Pop culture - Digital geographies Flashcards
How much do we use the internet and how readily can we access it?
“the Internet is both a hugely significant social phenomenon of our time in itself and, in turn, a fascinating fieldsite for social science research of all kinds” (Hine, 2012: 3)
Access - More access in the global North. Some places across the world have restricted access and are reliant on only a few platforms creating a limited view e.g. China state restrictions.
Our internet use - Ofcom Online Nation 2022 Report
- UK adult spent almost 4 hours online a day.
- Meta = A significant mediator of what we access online.
2019 ONS internet access statistics bulletin
- Digital natives vs digital immigrants - Those who have grown up with it and those who haven’t - cultural shift created where we are now having to access things online.
How is the digital produced in geography?
Geographies: … produced through the digital… produced by the digital… of the digital. (Ash, Leszczynski, Kitchin 2016)
- Geographies through the digital - Geographies that inform how we learn about the world around us through digital means
Example: Mapping - Distribution of resources for natural disasters. People on the ground can see urgent need, worldwide access to map which is annotated to be able to send aid creating a disaster response enabled by forms of data sharing. - Geographies by the digital - Things that are not visualised without the digital. e.g. governance and government about regions. Not all areas can access all data.
Example: Dublin dashboard bringing together gov data and sensor networks into one analysable space. - Geographies of the digital - Network weather - Not on the relevant platform but things happening on those platforms effect you.
Example: Birmingham central when James Charles visited (2012)
How has online created a spatial life?
Combinations of bodies, code, devices, infrastructures (and more) create spatial experiences.
Spaces created reflect through the ways we perform our identities.
No separate “digital”.
Platforms do not work without us using them. We have created a social norm by using them e.g. how you do Instagram.
How is identity performed online?
Perceived anonymity may offer the opportunity to act (yourself) otherwise: ‘nobody knows you’re a dog’ - New York cartoon, Steiner.
Norms change. View on anonymity changed with Mark Zucherberg. Can be harmful and make people feel under threat by their government.
Example: US state removing language within federal reports and legislation about transgender, queer identities and HIV. Political consequences and daily ones.
Selfies - Forms of trust are performed (uglies). Belonging (group photos) curating ourselves with a sense of self by selling a particular image (selfie).
Jobs - Influencers, photographers (gap in the market with taking pictures for dating apps).
What is polymedia?
The relationship between media platforms. Creating forms of intimacy across media.
Different identities, different platforms, different audiences, different times.
How has the digital influenced identity work?
“… the gendered relations of production in these sites ensure that women’s labour (including the production of workplace identities) is frequently embodied as part of their selves” (Adkins and Lury 1999: 604)
How they look, what their bodies look like are part of the work e.g. fitness influencer has a certain aesthetic in order to sell, must be maintained. Sponsors can sometimes be credited on what you look like.
How does the digital create a community?
“groups of people now network throughout the internet and related mobile media, creating a shared but distributed identity (Baym 2010: 91
BUT when you move between different groups: Not all share the same norms and coherence begins to break down.
What Facebook coins friends are really acquaintances. Networks of acquaintances that we move through.
How are community foundations creates through the digital?
Presumption communities are ‘imagined’: Do not need proximity to or social intimacy to forge feelings of ‘togetherness’.
We do not necessarily rely on face-to-face interaction but on subjective feelings of belonging.
Topographical distance.
Example: Translated Bible seen as heretic and had a sense of belonging without being with other protestants.
Example: Youtube choirs.
How are virtual communities created?
Example: Twitter in the Utoya crisis.
Rheingold (1993) webs of personal connection transcend time and distance to create meaningful new social formations e.g. bulletins.
Example: Twitter in the Utoya crisis - Coordinating response to the Oslo/ Utoya attacks via social media.
- Individual action.
- Mobilising resources.
- Opening infrastructure.
Brought different groups together so response could be more effectively mobilised.
How does social software effect connections?
Strengthening nodes draws on different networks, becoming the basis of machine learning and how people are interconnected.
Intermediation of relationships between people, places and things.
Relies on voluntary (conspicuous) self disclosure.
Relationships and interactions are necessarily made discrete and computable.
how is the digital individual and collective?
Individualised but more often individualised as a tie and forms of classification and targeted by these virtues.
All of the data captured are also aggravated, we are modelled both as individuals and as aggregates.
All personalisation requires modelling us as a class, category or ‘type’ e.g. segmentation.
How do we as consumer act as workers for the software?
Software produces new kinds of labour and the data driven economy relies on the labour of the consumer:
- Reviews and ratings.
- Captured habits.
- Identifying problems.
Attention economy relies on the labourer as the consumer e.g. customer creates reviews and tells you problems with the product.
