Consumed by the real: A conceptual framework of abjective consumption and its freaky vicissitudes

Purpose – This paper furnishes an inaugural reading of abjective consumption by drawing on Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory of abjection within the wider terrain of consumer cultural research. It offers a conceptual framework that rests on three pillars, viz. irrationality, meaninglessness, dissolution of selfhood. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative research design that adopts a documentary ethnographic approach, by drawing on a corpus of 50 documentary episodes from the TV series “My Strange Addiction” and “Freaky Eaters”. Findings – The findings from this analysis point to different orders of mediatized discourse that are simultaneously operative in different actors’ frames (e.g. moralizing, medical), in Goffman’s terms, yet none of which attains to address the phenomenon of abjective consumption to its fullblown extent. Research limitations/implications – Although some degree of bias is bound to be inherent in the data because of their pre-recorded status, they are particularly useful not in the least because this is a “difficult sample” in qualitative methodological terms. Practical implications – The multi-order dimensionalization of abjective consumption opens up new vistas to marketers in terms of adding novel dimensions to the message structure of their communicative programs, in line with the three Lacanian orders. Social implications – The adoption of a consumer psychoanalytic perspective allows significant others to fully dimensionalize the behavior of abjective consumption subjects, by becoming sensitive to other than symbolic aspects that are endemic in consumer behavior. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the extant consumer cultural research literature by furnishing the novel conceptual framework of abjective consumption, as a further elaboration of my consumer psychoanalytic approach to jouissance consumption, as well as by contrasting this interpretive frame vis-à-vis dominant discursive regimes

A Review of the "Digital Turn" in the New Literacy Studies

Digital communication has transformed literacy practices and assumed great importance in the functioning of workplace, recreational, and community contexts. This article reviews a decade of empirical work of the New Literacy Studies, identifying the shift toward research of digital literacy applications. The article engages with the central theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic challenges in the tradition of New Literacy Studies, while highlighting the distinctive trends in the digital strand. It identifies common patterns across new literacy practices through cross-comparisons of ethnographic research in digital media environments. It examines ways in which this research is taking into account power and pedagogy in normative contexts of literacy learning using the new media. Recommendations are given to strengthen the links between New Literacy Studies research and literacy curriculum, assessment, and accountability in the 21st century

Semantic Social Networks: A Mixed Methods Approach to Digital Ethnography

International audienc

Exploring the multimodal communication and agency of children in an autism classroom.

This study explores the communication and agency of five children between 6-8 years old attending a special school in England. The children have all received a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and demonstrate limited or no verbal speech. The study analyses how the children communicate with staff and peers in the classroom, how the diverse communicative contexts arising from the school day shape their communicative behaviours, and the nature of the relationship between their communication opportunities and the agency they exercise in the classroom. The study draws on a wide range of data including classroom video recordings, fieldnotes, the author’s reflexive research journal, interviews with classroom staff and with the children’s parents and the collection of photographs and documents. It adopts a hybridized methodological framework drawing upon ethnography of communication, Conversation Analysis and Multimodal Interaction Analysis. This framework is used to enable fine-grained analysis of communication and to subsequently locate such microanalysis within a broader ethnographic context. The children in this study communicate using a range of strategies including the use of Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS®) and Makaton® signing, embodied communication and Intensive Interaction. Some individual variation between children is noted in terms of their preferred modes, speech topics, functions and interactional partners. Communication mediated by Makaton and PECS is often associated with requesting objects or help from adults as well as social convention such as please and thank-you, and appears to be outstripped in range and complexity by the children’s embodied multimodal communication. Some forms of communication are found to be highly associated with certain classroom communicative contexts. Whilst all the children show at least some orientation towards peer interaction, the nature of a specialist setting with high staff to student ratios, small classes, an absence of non-disabled peers and AAC provision which orients towards object requesting together tend to mitigate against interactions with other children. Implications arising from the study include the need to think critically about facilitating peer interaction in specialist settings, to reflect on how and why some vocabulary and speech functions are provided with PECS and Makaton to the exclusion of others, and to consider the very complex relationships between classroom activities, vocabulary, mode, speech function and interactional partners. It is suggested that the concept of childhood ‘agency’ might support practitioners and policy makers in reflecting on how communication support for disabled children might enhance their lives both present and future

What does not happen: quantifying embodied engagement using NIMI and self-adaptors

Previous research into the quantification of embodied intellectual and emotional engagement using non-verbal movement parameters has not yielded consistent results across different studies. Our research introduces NIMI (Non-Instrumental Movement Inhibition) as an alternative parameter. We propose that the absence of certain types of possible movements can be a more holistic proxy for cognitive engagement with media (in seated persons) than searching for the presence of other movements. Rather than analyzing total movement as an indicator of engagement, our research team distinguishes between instrumental movements (i.e. physical movement serving a direct purpose in the given situation) and non-instrumental movements, and investigates them in the context of the narrative rhythm of the stimulus. We demonstrate that NIMI occurs by showing viewers’ movement levels entrained (i.e. synchronised) to the repeating narrative rhythm of a timed computer-presented quiz. Finally, we discuss the role of objective metrics of engagement in future context-aware analysis of human behaviour in audience research, interactive media and responsive system and interface design

Professionalism in English for Academic Purposes: at the nexus of English's (neo-) colonial associations and the global forces shaping UK higher education

English for academic purposes (EAP) as the provision of English language training for international students entering or studying in higher education is widely unchallenged; its underlying ideology has been little researched. This study makes use of a novel combination of literature and methods to examine influences on EAP as practised in the UK universities accredited by EAP’s professional association, BALEAP. The methodology employs auto-ethnography triangulated by a wide-ranging semiotic analysis utilising not only critical discourse analysis but also layout, colour and typography. The literature informing the study lies at the tripart intersection of (neo-) colonial influences on English and the teaching of English, the global forces shaping British higher education, and aspects of professionalism. The study finds evidence, in both the researcher’s professional auto-ethnography and in BALEAP documentation of a deficit approach to students and argues this is traceable to the (neo-) colonial associations of English and related (neo-) racism. It also finds that it can be argued the hierarchy implicit in BALEAP’s professional framework reproduces the marginalisation of teachers of EAP at the lower end of the hierarchy while simultaneously protecting the elite status of those at the top of the hierarchy. It further finds that, in determining the scope of its provenance, BALEAP finds multiple ways to distance itself from English language teaching (ELT) more widely. The study concludes that EAP as practised by BALEAP would benefit from a more self-analytical – and self-critical – approach to both students and teachers of EAP, and from realigning itself with ELT