Enacting Accountability in IS Research after the Sociomaterial Turn(ing)

Sociomateriality represents an emergent philosophical stance that instantiates an ontological turn towards relationality and materiality in information systems (IS) research. As an emergent perspective or way of seeing, sociomateriality has significant implications for researchers and the practices they employ. If we accept that the ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions we enact in our research shape the realities we perceive and create, questions around researchers’ accountability for the realities they produce need to be addressed. The sociomaterial turn(ing) in IS challenges our deeply held assumptions about what constitutes reality. What are these challenges, and how are they being addressed in sociomaterial research? And what implications for accountability in IS research more generally does a turn towards relationality and materiality hold? The objectives of this editorial are: (1) to sensitize IS researchers, irrespective of their ontological and epistemological persuasions, to the field’s turn(ing) toward relationality and materiality; (2) to provide insight into the practices of data generation, analysis, and presentation through which this turn(ing) is being enacted in sociomaterial theorizing; and (3) to contemplate the implications of this turn(ing) for the accountability of IS research more generally

Racialising assemblages and affective events: A feminist new materialism and posthuman study of Muslim schoolgirls in London

Recent years have seen rising trends in terrorism, hate crime and Islamophobia in the UK. Enforced Prevent and counter-terrorism strategies have re-located all Muslims as threatening and having potentiality to radicalisation. This PhD thesis is concerned with how a Muslim schoolgirl feels, lives and experiences everyday life in this era. I follow fifteen Muslim schoolgirls across time and space by mapping relational materialities between things that matter for them in their ordinary everyday practices and experiences. This thesis takes up the feminist new materialist and post- humanist call for anticipating potentialities of the virtual, material and affective to find a different capacity for the analysis of events, practices, assemblages, feelings, and the backgrounds of everyday experiences against which relations unfold in their myriad potentials. I argue that the affective atmospheres around Muslims provide the conditions for the emergence of racialising encounters. Multi-sensory methods of walking intra-view, creating photo-diary and face-to- face interview were developed to explore relations between bodies, spaces, times, virtual and actual. Stories, places, objects, thoughts and feelings that emerge as data and in-between relational materialities were mapped and read diffractively through one another. Thinking through relationality, materiality and affect enabled this thesis to actualise the plurality of Muslim schoolgirls' relations-in-the-world and their subjectivity as part of the becoming-assemblages with human and more-than- human bodies. This thesis mapped and challenged some of the racialised, gendered and hegemonic views of Muslim schoolgirls as risky, threatening and with a potential to radicalisation. Mattering with what those Muslim schoolgirls mattered with, their fear of racial harassment in the course of their everyday lives, of what to say, do and wear, their desire to live in safe houses and blossom in safe schools, all showed that safeguarding educational policies need to shift their focus towards threats of racial harassment, of living in overcrowded housing and being silenced rather than seeking to prevent the threat of radicalisation

A computational visual analysis of image design in social media

While user-generated images represent important information sources in IS in general and in social media in particular, there is little research that analyzes image design and its effects on virality. We introduce an innovative computational approach to extract image design characteristics that includes convolutional neural network-based image classification, a dimensionality reduction via principal component analysis, manual measurement validation, and a regression analysis. An analysis of 790,775 car images from 17 brands posted in 68 car model communities on a social media platform reveals several effects of product presentation on image virality that relate to the levels of utility refer- ence, experience reference, and visual detail. A comparison of economy cars and premium cars shows that car class moderates these image design effects. Our results contribute to the extant literature on brand communities and virality in social media. The proposed computational visual analysis method- ology may inform the study of other image-based IS

Seeing For Understanding: Unlocking the Potential of Visual Research in Information Systems

In this paper, we argue that information researchers should use images as a source of data. The information systems field is overwhelmingly visual in nature. Not only is the Internet crammed with images, but also almost every detail observed during fieldwork in different research settings can be captured in the form of digital images. Yet, we rarely engage with those images. Except for sporadic video recordings in analyzing human-computer interaction and, more recently, neurophysiological imaging, using images in information systems research has been sparse and non-systematic. Where images are used, the purpose of using them has been largely restricted to visually representing the context of the research setting. This approach underuses the knowledge embedded in visual material, which needs to be unpacked in a systematic fashion. We discuss the theoretical underpinnings of visual research and illustrate via a three-step framework how images in information systems research can be collected, analyzed, and presented. We conclude with four considerations for researchers that can help them develop a visual research capacity in information systems and encourage researchers to engage with the images that are now a major feature of the information systems environment

Por Trás das Câmeras: registro fotográfico dos bastidores de uma produção cinematográfica

Este ensaio fotográfico, realizado nos bastidores de uma produção cinematográfica de um projeto de extensão universitário na cidade de Vitória/ES, teve o objetivo de capturar e examinar imagens relacionadas às práticas do fazer cinema. Os registros fotográficos configuraram-se como fotodiário de uma pesquisa realizada. Ao produzir essas fotografias, apresentaram-se reflexões sobre a possibilidade de usar materiais audiovisuais na realização de pesquisas qualitativas no campo dos Estudos Organizacionais

A play of bodies: a phenomenology of videogame experience

Videogames require robust yet flexible methods and vocabularies of critical analysis that appreciate both the textual and embodied pleasures of players. Such analysis cannot start with the player’s intentions as an autonomous user nor with the videogame as a stable object; rather, it must account for the dynamic interplay between videogame hardware, sensorial perception, and audiovisual and haptic representations. If it is to understand how a particular videogame is engaged as both textual artefact and embodied practice, such analysis must be concerned with not just what the player does with the videogame, but what the videogame does with the player. This thesis forwards a phenomenology of videogame experience to account for how the player and the videogame incorporate each other in reflexive cycles that mediate presence, attention, perception, and agency. It does not hope to understand videogames either ‘as narratives’ or ‘as games’ but as particular amalgamations of existing and nascent media and forms—it hopes to understand videogames as videogames. It explores videogame play as a convergence of eyes-on-screens, ears-at-speakers, and muscles-against-interfaces to interrogate the limits of current game studies approaches that often obscure rich commonalities between videogames and other media forms. Drawing upon phenomenology, posthumanism, and cyborg theory, and embedded in detailed and multifaceted analyses of various videogames on different platforms as played, this thesis develops nuanced understandings of how the player and the videogame come together during play to form particular modes of embodiment through which a videogame work is both interpreted and perceived

Cyborg Talentification: YouTube as a Hotspot for Child Pop Stars, their Fans, and Critics

© Friederike Merkelbach (2022). This material is protected by copyright law. Without explicit authorization, reproduction is only allowed in so far it is permitted by law or by agreement with a collecting society.Denne kvalitative, netnografiske kasus-studien undersøker om musikalsk talent kan være samskapt, et fenomen jeg har beskrevet som talentifisering. Hotspot i denne undersøkelsen er YouTube, hvor fans og kritikere deler sine musikalske opplevelser og talentoppfatninger i møte med utvalgte norske barne-popstjerners fremføringer. Kyborgteori ble introdusert for å beskrive sammenfiltringen av menneske og maskin på plattformen. YouTube ble dermed forstått som et kyborgsystem, og talentifisering ble i min studie omdefinert til kyborg talentifisering, eller cyborg talentification, som er betegnelsen brukt i avhandlingen. Kulturkosmopolitisk teori og maktstrukturer komplementerer det teoretiske rammeverket. YouTube kommentarfelt, musikkvideo og intervjuutdrag med popstjernene delt på YouTube, utgjør det empiriske materialet. Basert på generelle etiske retningslinjer, og ved å betrakte internettet som en tekst og ikke et rom, ble denne studien utført uten samtykke og kun basert på offentlig tilgjengelige data. Siden offline erfaringer viste seg å påvirke mine online forståelseshorisonter, inkluderte jeg en live-konsertopplevelse. Denne autoetnografiske studien ble brukt til å belyse kjennetegn ved cyborg talentification på YouTube, men også til å problematisere online/offline dualismen, som ble videre undersøkt og dekonstruert av kyborgteori. Analysen av YouTube-data avdekket motivasjonsbaserte, diskursive, narrative og kulturkosmopolitiske perspektiver ved cyborg talentification. I diskusjon med eksisterende talentforskning og annen relevant litteratur ble det avdekket ulike synspunkter på talent og vidunderbarn-image hos YouTube-brukerne, media og barnestjernene selv. Barnestjernene viste seg å være fanget mellom divergerende forventninger om barnlig uskyld, autentisitet, ekstraordinær modenhet og originalitet. Disse motsetningene, som ble forsterket av YouTubes arkivfunksjoner, problematiserte barnestjernenes nåværende status og overgangen fra barnestjerne til voksen artist. Samtidig både bekreftet og utfordret barnestjernenes fortolkende reproduksjon av popmusikk den generelle infantiliseringen og foryngelsestrenden (youthification) av popkultur. Jeg har gjennomgående diskutert denne studiens relevans for det musikkpedagogiske forskningsfeltet. Dette innebar å belyse YouTube som en uformell læringsplattform og tilrettelegger for digital Bildung, samt å vurdere bidraget av cyborg talentification til eksisterende diskurser om musikalsk talent i formelle musikkpedagogiske rammer og læreplaner. Videre ble funnene fra YouTube om medieindustriens innvirkning og syn på barnestjerner satt i et musikkpedagogisk forskningsperspektiv.Abstract: This qualitative, netnographic case study anticipates the cocreation of musical talent, a phenomenon I conceptualized as talentification. The hotspot of this investigation is the YouTube platform, on which fans and critics alike share their musical experiences and perceptions of talent related to selected Norwegian child pop stars’ performances. Cyborg theory was introduced to elucidate the entanglement of human and machine. Thus, YouTube was conceptualized as a cyborg system, and talentification was subsequently reconceptualized as cyborg talentification. Cultural cosmopolitan theory and power structures complemented my theoretical framework. The empirical materials comprised YouTube comment rooms, their adjoining YouTube music videos, and YouTube interview footage starring the young celebrities. Regarding the internet as text rather than space, and based on ethical standards for online research, this investigation was solely conducted with publicly accessible material that obviated the need to seek consent. As offline experiences were found to inform my online understandings, I included a live concert visit. This autoethnographic experience proved valuable not only in pinpointing the characteristics of cyborg talentification on YouTube but also in shedding light on the online–offline binary, which was further investigated and deconstructed by cyborg subjectivity. The analysis of YouTube materials identified motivational, discursive, narrative, and cultural cosmopolitan levels in the cyborg talentification processes. In close discussion with existing scholarship on talent and adherent research, divergent views on talent and prodigiousness in commenters’, the media’s, and in child stars’ own voices were unpacked. The child stars were found to be caught between contrasting expectations of innocence, authenticity, mature extraordinariness, and originality, which, supported by YouTube’s archival functions, problematized both their present status and their transition from child pop star to adult artist. At the same time, the young celebrities’ interpretive reproduction of pop performance confirmed, but also challenged, the general proclivity of infantilization and youthification of popular culture. Throughout, I have discussed the topic’s impact on the field of music education research. This included a consideration of YouTube as an informal learning platform and facilitator of online Bildung, and of the conceptual and practical contributions of cyborg talentification to discourses on musical talent, formal music education practices, and curricula. Furthermore, the findings gleaned from YouTube on the media industries’ view of and influence on child stars were situated in a music education research perspective.publishedVersio

Empowering the female machine: remapping gender dynamics in technologically augmented dance

Empowering the Female Machine: Remapping Gender Dynamics in Technologically Augmented Dance Performance makes a “mess” of dance through the framework of feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS). Briefly defined, the practice and performance of technologically augmented dance combines human and machine-based actions, where a feedback loop occurs between technical apparatuses and a body in motion in real-time. My research question asks: in collaborative projects involving dance and technology, how do issues of agency, materiality, and gendered subjectivity arise, operate, and govern both research and development and the production processes? I argue for a historical account of gender, technology, and dance and question the very terms of relationality by articulating these dynamics that occur through particular modern and postmodern epistemic regimes. As a female dancer and technologist, my experience produces a unique form of situated knowledge and kinesthetic sense that serves as my foundation of analysis. Through the lens of artistic practice, I weave together four distinct narratives to illustrate the complexities arising from distinct social contexts of technologies and bodily techniques in operation from the early twentieth-century to the present times. First, the historical work of modernist artist Loïe Fuller, in particular her 1895 Fire Dance, complicates notions of femininity by transforming the performance space into an entanglement of agents. Second, Yvonne Rainer’s 1966 Carriage Discreteness from 9 Evenings outlines the shift into early computational machinery and the Space Age where her work was a successful intervention into queering technology, dance, and gender in the performance event. Third, Troika Ranch’s 2009 loopdiver, with dancer and choreographer Dawn Stoppiello and musician and computer programmer Mark Coniglio, reveals the persistence of control in the digital era in the process and development of their work and highlights an emotive and female-centric experience of a cyborgian body. Finally, my own research-creation practice Orbital Resonance (2014) will address current issues in collaborative artistic practice that combines a multiplicity of gender identities and expressions through an interdisciplinary approach. Through these artistic works, my goal is to reveal a feminist STS method of making and doing the act of technologically augmented dance performance

Exploring the emotional geographies of communication technology use among older adults in contemporary London

PhDGeographies of ageing literature recognises the emotional qualities of ageing. However, an historical tendency to overly medicalise ageing means research often focuses on the emotions associated with specific events such as the emotions involved in living with health-related conditions, being a carer, or being cared for in different settings. There remains a paucity of research that attends to the everyday, mundane emotions of being old. This research attends to this lacuna by drawing on theoretical frames emerging from post-humanism and emotional geographies. Specifically, this research engages with the spatial organisation of emotions as it pertains to an increasingly significant element of ageing: the role of communication technology in older people’s ability to create and maintain new modes of (techno)sociability. Drawing upon 29 qualitative interviews and 13 cultural probe follow up responses with retired Londoners aged 59 to 89 years, this research examines how technology connects bodies to objects, people to people and (re)connects older adults to place in new and unexpected ways. Among this participant group diverse, highly individualised and complex amalgams of communication technologies were used. Each mode of communication technology was deployed using intricate strategies of selection and implementation, based on varying temporalities and spatialities, enhancing the ability of participants to relate emotionally with others. Technology use in this regard enabled the portability and emotional continuity of social networks, as communication was no longer tied to certain physical spaces. These findings are theoretically significant as emotions are increasingly seen to have a direct impact on the spatial construction of society through shaping human capacities and behaviours, which form the world around us. Work in this domain has been limited with certain emotions and bodies being more readily researched, and affiliated with particular gendered and sexualised bodies, bodily capacities, physical forms and social identities than others. This research is able to offer an understanding not currently present in geographical literatures, and offer new modes of spatial analysis that take into account the pervasive but differentiated use of technology.Queen Mary University of London Principal’s Research Studentship