pseudo-scientific sources, historic narratives of ethnic homogeneity, threat frames, visual fear appeals and other elements that constitute the wider conspiracy theory of an ongoing ‘replacement’ of native populations. The paper argues that the mainstreaming of conspiracy claims and theories related to immigration poses a threat, not only to democratic institutions and societies, but also to people of immigrant backgrounds.
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