Exploring the forms of sociality mediated by innovative technologies in retail settings

The retail setting is characterized by an increasing usage of advanced and interactive technologies (i.e. mobile apps, Near Field Communication, virtual and augmented reality, etc.) based on high connectivity, ubiquitous and contactless systems that enhance and support consumer shopping experience. As a result of the consumers’ interaction with technology while shopping, technology-enriched stores provide new experiences and enable different forms of sociality. The aim of this paper is to explore the forms of sociality mediated by innovative technologies in retail settings. To achieve this goal, we use a qualitative approach involving 20 young consumers in the London-based market, where technology use by this group of consumers is growing. Findings show that digitally-mediated in-store activity mainly responds to a need for advice and trust, and the forms of sociality deployed around it are essentially ephemeral, low-intensity and publicity-oriented modes of interaction that echo the principles of “network sociality” described by critical media theory

Innovation in consumer-computer-interaction in smart retail settings

Editorial introducing the special issue of Computers in Human Behavior on Innovation in consumer-computer-interaction in smart retail settings

Researching YouTube

‘Researching YouTube’ introduces the special issue of Convergence which arose out of an international academic conference on YouTube that was held in London at Middlesex University in September 2016. The conference aimed to generate a robust overview of YouTube’s changing character and significance after its first ten years of development by creating a productive dialogue between speakers from different disciplines and cultures, and between YouTube-specific research and wider debates in media and social research on identity, aesthetics, politics, celebrity, production practices, business models, and research methods in digital culture. This introduction is structured around four themes that help to contextualise the papers that were selected from the many submitted for inclusion in the special issue and offers a substantial overview of the field of research: Participatory Culture and User-Generated Content; YouTube as a Hybrid Commercial Space; Vlogging and YouTube Celebrity; The ‘Mystery’ of the Algorithm and Digital Methods of Research

First week is editorial, second week is algorithmic : platform gatekeepers and the platformization of music curation

This article investigates the logics that underpin music curation, and particularly the work of music curators, working at digital music streaming platforms. Based on ethnographic research that combines participant observation and a set of interviews with key informants, the article questions the relationship between algorithmic and human curation and the specific workings of music curation as a form of platform gatekeeping. We argue that music streaming platforms in combining proprietary algorithms and human curators constitute the \u201cnew gatekeepers\u201d in an industry previously dominated by human intermediaries such as radio programmers, journalists, and other experts. The article suggests understanding this gatekeeping activity as a form of \u201calgo-torial power\u201d that has the ability to set the \u201clistening agendas\u201d of global music consumers. While the power of traditional gatekeepers was mainly of an editorial nature, albeit data had some relevance in orienting their choices, the power of platform gatekepeers is an editorial power \u201caugmented\u201d and enhanced by algorithms and big data. Platform gatekeepers have more data, more tools to manage and to make sense of these data, and thus more power than their predecessors. Platformization of music curation then consists of a data-intense gatekeeping activity, based on different mixes of algo-torial logics, that produces new regimes of visibility. This makes the platform capitalistic model potentially more efficient than industrial capitalism in transforming audience attention into data and data into commodities

Still ‘fire in the (full) belly’? Anti-establishment rhetoric before and after government participation

Scholars argued that anti-establishment parties use a populist rhetoric that appeals to the worst instincts of people. Indeed, populist politicians are often viewed as charismatic leaders that have fire in their belly. While in the past these parties heavily relied on anti-establishment platforms and communication rhetoric, their increasing electoral success along with the growing duties linked with government membership transform them into more established parties, rather than pure outsiders, and cast doubts on the feasibility of keeping a populist rhetoric. This paper compares right-wing and non-right-wing populism, investigating whether populist leaders change their rhetorical strategy once in office, decreasing the level of negativity and adopting a more forward-looking and inclusive style of communication, with a stronger focus on fulfilling the policy proposal made during the electoral campaign rather than blaming political rivals. For this purpose, we collected a new corpus of political speeches extracted from video messages posted on Facebook by four anti-establishment party leaders in three countries (Austria, Italy and Spain), from 2016 to 2018, i.e., immediately before and immediately after their access to power. Overall, 30 h of recorded audio from 215 videos (amounting to around 140 million visualizations) have been analyzed using topic models and well-established semantic psycholinguistic dictionaries. The results highlight slight changes in the rhetoric of populist leaders once in power, mostly for non-right-wing populists, as their language becomes less negative, less assertive and more focused on government duties

The functions of social interaction in the knowledge-creative economy: between co-presence and ICT-mediated social relations

This article investigates the role and functions of interaction among knowledge-creative workers in Milan. While a large body of literature supports the relevance of co-presence for the building of social capital in creative scenes, a growing body of empirical and theoretical research shows in fact that, under certain circumstances, social relations mediated by digital tools are equally important. The extent to which professionals in these industries are embedded in \u201cspaces\u201d which are physical as well as digital, and how these have come to be so, remains nevertheless an under-explored research question. Building on findings from two distinct qualitative researches on knowledge-creative workers in Milan, undertaken in 2008 and 2011-2013, it is here argued that knowledge-creative professionals are embedded in a wider \u201cspace\u201d of relations where exchanges mediated via ICTs productively intertwine with face-to-face interaction to determine new ways of searching for jobs and practicing work. The paper highlights what changes when proximity becomes physical and digital as a mixture of face-to-face and ICT-mediated interaction, and discusses contradictions and implications of their blending, showing the necessity to overcome the rigid distinction between face-to-face and digital interaction that still characterises the empirical study of knowledge-creative economies