Houston, We've Had a Problem

It is 50 years since the Apollo 13 mission failed to reach the surface of the moon. In this article we examine the audio recording of the post-mission press conference from the Apollo 13 spaceflight. We will focus on the "problem" (an explosion on-board the spacecraft) that prevented the astronauts (Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise) from reaching the moon and we will analyse how their retrospective talk organises "what happened" and "what we did" in their recollections of the events surrounding the explosion. In the analysis we identify how these accounts are discursively organised in such a way that the explosion is positioned as an external event that was unavoidable and unexpected. Furthermore, the astronaut's responses to witnessing this unexpected event and their subsequent actions on realising the severity of the event are constructed as being measured, rational and logical.Es ist 50 Jahre her, seit die Apollo 13-Mission, die Mondoberfläche zu erreichen, fehlgeschlagen ist. In diesem Beitrag beschäftigen wir uns mit den Audioaufzeichnungen der danach veranstalteten Pressekonferenz und im Besonderen mit dem "Problem" (einer Explosion im Raumschiff), das es den Astronauten (Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert und Fred Haise) unmöglich machte, den Mond zu erreichen. Wir analysieren, in welcher Weise sie in ihren retrospektiven Erzählungen organisieren, "was geschehen ist" und "was wir getan haben" im Zusammenhang mit den Ereignissen rund um die Explosion. Dabei zeigen wir, wie sie ihre Gesprächsbeiträge in einer Weise diskursivieren, dass die Explosion als externales, unvermeidbares und unerwartbares Ereignis erscheint. Weiter konstruieren sie sich als Zeugen dieses schwerwiegenden Ereignisses und die eigenen folgenden Handlungen als messbar, rational und logisch

Social media and the co-production of bodies online: Bergson, Serres and Facebook's Timeline

Social media’s networked form of communication provides people with bodies that are combinations of embodied and technologically mediated action. This creates multiple forms of visibility within the infospheres (Terranova) of social media, which require simultaneous production of bodies in and through offline and online spaces. Bergson’s non-dualistic model of bodies as images addresses the challenges of experiencing ‘bodies online’; understood as expressions that blur the subject–object and representation–being dualisms. This article explores how socially mediated bodies are disposed for action in ways that involve negotiating communication through the mediated noise (Serres) of social media, along with managing bodies that are faced with the spatialisation of time through new features such as Facebook’s Timeline

Social network sites : a constructionist approach to self, identity and community in MySpace

MySpace is a social network site (SNS) that forms an essential part of modern online communication. The creation of a personal profile in MySpace allows a user to connect with a global network of friends and communicate in a number of different ways. This thesis sets out to explore the experience of MySpace in terms of the self, identity and community. MySpace will be studied from a constructionist form of social psychology that benefits from new dialects of movement, performance and process. MySpace is conceptualised as a mediated community where users shape and are shaped by their experience of using the site. This study uses empirical data taken from the natural use of MySpace. A total of 100 open-access profiles are explored for the myriad ways that users constitute the self and identity in MySpace. The analysis identifies a number of functions of mediating the self including: the brand me, the hoped-for self and the self in potential. The brand me describes the reflective ability to realise other normative capacities through the practice of blogging in MySpace. This focuses on the ability to create new forms of subjectivity in MySpace interactions. In a similar vein, the hoped-for self explains the modification of the self through the act of profile changing and focuses on the actual, everyday practices of the self. Each of these analytic themes demonstrates the importance of the relational connections in MySpace. Finally, the self is defined as in potential as the analysis demonstrates an ongoing need for a narrative construction to the profile that is performed in both the visual and the textual aspects of the page.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Medicated bodies: Mental distress, social media and affect

Social media are increasingly being recruited into care practices in mental health. This paper analyses how a major new mental health social media site (www.elefriends.org.uk) is used when trying to manage the impact of psychiatric medication on the body. Drawing on Henri Bergson's concept of affection, analysis shows that Elefriends is used at particular moments of reconfiguration (e.g. change in dosage and/or medication), periods of self-experimentation (when people tailor their regimen by altering prescriptions or ceasing medication) and when dealing with a present bodily concern (showing how members have a direct, immediate relationship with the site). In addition, analysis illustrates how users face having to structure their communication to try to avoid 'triggering' distress in others. The paper concludes by pointing to the need to focus on the multiple emerging relationships between bodies and social media in mental health due to the ways the latter are becoming increasingly prominent technologies through which to experience the body when distressed

Performing the Digital Self: Understanding Location-Based Social Networking, Territory, Space, and Identity in the City

Expressions of territoriality have been positioned as one of the main reasons users alter their behaviors and perceptions of spatiality and sociality while engaging with location-based social networks (LBSN). Despite the potential for this interplay to further our understanding of LBSN usage in the context of identity, very little work has actually been done towards this. Addressing this gap in the literature is one the chief aims of the article. Drawing on an original six-week study with 42 participants utilizing a bespoke LBSN entitled ‘GeoMoments’, our research explores: (1) the way that territoriality is linked to self-identity; and (2) how this interplay affects the interactions between users as well as the environments they inhabit. Our findings suggest that participants affirmed their self-identity by selectively posting and claiming ownership of their neighborhood through the LBSN. Here, the locative decisions made related to risk, hierarchies, and the users’ relationship to the area. This practice then led participants to discover and interact with the digital information overlaying their physical environments in a playful manner. These interactions demonstrate the perceived power structures that are facilitated by identity claims over a virtual area. In the main, our results reaffirm that territoriality is a central concept in understanding LBSN use, while also drawing attention to the temporality involved in user-to-user and user-to-place interactions pertaining to physical place mediated by LBSN

Mediation and digital intensities: Topology, psychology and social media

Social media are said to offer seemingly endless ways of connecting with people in a variety of online spaces. The mediated form that such communication takes has re-opened many theoretical debates regarding the status of relationships that are organized and managed online. In this article we seek to explore these issues through the lens of topological thinking, and particularly through the work of Kurt Lewin (1890–1947). Lewin’s topological psychology has recently featured in the social sciences as a way of overcoming some of the, frankly unhelpful, dualistic thinking that features commonly in psychology (e.g. subject–object, mind–body, individual–social). Topological thought focuses on the spatial distribution of psychological experience, and therefore offers a social perspective not reliant on traditional notions of internalized psychological states and traits. The kind of spatiality at work though is not one that relies on Euclidean fixity, but one that draws out notions of stretching, moulding, bending and flexing. Space is seen not as a fixed property, but rather the form that psychological activity takes through connections and relations with others. In this article we seek to explore the potential value in characterizing social media activity topologically. This involves analysing people’s experiences with social media, and how topological concerns of boundaries, connections and thresholds work (or not) in and through social media. Furthermore, the focus is not only on extensive properties of social media, but rather on how intensive processes are actualized and distributed in and through mediation

The dilemma of closeness and distance: a discursive analysis of wall posting in MySpace

MySpace is an online social network site (SNS) where users regularly communicate via a particular part of the profile page known as "the wall". This article uses a discursive approach to study the construction of identity in communication on the wall. The analysis shows that wall communication constitutes a set of relational positions that need to be discursively organised in order to manage the presence of a mediated community of other MySpace users. Drawing on the work of Celia LURY, the paper explores this issue in terms of a set of practices for managing the dilemma of closeness and distance that stems from the new forms of individualism that is inherent to a "prosthetic" culture. The article is concerned with the way MySpace users negotiate the issue of distance and closeness as part of the process of identity construction in MySpace. A broader discussion in terms of discourse, community and technology is included.MySpace ist eine Online-Community, bei der Nutzer/innen über einen spezifischen Teil ihrer Profilseiten – "the wall" – kommunizieren. Dieser Beitrag nutzt einen diskursanalytischen Ansatz, um die Konstruktion von Identität im Rahmen dieser Kommunikation "on the wall" zu untersuchen. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Art der Kommunikation ein Set relationaler Positionen hervorbringt, die diskursiv organisiert werden müssen angesichts der Gegenwart anderer MySpace-Nutzer/innen. Rückgreifend auf die Arbeiten von Celia LURY wird ein Set von Praktiken herausgearbeitet, die erforderlich sind, um das Dilemma von Nähe und Distanz zu bewältigen, das wiederum aus einem neuen Individualismus resultiert, der dieser "prothetischen" Kultur inhärent ist. Genauer befasst sich der Beitrag mit der Art und Weise, wie MySpace-Nutzer/innen Nähe und Distanz als Teil ihrer Identitätskonstruktion in MySpace aushandeln. Die Ergebnisse werden auf generellere Diskussionen zu Diskurs, Gemeinschaft und Technologie rückbezogen.MySpace es un sitio de red social en internet (SNS), a través del cual los usuarios se comunican regularmente por medio de una parte específica de la página web conocida como "el muro". Este artículo utiliza un enfoque discursivo para estudiar la construcción de identidad en las comunicaciones en el muro. El análisis muestra que la comunicación en el muro configura un conjunto de posiciones relacionales que necesitan ser organizadas discursivamente con el fin de gestionar su presencia en una comunidad mediada por otros usuarios de MySpace. Basándose en el trabajo de Celia LURY, el artículo explora este tópico en términos de un conjunto de prácticas para la gestión del dilema de la cercanía y la distancia que se deriva de las nuevas formas de individualismo inherentes a una cultura de "prótesis". El artículo se refiere a la manera como los usuarios de MySpace negocian el tema de la distancia y cercanía como parte de un proceso de construcción de identidad en MySpace. Se incluye un debate más amplio en términos de discurso, comunidad y tecnología

El dilema de la cercanía y la distancia: Un análisis discursivo de de los anuncios en el muro en MySpace

MySpace is an online social network site (SNS) where users regularly communicate via a particular part of the profile page known as "the wall". This article uses a discursive approach to study the construction of identity in communication on the wall. The analysis shows that wall communication constitutes a set of relational positions that need to be discursively organised in order to manage the presence of a mediated community of other MySpace users. Drawing on the work of Celia LURY, the paper explores this issue in terms of a set of practices for managing the dilemma of closeness and distance that stems from the new forms of individualism that is inherent to a "prosthetic" culture. The article is concerned with the way MySpace users negotiate the issue of distance and closeness as part of the process of identity construction in MySpace. A broader discussion in terms of discourse, community and technology is included.URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1103160MySpace ist eine Online-Community, bei der Nutzer/innen über einen spezifischen Teil ihrer Profilseiten – "the wall" – kommunizieren. Dieser Beitrag nutzt einen diskursanalytischen Ansatz, um die Konstruktion von Identität im Rahmen dieser Kommunikation "on the wall" zu untersuchen. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Art der Kommunikation ein Set relationaler Positionen hervorbringt, die diskursiv organisiert werden müssen angesichts der Gegenwart anderer MySpace-Nutzer/innen. Rückgreifend auf die Arbeiten von Celia LURY wird ein Set von Praktiken herausgearbeitet, die erforderlich sind, um das Dilemma von Nähe und Distanz zu bewältigen, das wiederum aus einem neuen Individualismus resultiert, der dieser "prothetischen" Kultur inhärent ist. Genauer befasst sich der Beitrag mit der Art und Weise, wie MySpace-Nutzer/innen Nähe und Distanz als Teil ihrer Identitätskonstruktion in MySpace aushandeln. Die Ergebnisse werden auf generellere Diskussionen zu Diskurs, Gemeinschaft und Technologie rückbezogen.URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1103160MySpace es un sitio de red social en internet (SNS), a través del cual los usuarios se comunican regularmente por medio de una parte específica de la página web conocida como "el muro". Este artículo utiliza un enfoque discursivo para estudiar la construcción de identidad en las comunicaciones en el muro. El análisis muestra que la comunicación en el muro configura un conjunto de posiciones relacionales que necesitan ser organizadas discursivamente con el fin de gestionar su presencia en una comunidad mediada por otros usuarios de MySpace. Basándose en el trabajo de Celia LURY, el artículo explora este tópico en términos de un conjunto de prácticas para la gestión del dilema de la cercanía y la distancia que se deriva de las nuevas formas de individualismo inherentes a una cultura de "prótesis". El artículo se refiere a la manera como los usuarios de MySpace negocian el tema de la distancia y cercanía como parte de un proceso de construcción de identidad en MySpace. Se incluye un debate más amplio en términos de discurso, comunidad y tecnología.URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs110316