Language, Media and Community in the Information Age

This article argues that the electronically mediated communication contributes to the construction of new, mediated forms of communities which are based on the synthesis of virtual and physical communities. The appearance of these new forms of communities leads to a new conceptualization of the relation between self and community. The aim of this article, on the one hand, is to show that with the mediatization of communities, our concept of community becomes more complex. On the other hand, in this essay I consider the assump - tion that the medium of the mediatization and new conceptualization of community is a specific, pictorial language of electronically mediated communication

Place attachment in deprived neighbourhoods: The impacts of population turnover and social mix

This paper examines the determinants of individual place attachment, focussing in particular on differences between deprived and others neighbourhoods, and on the impacts of population turnover and social mix. It uses a multi-level modelling approach to take account of both individual- and neighbourhood-level determinants. Data are drawn from a large sample government survey, the Citizenship Survey 2005, to which a variety of neighbourhood-level data have been attached. The paper argues that attachment is significantly lower in more deprived neighbourhoods primarily because these areas have weaker social cohesion but that, in other respects, the drivers of attachment are the same. Turnover has modest direct impacts on attachment through its effect on social cohesion. Social mix has very limited impacts on attachment and the effects vary between social groups. In general, higher status or more dominant groups appear less tolerant of social mix

Affordances-in-practice:an ethnographic critique of social media logic and context collapse

Drawing on data gathered during ethnographic fieldwork in Mardin, a medium-sized town in southeast Turkey, this article shows that social media users actively appropriate online platforms and change privacy settings in order to keep different social spheres and social groups apart. Keeping different online social contexts distinct from each other is taken for granted as a way of using social media in Mardin. By contrast, social media scholars have extensively discussed the effects of social media in terms of context collapse. The article highlights how context collapse is the result of patterns of usage within Anglo-American contexts and not the consequence of a platform's architecture or social media logic. It then suggests a theoretical refinement of affordances, and proposes the concept of affordances-in-practice

The Hugging Team: The Role of Technology in Business Networking Practices

Abstract. Technological devices for social networking are produced in droves and networking through media seems to be the way of getting ahead in business. We examine what role technology plays in the creation, development and maintenance of business relationships among entrepreneurs in Copenhagen. We find that mediated communication is useful in all stages of relational maintenance but only in a supportive role in relational development where co-presence and shared personal experiences take center-stage, generating trust necessary for business relationships to work. These trust-developing experiences take effort and hard work and although they can be successfully supported and even facilitated through the use of communication technologies, they need not be replaced or made simpler. The difficulties of creating these experiences make working business relationships viable in the uncertain and risky world of entrepreneurship

"Find Out Exactly What to Think-Next!": Chris Morris, Brass Eye, and Journalistic Authority

This article discusses Chris Morris's fake news TV series Brass Eye (1997, 2001). It concentrates on the ways in which Brass Eye exposed and undermined not only the textual conventions of TV news and current affairs, but also the ways in which the program deployed those textual conventions to highlight and sabotage the cultural authority of public figures who appeared on it. The article first introduces Morris and Brass Eye, before identifying some of the key textual strategies of broadcast news that are satirized in the program, including its mode of address, its music, and its visuals and graphics. It then examines how the program's use of those strategies enables it to exercise the authority of broadcast news to expose the accessed voices of public figures within the show

[pain]Byte VR Storytelling & Classical Ballet

This initial stage paper focuses on the Virtual Reality (VR) experience of the [pain]Byte ballet. The live and VR experience debut October 1st 2017, as part of the Brighton digital festival. Specifically, the development of the VR environment to compliment live performance by using the same choreography to create an option capture element of the VR story telling experience. Reviewing Virtual & Alternative reality gaming & storytelling works and the use of VR for chronic pain management (Chen, Win). Does the VR experience compare to that of the live theatre for the audience? The data visualisations and VR environment will be continuations of the Network Simulator, [data]Storm 2015. We are visualising and comparing the pain pathway system to that of a social network. Linking pain signals to viral/negative messaging for some of the visuals. The main purpose of the pieces links to how “we" present ourselves online, these better or veiled versions of ourselves. For chronic pain sufferers, this can be daily activity in the real world. The paper concludes by identifying some future directions for the research project. The Ballet: [pain]Byte is a data driven dance classical ballet performance and VR (virtual reality) experience. [pain]Byte, is about chronic pain and biomedical engineering, in particular the use of implanted technology - neuromodulation (Al-Kaisey et al). Using data as a medium for storytelling, what it means to be in chronic pain. The live augmented theatre and VR experience research focuses on how an audience’s exposure and understanding are impacted by the difference mediums used for [pain]byte

Populist communication in the new media environment: a cross-regional comparative perspective

The changing terms of mediation place new demands, opportunities and risks on the performance of the political persona. Visibility has become a double-edged sword, leaving representatives vulnerable to exposure while new tools provide opportunities for emerging entrepreneurial actors. This double risk to elites’ mediated personas—exposure and challenge from entrepreneurs—renders their armour of authenticity dangerously fragile, which nourishes a public sense of being inefficaciously represented. It is this climate in which populism currently flourishes around the globe. Three primary criteria of mediated self-representation by politicians—visibility, authenticity and efficacy—form the focus of this paper: how do populists negotiate such demands in different democratic contexts, and wherein lies the symbiosis between populism and the new media environment suggested by the literature? To answer this, the paper compares two populist cases responding to different democratic contexts: UKIP, a right-wing party from an established democracy (UK), and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a left-wing party from a transitional democracy (South Africa). The objects of study are disruptive performances by these parties, which are considered emblematic manifestations of populist ideology as they establish a Manichaean relationship between the elite and populist actors who embody the people. The paper introduces disruption as a multi-faceted and significant analytical concept to explain the populist behaviour and strategies that underlie populist parties’ responses to the demands for visibility, authenticity and efficacy that the new media environment places upon political representatives. Using mixed methods with an interpretive focus, the paper paints a rich picture of the contexts, meanings and means of construction of populist performances

Communications and Transport: The mobility of information, people and commodities

In a context where the study of communications tends to focus only on the mobility of information, to the neglect of that of people and commodities, this article explores the potential for a closer integration between the fields of communications and transport studies. Against the presumption that the emergence of virtuality means that material geographies are no longer of consequence, the role of mediated ‘technologies of distance’ is considered here in the broader contexts of the construction (and regulation) of a variety of physical forms of mobility and the changing modes of articulation of the virtual and material worlds