Convergence, Ahead of Print.
Development and popularisation of creative technologies have resulted in changes to creative processes in the art and museum sector, and have redefined consumer and producer roles. The design practises that emerge when exhibition designers integrate new technologies to promote visitor engagement and co-creation are investigated in this article. This study delves into a novel design strategy for exhibition co-creation that acknowledges each interaction as a potential data point and involves connections between exhibition space, narrative, technology, interaction, and visitor, as well as a distinction between aware and unaware co-creation.
‘Azadi’s political until you’re pressing play’: Capitalist realism, hip-hop, and platform affordances
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
The article delves into the hip-hop scene in India, by locating its particular relationship with digital platforms, Instagram, YouTube and music streaming services such as Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. Because of hip-hop’s self-referentiality and its peculiar form of realism, discourses around platform capitalism have inadvertently entered the culture at large. Cultural artefacts produced by the scene reflect on the condition of music’s interaction with platforms and in turn, lay bare the evaluative tendencies vis-à-vis platforms. The article argues that digital platforms are productive in giving form to culture wherein the audio track is accompanied by a range of other trans-textual and trans-medial linkages of texts, audio, images and videos, that is, discourses which circulate outside of the audio form creating a crisscross of lines which come to form the cypher of hip-hop culture. It isn’t merely the offline cyphers then which are crucial in giving form to the community but also the digital platforms and their affordances.
The article delves into the hip-hop scene in India, by locating its particular relationship with digital platforms, Instagram, YouTube and music streaming services such as Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. Because of hip-hop’s self-referentiality and its peculiar form of realism, discourses around platform capitalism have inadvertently entered the culture at large. Cultural artefacts produced by the scene reflect on the condition of music’s interaction with platforms and in turn, lay bare the evaluative tendencies vis-à-vis platforms. The article argues that digital platforms are productive in giving form to culture wherein the audio track is accompanied by a range of other trans-textual and trans-medial linkages of texts, audio, images and videos, that is, discourses which circulate outside of the audio form creating a crisscross of lines which come to form the cypher of hip-hop culture. It isn’t merely the offline cyphers then which are crucial in giving form to the community but also the digital platforms and their affordances.
Healthcare (im)mobilities and the Covid-19 pandemic: Notes on returning to the field
International Journal of Cultural Studies, Volume 26, Issue 6, Page 785-801, November 2023.
This article proposes a mobilities-informed approach to social science research on healthcare and migration. It engages with evidence gathered during the Covid-19 pandemic that suggests that when confronted with a public health emergency, health systems can be responsive to the needs of mobile populations. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, health resources shifted routine services online, spurring an acceleration of telemedicine. The roll-out of these practices intersected with the phenomenon of digital exclusion, making healthcare partly or completely out of reach for those who could not connect. We argue that these efforts could have been more successful if they grew out of a recognition of healthcare's ‘sedentary bias’. National health systems are configured to serve settled populations. They are not designed for people on the move, with uncertain residential and immigration status. Yet this bias can be alleviated when health interventions are rethought from the point of view of the mobile patient.
This article proposes a mobilities-informed approach to social science research on healthcare and migration. It engages with evidence gathered during the Covid-19 pandemic that suggests that when confronted with a public health emergency, health systems can be responsive to the needs of mobile populations. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, health resources shifted routine services online, spurring an acceleration of telemedicine. The roll-out of these practices intersected with the phenomenon of digital exclusion, making healthcare partly or completely out of reach for those who could not connect. We argue that these efforts could have been more successful if they grew out of a recognition of healthcare's ‘sedentary bias’. National health systems are configured to serve settled populations. They are not designed for people on the move, with uncertain residential and immigration status. Yet this bias can be alleviated when health interventions are rethought from the point of view of the mobile patient.
Rethinking the nineteenth‐century museum via the Ottoman imperial museum
Abstract
Most accounts of the Ottoman Imperial Museum view the museum primarily as a Westernization project for the Ottoman Empire. In such readings, the museum follows a teleological trajectory toward the European norm. This article reads several of the early practices of the Ottoman Imperial Museum (such as interactive museum displays and the sultan's casual gifting of museum holdings to other European monarchs), not as hiccups on the way to Westernization, but rather as a distinctly Ottoman vision of museology and imperial power. Seen in this light, the early history of the Ottoman Imperial Museum challenges the standard account of the nineteenth-century imperial museum as a site where imperial subjects are molded and where the empire displays its might. Instead, in the case of the Ottoman Imperial Museum, the scientific and orderly organization of the museum artifacts become a testament not to imperial power, but to imperial powerlessness.
When digital inequalities meet digital disconnection: Studying the material conditions of disconnection in rural Turkey
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
Digital inequalities research has lacked a focus on voluntary non-use and its consequences, whereas digital disconnection studies have focused on non-use but neglected the material implications of digital inequalities. Located at the intersection between these two approaches, this article relies on twelve semi-structured interviews, observations and informal dialogues to examine digital media uses, inequalities and the meanings of disconnection in a village of rural Turkey. The findings show that the main inequalities are due to infrastructure, geography and socio-economic conditions. These inequalities shape the practices and meanings of digital disconnection, revealing obstacles, frustrations and a forced kind of disconnection that is very different from the romantic portrayal of detox retreats that dominate the literature in the Global North. The insights of this research illuminate the unexplored area of intersection between digital inequalities and disconnection, engaging a fruitful conversation that enriches both fields of inquiry and unfolds future research opportunities.
Digital inequalities research has lacked a focus on voluntary non-use and its consequences, whereas digital disconnection studies have focused on non-use but neglected the material implications of digital inequalities. Located at the intersection between these two approaches, this article relies on twelve semi-structured interviews, observations and informal dialogues to examine digital media uses, inequalities and the meanings of disconnection in a village of rural Turkey. The findings show that the main inequalities are due to infrastructure, geography and socio-economic conditions. These inequalities shape the practices and meanings of digital disconnection, revealing obstacles, frustrations and a forced kind of disconnection that is very different from the romantic portrayal of detox retreats that dominate the literature in the Global North. The insights of this research illuminate the unexplored area of intersection between digital inequalities and disconnection, engaging a fruitful conversation that enriches both fields of inquiry and unfolds future research opportunities.
Achieving agency within imperfect automation: Working customers and self-service technologies
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
In this article, we propose to treat agency as something which is accomplished in the entanglement of humans with technologies. This redirects our attention away from the question of what distinguishes humans from smart machines and towards querying how people and automated apparatuses join in processes of mutual sociomaterial engagement. To further our argument, we look at self-service kiosks, which are ubiquitous yet largely overlooked components of mediated environments. We reflect on a participant observation in groceries stores and interviews with customers familiar with self-checkout facilities. They make us aware that operating this equipment is not an individual affair but a joint activity by default, taking place in a temporally regimented setting prone to human errors and malfunction when people try to respond to the terminals’ protocol. This sort of imperfect automation has ambivalent ramifications which rely on the capabilities of users and the capacities of an interface and its underlying operations. Agency, we conclude, thus becomes a matter of viable performance in which humans may act machine-like while machines perform an expanding share of activities.
In this article, we propose to treat agency as something which is accomplished in the entanglement of humans with technologies. This redirects our attention away from the question of what distinguishes humans from smart machines and towards querying how people and automated apparatuses join in processes of mutual sociomaterial engagement. To further our argument, we look at self-service kiosks, which are ubiquitous yet largely overlooked components of mediated environments. We reflect on a participant observation in groceries stores and interviews with customers familiar with self-checkout facilities. They make us aware that operating this equipment is not an individual affair but a joint activity by default, taking place in a temporally regimented setting prone to human errors and malfunction when people try to respond to the terminals’ protocol. This sort of imperfect automation has ambivalent ramifications which rely on the capabilities of users and the capacities of an interface and its underlying operations. Agency, we conclude, thus becomes a matter of viable performance in which humans may act machine-like while machines perform an expanding share of activities.
Fluid agency in relation to algorithms: Tensions, mediations, and transversalities
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
This paper argues for a fluid approach to the study of agency in relation to algorithms, one that promotes crossing the boundaries of established analytical positions and breaking away from dualistic forms to frame its study. Building on various intellectual traditions, we develop three sensibilities for implementing such an approach: (a) working with tensions as an alternative to thinking about algorithmic power and human agency as an either/or binary; (b) examining mediations to reverse the tendency to treat algorithms as an ahistorical and universal force; and (c) exploring transversalities to navigate the spaces that emerge between various temporalities and levels of analysis. To make our case, we examine a crucial tension in the study of agency and algorithms, namely how scholars have either attributed power to algorithms or agency to users of algorithmic systems. The conclusion situates our argument for fluidity within larger historical debates in the study of technological power and human agency.
This paper argues for a fluid approach to the study of agency in relation to algorithms, one that promotes crossing the boundaries of established analytical positions and breaking away from dualistic forms to frame its study. Building on various intellectual traditions, we develop three sensibilities for implementing such an approach: (a) working with tensions as an alternative to thinking about algorithmic power and human agency as an either/or binary; (b) examining mediations to reverse the tendency to treat algorithms as an ahistorical and universal force; and (c) exploring transversalities to navigate the spaces that emerge between various temporalities and levels of analysis. To make our case, we examine a crucial tension in the study of agency and algorithms, namely how scholars have either attributed power to algorithms or agency to users of algorithmic systems. The conclusion situates our argument for fluidity within larger historical debates in the study of technological power and human agency.
From compensation to competition: The impact of graphicons on language use in a Chinese context
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
This study examines the impact of graphicons (emoticons, emojis, and stickers) on the use of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Chinese based on a 13-year longitudinal corpus of 941,020 comments posted on the popular Chinese social media platform Bilibili. Quantitative analysis shows that graphicon frequencies increase while SFP frequencies decrease over time, and that the correlation between these two trends is statistically significant. However, the more an SFP encodes a grammatical function or has a negative connotation, the less likely it is to be replaced by graphicons. Qualitative analysis suggests that the relationship between graphicons and SFPs is evolving from syntagmatic, where the two co-occur in the same sentence, to paradigmatic, where either can fulfill the function of expressing (positive) attitude or sentiment. This suggests that the functions of graphicons are shifting from compensation to competition with language, as an alternative to SFPs.
This study examines the impact of graphicons (emoticons, emojis, and stickers) on the use of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Chinese based on a 13-year longitudinal corpus of 941,020 comments posted on the popular Chinese social media platform Bilibili. Quantitative analysis shows that graphicon frequencies increase while SFP frequencies decrease over time, and that the correlation between these two trends is statistically significant. However, the more an SFP encodes a grammatical function or has a negative connotation, the less likely it is to be replaced by graphicons. Qualitative analysis suggests that the relationship between graphicons and SFPs is evolving from syntagmatic, where the two co-occur in the same sentence, to paradigmatic, where either can fulfill the function of expressing (positive) attitude or sentiment. This suggests that the functions of graphicons are shifting from compensation to competition with language, as an alternative to SFPs.
When feminists became ‘extremists’: A corpus-based study of representations of feminism on Weibo
Discourse &Communication, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 590-612, October 2023.
This article presents an analysis of the evolving representations of feminism on Weibo, China’s foremost microblogging platform, employing a corpus-based methodology. The self-compiled corpus comprised 334,871 feminism-related posts from 2019 to 2022. Using the Sketch Engine corpus analysis tool, noun bigrams containing 女权 (feminism) were extracted, categorized, and compared to discern the portrayals and their transformations. The findings revealed a significant shift in feminism’s depiction, with an increased emphasis on its radical and aggressive aspects, and a decline in its portrayal as a quest for female privilege. During this period, the perception of feminism as an emerging social movement expanded, and the distinction between various forms of feminism and feminists based on different attributes became more prevalent, resulting in a marginally reduced representation of them as a unified entity. This research enriches the existing literature by emphasizing the dynamic portrayals of feminism on China’s social media and offering novel insights into its assessment.
This article presents an analysis of the evolving representations of feminism on Weibo, China’s foremost microblogging platform, employing a corpus-based methodology. The self-compiled corpus comprised 334,871 feminism-related posts from 2019 to 2022. Using the Sketch Engine corpus analysis tool, noun bigrams containing 女权 (feminism) were extracted, categorized, and compared to discern the portrayals and their transformations. The findings revealed a significant shift in feminism’s depiction, with an increased emphasis on its radical and aggressive aspects, and a decline in its portrayal as a quest for female privilege. During this period, the perception of feminism as an emerging social movement expanded, and the distinction between various forms of feminism and feminists based on different attributes became more prevalent, resulting in a marginally reduced representation of them as a unified entity. This research enriches the existing literature by emphasizing the dynamic portrayals of feminism on China’s social media and offering novel insights into its assessment.
Multimodal intertextuality and persuasion in advertising discourse
Discourse &Communication, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 613-629, October 2023.
This paper provides an integrated social semiotic framework for analyzing intertextuality in multimodal advertising discourse. Following the distinction between manifest intertextuality and interdiscursivity, our model entails the three interrelated components of explicating what the intertextual sources are, how they are constructed with multimodal resources, and how they interact with the promotional discourse. Analysis of 30 popular video advertisements shows the fundamental role of character voices and different social semiotic activities in achieving the purpose of promoting products and services. Through intertextual devices, the advertisements construct multiple identities, including authoritative and peer ones, to evoke different reading positions. In particular, the identity of middle-class urbanites sharing their experiences and values with the audience is dominant. The intertextual devices achieve promotional, relational, and entertainment functions, and the promotional function is realized through sharing, recreating, expounding, and reporting activities, while the recommending activities only occupy a very small portion of the screen time of the advertisements. The framework of multimodal intertextuality provides a useful lens for explicating the complex meaning-making resources, their communicative functions, and hidden ideologies in advertising discourse, which can further provide new insight into the social reality.
This paper provides an integrated social semiotic framework for analyzing intertextuality in multimodal advertising discourse. Following the distinction between manifest intertextuality and interdiscursivity, our model entails the three interrelated components of explicating what the intertextual sources are, how they are constructed with multimodal resources, and how they interact with the promotional discourse. Analysis of 30 popular video advertisements shows the fundamental role of character voices and different social semiotic activities in achieving the purpose of promoting products and services. Through intertextual devices, the advertisements construct multiple identities, including authoritative and peer ones, to evoke different reading positions. In particular, the identity of middle-class urbanites sharing their experiences and values with the audience is dominant. The intertextual devices achieve promotional, relational, and entertainment functions, and the promotional function is realized through sharing, recreating, expounding, and reporting activities, while the recommending activities only occupy a very small portion of the screen time of the advertisements. The framework of multimodal intertextuality provides a useful lens for explicating the complex meaning-making resources, their communicative functions, and hidden ideologies in advertising discourse, which can further provide new insight into the social reality.