Fotopoulou, A.

O'Riordan, K.

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of Sustaining Networked Knowledge: Final Report.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/114791/Article:O'Riordan, K. and Fotopoulou, A. (2015) Sustaining Networked Knowledge: Final Report. Working Papers of the Communities & Culture Network+, 5. ISSN 2052-7268 eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. 1EPSRCCultures and Communities Network+ Final ReportDr Aristea Fotopoulou and Dr Kate O’RiordanFunding BodiesPublishing platforms:Universities:2Executive SummaryThe network aimed to bring together different strands of feminist media-technology studies research. It focused on research that pursues questions abouta) how non-institutionalized communities engage in digital media, and b) how tosustain feminist networked knowledge production. These aims were inspired bywork in feminist media studies and science and technology studies and by theoutcomes of the EPSRCCCN+ Expertise and Knowledge Scoping Study andWorkshop. We intended the network to create intersections with the CCN+networks, feminist media and technology research in the UK,and the FembotCollective and FemTechNet in the USAand ReFrame in the UK.The approach to putting together the network rested on creating three hubs: aninternational workshop; a special edition of an online, open access journal; and anetwork web site SusNet.Aimsand objectivesWe aspired to bring together scholars, research and projects such that theymight be in conversation with each other in different ways. This was in order tomeet the primary aims of the network:1) To learn. In the face of exclusion how do people become enabled to engage indigital media?2) To create. How can an understanding of these engagements bsustained andmade into stable, long-term, forms of networked knowledge?For SusNet, we wanted to reflect on the possibilities and obstacles for makingand sustaining feminist knowledge in digital media, a context in which feministknowledge production can be vulnerable and easily erased. Atthe same time, wewanted to think about how such feminist knowledge and praxiscan be sustainedwithin the institutionalised and canonical context in which we as academicsoperate, and which often performs its own kinds of exclusion. We thereforeconvened an international workshop and used this as the basisfor a special issueof Ada, AJournal of Gender, New Media and Technology. Ada, with its openaccess, multi-modal peer review, was an essential collaboration for thisexploration, and a most appropriate publication platform for the network.Key findingsThere were multiple contributions to the network and many different directionsthat the research collectively pursued. So the diversity of engagement is onegeneral finding. However, there were some common themes and co nections.Digital media praxis was the strongest theme and provided a sense of connectionacross diverse areas. Critically and theoretically engaging with mediatechnologies and making communicative objects was a featurehow peoplebecome enabled to engage in digital media. However, in order to sustain and3network knowledge these objects had to travel, and their context had to traveltoo.Information architecture and practice technologiesIn the real time of the network, the circulation and sharing of making--andmeaning-making—operated around key architectures. For example, Vimeo (avideo hosting service), and Wordpress (a blog hosting service)were the mostcommonly used platforms respectively. Whist the use of cameras mbedded incomputers, tablets and phones was used more than professional dedicatedcameras (although these latter were used in some instances with projectsembedded in academic or media institutions). The use of Scalar was embeddedin some research, and entered into more general discussions.Histories of technological platforms and formats were signif cant in terms ofarchiving and sustaining knowledge over time. Things made invideo format,posters and zines were particularly elusive and historical knowledge – orknowledge across territories – about these forms of production was more easilyoccluded than that of web production. The relationship between format andparticular groups, and their visibility, played out in relation to the relative easeof tracing cyberfeminisms and the relative difficulty in connecting this feministvideo art. Although the connections are embodied through practitioners in bothareas they are rarely made visible in accounts of cyberfeminis .Institutionally housed archiving projects, in which there has been recent interest,provide much more robust and structured access to media historie thananything smaller scale. However, these projects make visible very specific kindsof knowledge, which in turn overshadows other ways of knowing. For example,the Sisterhood and After archive at the British Library is a well supportedresource celebrating a history of the women’s movement in the UK. However,even this resource is attached to anxiety about long term sustainability, andfaced challenges in connecting to histories and documenting the past.Scarcity and the ephemeral aspects of media production are issu s in someformats and contexts. However, in others the bigger challenges are abundanceand overload. Video disappears quickly -but at the same time- n the real time ofthe project the abundance of material on Vimeo and Youtube was overwhelming.Much of the research in the network was engaged in questions about archivingand this ranged across: creating archives; making archives articulate; navigatingarchives; missing archives; infinite archives.However, more of the research was engaged about questions of communicationin the here and now. For example research across the network included: usingvideo in the classroom to teach feminist media praxis; scoping and communityengagement workshops; creating online resources or real time communicationto support people; using media technologies to represent margin l voices. Inthese cases the question of what is readily to hand, and what is readilyaccessible, was often a primary concern. In these contexts widely available4commercial platforms, together with cameras embedded in privately owneddevices were often found to be the best fit.A tension between the use of such propriortary platforms andtechnologies, andthe desire to use alternative architecture ran through much of the research.Historically, activist and subcultural media production hasd a concern withhaving control over the medium and means of production and circulation. Thus,alternative architecture like RiseUpNet, Indy Media, and inependent archives,collections and forms of distribution have been important. However, in recentpolitical movements the question of what is ready to hand andreadily accessiblehas been more pressing. The turn to commercial platforms, and disregard for theownership and control of the medium, marked much of the mediamaking in thenetwork. Interestingly this use- e.g. of social media- was not accompanied by alack of knowledge about the potential for surveillance or censorship. Activistssometimes thought that the question of ownership was simplyless importantthan the potential reach of distribution, or were guided by an idea that there is somuch stuff out there that no-one is particularly visible or vulnerable. The ideathat technological structures could be subverted also informed practices, as wellas broadcast approach where duplication of materials on multiple media formswas the goal.Engagement and sustaining knowledgeThe question of how people become engaged was answered in multiple ways.Pedagogy was a key theme and inculcating media expertise throug teachingmedia practice and sharing knowledge was one of the most important themes.This extended to formal educational environments such as theuniversityclassroom; to informal learning in communities of practiceand self directedlearning. Thus, engagement also featured as a less formallypedagogical processwhich can open up discussion about specific projects and issues.Art practice and play also featured as important. These can be understood aspedagogic or as engagement but also have different dimensions. Projectsincluded in this theme include collaborative and social practice in art andgaming, as well as the circulation and apprehension of aesthetic experiences, oraesthetic interpretations and representations of other forms of knowledge. Inrelation to these forms the discourse of affect also attenuated that of mediapraxis.Reading. Communities of reading, the circulation of texts as objects and themeaning of texts provided points of engagement. For example, an thnographyof the literary sub-genre of steampunk revealed a very different experience oftechnology as cultural form, to that of video making. However,the affective andepistemic engagement with media technologies was determined a d sustained.Other reading examples included communities and historiessurrounding theconsumption and production of feminist science fiction as well as that of feministtheory.Media consumption. The work of being an audience and engaginw th thecirculation of digital media texts is an opportunity for engaging and sustaining5knowledge. The global circulation of mass media texts, figures and productsprovides shared points of identification and resistance. Audience interpretation,meaning-making and user generated content also contributeto flows ofnetworked knowledge and questions of expertise and knowledge.Archiving, publishing and distributing featured as key aspects of sustaining (aswell as making knowledge). However, embodiment and human aspect of the lifecourse and memory, as well as talking to people and meeting face to face alsofeatured as key. People’s stories about networked knowledgehinged on meetingpeople and on key formative moments of human interaction or personal concern,as much as they did on reading or viewing texts and artifacts.Key IssuesIssues arising from the network include concerns about abundance and influenceof digital media as against the austerity and lack of resources in the arts,humanities, education and in people’s everyday lives. The resonance of plentymakes digital media an awkward fit with questions about exclusion, poverty andinequality – at the same time as the abundance and accessibility of digital mediais posed as a solution to the same issues.The paradoxes and ideological dimensions of digital media remain in some waysintractable. The digital continues to embody innovation and the technological fixand to defer questions of social justice. It continues to configure users throughforms of pseudo agency whilst structuring control. It remains gendered,surveillant and exclusive whilst offering equality, transparency and openness.None of these dimensions are on the way to being solved and coulbe seen asconstitutional contradictions, which also offer openingsand interstices foropportunity, play and resistance.Different issues arise from the key areas of concern: pedagogy; engagement; artand play; reading and media consumption. Taken as a whole, theissu s could besaid to come back to the question of how to engage people with digital media inways that have a commitment to open access to both the technologies and theagenda-setting around technological development. One the one hand people aredisadvantaged if they are cut out of technological expertiseand engagement in abroader discussion about the role of such technology in making better politics.On the other hand to engage and teach people about these issues also in partthe work of supporting a technology (and thus supply driven) agenda.Next stepsDue to practical issues around staffing the original plans for the network werenot complete and we returned some of the grant money. In relation to this weintend to apply for the remaining funds to complete the step of visualization andmapping of the network.Members of the network are also engaged in two publication projects coming outof this work. One of these is a writing project around feminist media futures6(Bassett, Kember, O’Riordan). The other is a reflection on the project as a whole(Fotopoulou, O’Riordan). We are also working on identifyinga larger researchagenda around feminism knowledge making and technology, coming out of thenetwork.ImpactThe main point of impact was the SusNet website and ADAspecial issue, whichalso links back to the website. The website records 1,836 alltime views sincelaunch. We aim to create a video to contribute a teaching resource for the onlinecourse FemTechNet which will provide further impact. We arelso still receivingoffers of more content for the website and will continue to maint in andpublicise this.Dissemination‘SusNet: Sustaining networked knowledge’, Paper presented by AristeaFotopoulou at the CCIGForum ‘Enacting Public Engagement: Collaboration andCritique Within/ Beyond the University’. 23 April 2013. The Open University.Queer, feminist social media praxis. University of Sussex 1st May 2013. 17th ofMay 2013 (international conference) Website:http:/ / queerfemdigiact.wordpress.com/ programme/‘Feminist spaces and digital methodologies: Mapping reproductive technologiesas a social controversy online,’Paper presented by AristeaFotopoulou at theFWSA2013 conference‘The Lady Doth Protest: Mapping Feminist Movements,Moments and Mobilisations’, 21 – 23 June 2013 (Feminist and Women’s StudiesAssociation, UK&Ireland).‘Biodigital Paradoxes: Linking questions about sustaining k owledge in feministart and activism and with work on emerging technologies’. Presentation by KateO’Riordan at Ecosex Symposium, July 14 - 20, 2013, Prested Hall/ Colchester ArtsCentre, UKhttp:/ / ecosexlab.org/ schedule/ england/‘Sustaining networked knowledge production: feminist media, art and activism’,Aristea Fotopoulou and Kate O’Riordan. Digital Culture: Promises andDiscomforts Workshop October 2nd – 4th, 2013 Digital Culture section of ECREA,University of Bonn, Germanyhttp:/ / dccecrea.wordpress.com/ workshop/The Post-Digital: Critical Responses, June 11th, 2014 Creativity Zone, University ofSussex. This included a panel on Feminism and technology after the digital(FemTechNet), Caroline Bassett, Sarah Kember, Kate O’Riordan. The event alsoincluded a launch of SusNet, prepared by Aristea Fotopoulouduring thereception and dissemination of the website to participants.Ada: AJournal of New Media and Technology,Issue no. 5: Queer Feminist MediaPraxis Edited by Aristea Fotopoulou┸ Kate O╆Riordan┸฀and Alex Juhasz July にどなね 7FundingAristea Fotopoulou was awarded an RCUKDigital EconomyNemodegrantduring the project.School of Media Film and Music, University of Sussex providedmatch funding forthe dissemination and network events Queer Feminist Social Media Praxis andPost-Digital.8

Sustaining Networked Knowledge: Final Report

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Sustaining Networked Knowledge: Final Report

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