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Blogpost 10: Wearables and the quantified self (Phang Jing Lin)

Crawford et al. (2015)’s article discusses a brief historical overview of the weight scale, and look at its evolving role as it changes locations from the doctor’s office to the street to the home. Then, they discuss the recent emergence of wearable self-tracking devices as well as the advertising campaigns of both weight scales and wearable devices. Lastly, they mention the recent use of FitBit in courts and highlight how the wearable can act as a legal witness.

Hence, both the wearable and the weight scale offer agency through “mediated self-knowledge, within rhetorics of normative control and becoming one’s best self” (Crawford et al., 2015). The idea of agency is deeply complicated in both technologies, reflecting the complex entanglements of information, consent and privacy. The act of buying and using a device reflects an intention and choice, and the ability to ‘know more through data’ can be pleasurable and empowering. However, there are complex issues of agency, privacy and consent. The body is tracked, documented and rendered meaningful through a device that records a large amount of data for the parent company, third parties and possibly insurers and employers, and only a small amount of that data is being returned to the user and they have no idea where their data is stored, whether it can be deleted or whom it is shared with.

I agree with the authors and this reminds me of the National Step Challenge, which is an initiative by the Health Promotion Board (HPB), where they gave out free step trackers to Singaporeans to encourage them to be more physically active and the incentive included shopping or grocery vouchers.

Then I remembered that some people talked about how they would try to find a shortcut so that they can easily hit the required number of steps and earn a certain amount of points to redeem the vouchers. I also found this website where they gave people “tips” on how to “work smarter” to hit the required number of steps and redeem the vouchers and some of these “tips” include shaking the step tracker while watching TV and wearing the step tracker while using the computer or playing games. Thus, I guess this sort of distorts the data which would be collected on Singaporeans’ physical activity in general which can affect individuals’ perception of what is considered the “ideal” amount of exercise when they compare their data to others. Besides, other than using the HPB trackers which are provided for free, Singaporeans can choose to use  trackers from other brands/models, like FitBit. Different trackers may have their own peculiarities in how they work, and many devices do not provide consistent accounts of human activity, as mentioned by Crawford et al. (2015). As a result, this affects accuracy as the steps tracked by other brands may differ from the steps tracked by the HBP trackers and this may affect the number of points different individuals earn. Furthermore, we do not know what the government and HPB would actually do with our data tracked from this step tracker, which is synced to the Healthy 365 app and hence this might give rise to issues of privacy and consent.

References

Crawford, K., Lingel, J., & Karppi, T. (2015). Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(4-5), 479-496.

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Blogpost 9: Intimacy (Phang Jing Lin)

In Lambert (2019)’s article, he argues that intimacy is a “being-with” inside an ideal sphere and that intimacy is mediated by digital media. First, he highlights how intimacy is ambiguous. For instance, intimacy can be defined using a variety of terms, ranging from presence, dialogue, love, immediacy, to trust. He added that the moment individuals see intimacy as something static, they lose sight of intimacy as “a dynamic process and form” (Lambert, 2019).

Then, he discusses the relationship between intimacy and cosmopolitanism. He highlights how cosmopolitanism is quite different from intimacy. If intimacy is an “enclosure”, cosmopolitanism is considered an “opening” (Lambert, 2019). While intimacy has a mode of becoming that is best described as “growth and decline”, cosmopolitanism has a mode of becoming that is best described as an “event”. In today’s context, individuals are immersed in a global system of complex social networks. One will never be able to grow into all of them, but they will always be present. When individuals meet the non-intimate, they are confronted with an aspect of this complex social order that is revealed to them as an event: “an encounter with difference” (Lambert, 2019).

I agree with Lambert (2019), because he mentions how there is a dark side of intimacy, whereby intimacy “does violence to those whom it excludes”. However, most of the work on intimacy and digital media do not touch on intimacy’s dark side. Then, Lambert (2019) points out that although cosmopolitanism seems to encourage one to interact with strangers, it can lead to “violent discrimination” as seen through online cyber-hate. This reminds me of the rise of hate crimes against Asian-Americans in the US particularly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, where many people on social media blamed and associated the pandemic with China, for instance, Donald Trump’s tweet where he referred to the COVID-19 as “Chinese virus”. Subsequently, many anti-Asian hate crimes were happening in the US, for instance, incidents such as looting from Asian-owned businesses, vandalising homes and cars with slurs and also many reports of attacks especially against Asian-American elders (Otten & Mendoza, 2021).

Within the online sphere, there were also instances of anti-Asian activity where a new Telegram group, named after an Asian slur, emerged in January and the group posted several contents mocking Asians (Alba, 2021). There were hundreds of people who joined the chat group. Additionally, anti-Asian groups and discussion threads have also become more active and prevalent on messaging apps like Telegram and internet forums like 4chan since November last year. Thus, this shows that even within intimate online spaces like Telegram chat groups, there are also anti-Asian, racist and xenophobic sentiments, with some people degrading others based on their race and viewing the minority Asian-Americans as “the Other” or outsiders and refusing to recognise Asian-Americans as one of them. These anti-Asian sentiments in the US became even more salient recently after the shooting incident at massage parlours in and near Atlanta, which killed eight people, of which six were Asians (Alba, 2021). Many have cited that the attack was racially motivated. Therefore, all these further emphasise the need to integrate intimacy with cosmopolitanism, such as the three key enablers proposed by Lambert (2019) who suggested creating an environment where “intimate spheres can be open to non-intimate others”, and then facilitating repeated interactions and ensuring cosmopolitan virtues and values can be enabled and achieved.

References

Alba, D. (2021, March 19). How anti-Asian activity online set the stage for real-world violence. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/technology/how-anti-asian-activity-online-set-the-stage-for-real-world-violence.html  

Lambert, A. (2019). Intimacy, cosmopolitanism, and digital media: A research manifesto. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(3), 300-311. doi:10.1177/1077800418806600

Otten, T., & Mendoza, S. (2021, March 13). 'Protect the community': Asian-Americans organize against hate. Yahoo News. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/protect-community-asian-americans-organize-013129704.html 

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Blogpost 8: Play (Phang Jing Lin)

In Pelletier (2005)’s reading, she focuses on Žižek’s concept of interpassivity to analyse different expressions of educational play and the ways in which they define interactivity, agency and pleasure. Pelletier (2005) discusses four versions of cyberspace in how they offer alternative ways of making sense of pleasure and agency in games and education. The first version is where games are pain relievers, and play takes away the “pain” of learning. Cyberspace frees people from the authority of traditional social structures, and allows people to explore various identities. In version 2, games are seen as sensual temptations, and cyberspace provides an immersive experience in which “there is only a stream of sensations and no means of making meaning out of them” (Pelletier, 2005). Version 3 is whereby games are seen as replicas of non-virtual life. In cyberspace, there is more flexibility in terms of the identity one can assume, but a choice still has to be made, and an identity must be chosen. Games create spaces where everything is possible and where there are “no real consequences” to acting out one’s chosen identity. Version 4 is where Pelletier focuses on interpassivity and games are dramatic stages for reality construction. One of the kinds of pleasures which cyberspace helps to gratify is the desire to be passive. Playing a game requires following rules, with the game deciding on the objectives, how to achieve them, and the winning conditions. The pleasure of gaming could be defined as being able to ‘do what you are told’.

When I was reading Pelletier’s article, I just wondered, what about people who find ways to cheat the game system and break the rules? For example, some players on PUBG Mobile (an online mobile shooting game) would find ways around the rules, through hacking or cheating the game system, and they can shoot other players through walls, or even shoot them from very far away and then they can easily win the game. Furthermore, there are even apps created to help people to hack the game. PUBG Mobile is also quite strict when it comes to hacking, as it had recently banned around 2.3 million accounts in a week for hacking in the game and the majority of the hackers are banned for changing their character models, having auto-aim hacks and x-ray vision. 

This also shows the restrictions within the game, because when choosing the avatars, players have a limited choice as there are only certain hairstyles and outfits to choose from and some of the features require players to get certain rewards to unlock them. Thus, players don’t have a lot of agency on their end and thus this kind of reflects version 3 where the avatar is subjected to mediation by what the programme can support. Also, such hacking might be facilitated by the fact that many people might think that when playing the game, there are no real consequences, and thus they might get the idea that they wouldn’t get caught if they hack the game.

However, this is also a way to encourage players to keep coming back to play so that they can unlock whatever features or items they want, and hence some capitalistic aspects can be observed as well.

In such instances, I agree with version 4 mentioned in Pelletier’s article and feel that games still need to have rules to follow. If they are no rules, would the game still be fun or meaningful? If there are no rules in games, it would probably be unfair and PUBG would not be as fun because some people would have certain advantages over others. Hence, I agree that the pleasure of gaming can be derived from everyone following the rules prescribed in the game.

References

Pelletier, C. (2005). Reconfiguring Interactivity, Agency and Pleasure in the Education and Computer Games Debate—Using Žižek's Concept of Interpassivity to Analyse Educational Play. E-Learning and Digital Media, 2(4), 317-326.

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Blogpost 7: Consumption (Phang Jing Lin)

In Webb et al. (2002)’s article, they characterise and explain how cultural fields operate, using terms such as cultural capital, universalisation, illusio, symbolic violence and misrecognition. They primarily address three of Bourdieu’s most important theoretical concepts: cultural field, cultural capital and habitus.

According to Bourdieu, the cultural field refers to a set of “institutions, rules, rituals, conventions, categories, designations, appointments and titles which constitute an objective hierarchy, and which produce and authorise certain discourses and activities”. Cultural fields are made up of the interactions between institutions, rules, and activities, rather than just institutions and rules. He defines cultural capital as “culturally valued taste and consumption patterns”, which acts as a social relation within a system of exchange, and this applies “to all the goods, material and symbolic, without distinction, that present themselves as rare and worthy of being sought after in a particular social formation”. Also, habitus refers to the unconscious internalisation of rules, values and dispositions. It can be understood as the values and dispositions that individuals acquire from their cultural history that is relatively stable across contexts.

For instance, this can be seen through our consumption habits, and even during a global pandemic such as the COVID-19. COVID-19 has made face masks a necessity in people’s daily lives to protect them from the virus, but notions of habitus and cultural capital can be observed from this as well. To some people, especially those of high status or from high-income backgrounds (e.g. celebrities), normal face masks are not enough, because they have an exquisite taste (habitus). Thus, they would use masks that are considered aesthetic, stylish and fashionable, which include branded face masks such as Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Adidas face masks. These branded face masks signal to others that they have an exquisite and curated taste and style that are shaped by their habitus and thus, it helps them to differentiate themselves from other people from other social classes who wear normal masks. It could be because these people from high status or higher income families have been socialised by their social environment such as their family, the media they consume, school, friends, to dress or style themselves in certain ways and to them, these are so internalised and normalised.

I agree that cultural capital and habitus can perpetuate social inequality. During the circuit breaker last year, my parents started working from home and my father, who is unfamiliar with computer and technology, kept asking me for help related to his computer and zoom meetings. For instance, he did not know how to get into the meetings and was clueless about where the functions such as the mute button were at. Similarly, when I told him that he has to register for a Google account to access some document, he looked clueless and told me he did not know how to do so. To me, these are very simple and normal tasks because such digital skills have become so normalised and ingrained in me since I was young. For instance, I am exposed to technology at a younger age than my father and hence I have access to digital capital (e.g. digital skills) earlier than him. So, my father’s and my cultural capital are quite different because we have different levels of education and socialisation (through media, education) and that something which is normalised for me is not normal for him. Then, it also got me thinking that because of COVID-19, where many more things are going digitalised, would it create more social inequality, because not everyone has equal access to these technologies and even if they are given these digital devices, they may not be equipped with the cultural capital and knowledge (i.e. digital skills) on how to use them, especially among the elderly.

References

Webb, J., Schirato, T., & Danaher, G. (2002). Cultural field and the habitus. Chapter 2 in Understanding Bourdieu. London: SAGE. Pp. 21-44.

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Blogpost 6: Precarity and labour (Phang Jing Lin)

In Ravenelle (2019)’s article, she defines the sharing economy as “a collection of app-based technologies that focus on the lending/renting of assets or services either for profit or for a higher good”. She is particularly interested in sharing economy platforms that offer a means of work and income and that claim to bring entrepreneurship or financial sustainability to the masses. Her research highlights three main theoretical themes: the Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft trust divide, the increasing casualisation of labour with a related shift in risk and the resulting increase in social inequalities.

Gemeinschaft refers to a community focused on primary relations, with an emphasis on trust, collective consciousness and effervescence. Gesellschaft refers to a society where connections are abstract and weak, and bonds have to be imagined. Since members can no longer trust that someone’s word is trustworthy, relations must be arranged by contracts, with courts, police, and lawyers acting as enforcement mechanisms. Thus, the sharing economy presents itself as a solution, as a return to small-town or even village life. However, Ravenelle (2019) argues that our trust in humanity does not seem to be increasing and highlights the lack of interest in interaction. Furthermore, sharing economy has facilitated an increase in discrimination, as platforms highlight users’ names and profile photos. Next, Ravenelle (2019) suggests that sharing economy brings about an increasing casualisation of labour and related risk shift. Most sharing economy workers are considered independent contractors. Thus, there is a transfer of financial risk of health problems and bad investments from entrepreneurs to workers. Such instability causes these workers to be in precarious conditions. Also, the sharing economy has led to increasing social inequalities. Sharing economy services are often used to supplement the incomes of those who are rich. For instance, there have been cases of Airbnb empires being documented. While wealthier hosts can rent multiple apartments and rent them out for Airbnb, lower-income residents observe that their rent increases as a result of increased demand for housing in their neighbourhood. Thus, Ravenelle (2019) disagrees that the sharing economy is often seen as a solution to many societal ills, as her study highlights the dangers that emerge from the gig economy’s shifting of risk and liability, as well as the devaluation of labour.

I agree with her, because I remember the last time when I booked an Airbnb apartment in South Korea, I did not get to meet the owner of the apartment, as we only communicated through the Airbnb app. She gave me the pin number for the digital lock to her apartment through the app and hence there was no need for us to meet at all. So, in a way, it is like a virtual transaction and communication and it is hard to build social relations through this.

I also agree with her on the increasing casualisation of labour and the related risk shift. My father worked as a GrabHitch driver for a while around 2 years ago. He was looking for a new job and he wanted to earn some extra income at the same time. Hence, he tried out GrabHitch and he was also considering the option of becoming a full-time Grab driver. However, after a while, he felt that being a GrabHitch driver wasn’t as sustainable as he thought it would be. He did not have social protection, such as CPF contribution, medical benefits and insurance coverage, like most full-time workers would have, because he was not considered an employee under Grab. Besides that, he had to pay a certain amount of platform fees from the money he earned from GrabHitch. Subsequently, the money left was just enough to cover petrol fees. Also, Grab imposes a limit on how many hitch rides one drive can take up, for instance, when he was still driving GrabHitch, he could only accept one or two hitch rides per day. Thus, this shows the power imbalance as well, because the power still lies in the hands of the platforms. Hence, he wasn’t earning much, and the income was not sustainable in the long term and he felt that GrabHitch is better as a side job, supplementing one’s income. Thus, in such sharing economy, there are often more risks than autonomy.

Reference

Ravenelle, A. J. (2019). What is the sharing economy? Chapter 2 in Hustle and gig: Struggling and surviving in the sharing economy (1st ed.). Oakland, California: University of California Press.

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Blogpost 5: Work and user generated content (Phang Jing Lin)

In Social Media as a Participatory Culture, Fuchs (2013) criticises Henry Jenkins’ arguments about participatory culture. Fuchs highlights that Jenkins has a reductionist concept of media participation. He mentions how Jenkins reduces the notion of participation to a dimension that focuses on culture and thus neglects the notion of participatory democracy and its effects on the internet. Fuchs (2013) believes that “an Internet that is dominated by corporations that accumulate capital by exploiting and commodifying users can never, in the theory of participatory democracy, be participatory and the cultural expressions of it cannot be expressions of participation”. He then mentions that Jenkins has missed out on ownership as an important part of participation and fails to consider aspects of class and capitalism. Regarding fan culture and politics, Fuchs (2013) argues that Jenkins has assumed an automatic connection of fandom in popular culture and political protest. Furthermore, Fuchs mentions how Jenkins does not touch on the negative potentials and realities of online communities and cultural communities and the concept of participatory culture have been a focus on “community involvement”, as Jenkins sees community and fan culture as progressive and ignores the fact that the collective intelligence and activity of cultural communities and fandom could possibly develop into online fascism. Also, Fuchs pointed out that Jenkins did not consider the importance of money in the economy and argue against how Jenkins suggests that that the exploitation of users' digital labour is not problematic if they enjoy what they are doing on the platform.

I disagree with Fuchs (2013) that an internet that is dominated by corporations can never be participatory. There are many corporations today that gives users opportunities to participate in the production of media content through user-generated content while taking into account their economic well-being. For instance, I often read webtoon online on Webtoon app/website, which is free for anyone to access and read. I recently found out that Webtoon, which is owned by Naver Corporation, encourages user-generated content through their Webtoon Canvas, an open platform where anyone can draw and publish their own comic to share with others. They also offer several opportunities and options for creators to monetise their content (e.g. through Patreon integration), and creators can earn 50% from ads displayed on their comic series based on their performance (e.g. hitting a certain number of views and subscribers). I feel that as more people and big corporations become more aware of issues of exploitation and free labour today, they also start to care more about the economic well-being and gains of these users and ensure that they are benefiting as well, so that it is a win-win situation for both sides: more content means more users on the platform and at the same time, monetary benefits/gains for creators. This phenomenon could also be observed for youtubers and influencers, where having a full-time job as a youtuber or an influencer is becoming more widely acceptable and legitimate, because these people can earn a lot of money, especially when big brands reach out to collaborate with them because of their influence and content. Thus, big corporations today are also taking into account giving more agency to users, although it is still limited as these corporations ultimately still have more power and the final say when it comes to making decisions.

References

Fuchs, C. (2013). Social media as participatory culture. Chapter 3 in Social media: A critical introduction. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE. Pp. 52-66.

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Blogpost 4: Media industries (Phang Jing Lin)

Horkheimer and Adorno (2012) highlight how “culture today is infecting everything with sameness”. In modern capitalist society, the increasing commodification of culture turns culture into an essential medium of ideological domination, and an important means to maintain the capitalist order. Thus, culture increasingly loses its value as a space for freedom of thinking. Cultural forms become standardised and rationalised. Hence, there are structural uniformity and built-in cues to direct audience so that they know how to receive the content. Most media companies would follow a safe route and they would ensure that media content is produced in such a way that everyone understands it. As a result, this takes away individual capacity and agency for autonomous thought.

For instance, they suggest how media products are “so constructed that their adequate comprehension requires a quick, observant, knowledgeable cast of mind but positively debars the spectator from thinking, if he is not to miss the fleeting facts” (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2012). They also highlight how “the spectator must need no thoughts of his own: the product prescribes each reaction, not through any actual adherence – which collapses once exposed to thought – but through signals” (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2012).

Additionally, Horkheimer and Adorno (2012) stated that “the required qualities of attention have become so familiar from other films and other culture products already known to him or her that they appear automatically”. As media content that is churned out become more similar and predictable, it is causing consumers/audiences to become more and more passive. Thus, media content can essentially be consumed and understood even when individuals are “in a state of distraction” (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2012).

I agree to a certain extent, because I find that most of the media content (e.g. variety/reality shows, TV dramas, films) which I am currently watching or have watched are easy to understand, so whenever I want a break from school, or while having my meals or doing other things, I would just watch them because they are so “brainless” that requires no thinking at all. Hence, this shows that media content be consumed and understood even when I am in a state of distraction, for example, eating or even when I am feeling tired.

However, I disagree with the point that consumers are becoming more passive audience because of the cultural industry and this could be because the reading by Horkheimer and Adorno was written quite long ago. With the prevalence of social media and technology today, it is easy for anyone to create their own content. For example, it is common to find user-generated content online, such as fanfictions, memes and film/drama reviews whereby people make meanings and interpretations out of the media content (e.g. films or TV dramas) they have consumed. Also, with social media platforms like Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, people are not just consuming content from these platforms passively but many people are also actively producing content on these platforms themselves, thus they can be considered both consumers and producers in these platforms. Hence, I feel that the line between consumers and producers is blurring, and not everyone is a passive consumer/audience.

Also, I recently saw that MediaCorp’s Channel 5 TV drama, Kin, together with Wattpad, had organised a fanfiction writing contest last year in June. The winners of the contest would have their stories adapted into a special Kin spin-off series and it was released recently on meWATCH in December last year. Thus, through this, it shows that media company like MediaCorp is encouraging active audience instead of a passive audience, as by holding this fanfiction contest, it encourages the audience to engage actively with the storyline and characters of Kin and exercise their own creativity to create another storyline of their own. Thus, this shows an example of how media culture today privileges active consumers and are encouraging more active participation among consumers and also giving them more agency.

References

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2012). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception. Chapter 4 in M.G. Durham & D. Kellner (Eds.). Media and cultural studies: Keyworks (2nd ed.). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Media and cultural studies: Keyworks, 53-74.

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Blogpost 3: Mobile media (Phang Jing Lin)

Ito et al. (2017) highlight how portable devices can “construct and support an individual’s identity and activities, and mediate relationships with people, places, and institutions”. The reading discusses three ways of managing presence in urban space and this involves the integration of “portable media devices, people, infrastructures, and locations”, and they are cocooning, camping, and footprinting (Ito et al., 2017).

Cocooning is a “private territory” created by individuals within the public space that shut them out from others surrounding them. Camping is when people spend time in “desirable locations” outside of their homes or workplaces (Ito et al., 2017). For instance, these can include cafes or libraries and these are locations which people purposely seek out and have a personal relationship with. Footprinting is the process of tracking records of customers’ transactions or traces in a particular location and this is mediated through devices such as member cards or loyalty cards, and these cards can facilitate the tracing of people’s movement through urban spaces and help businesses track customer loyalty.

I feel that cocooning is relevant to me, because whenever I am travelling on public transport and especially if it is a long journey, I will always use my phone to browse through my social media (e.g. Instagram, Twitter) and listen to music and I often do this in order to avoid any eye contact or any conversations with other people. I also feel pressured to look at my phone because everyone is doing the same on public transport and if I don’t look at my phone, it feels like I would be the odd one out. I hardly bring any reading materials to read while travelling and I think it is because with my phone (which is like a mobile kit on its own), I can do multiple things, especially when everything is so digitalised today. For instance, I can read ebooks on my phone while listening to music and when people message me, I can reply to them. Hence, this makes it feels like I am in my own bubble or private space even though I am in the public. I feel that camping doesn’t apply to me, because I find it hard to concentrate outside so I would usually study at home. However, I know of friends who would go to cafes or libraries to study because they find them more conducive and many cafes and libraries in Singapore do provide free wifi and power plugs, which is a plus point and this encourages many people to camp at those places for hours.

Footprinting is prevalent and this can be seen through the Starbucks card which I sometimes use. The Starbucks membership program benefits all Starbucks Rewards members as they can earn stars when they pay using their Starbucks card. The Starbucks Rewards is quite attractive for many people, because as your membership status increases, you get more benefits. Hence, this can motivate people to buy as many drinks to accumulate as many stars as possible. Besides that, I can pay using the Starbucks app so I don’t necessarily have to use the physical card, and this is much more convenient for me. The app also allows me to keep track of my stars and see if I can redeem any rewards. However, Starbucks is also collecting data from its customers through this Starbucks rewards. For instance, people can pay for their drinks using the Starbucks app and they can also order and pay ahead. Hence, data such as their consumption and purchasing habits can be collected through the app.

I feel that Starbucks membership system has been quite successful in retaining customer loyalty, and it helps to mediate people’s relationships to Starbucks as there are many loyal fans of Starbucks around the world, not just in Singapore. However, I agree that they can also produce an effect of interchangeability sometimes, for example some people might only buy Starbucks drinks just to accumulate stars and there might also be some people who have privacy concerns. Some form of depersonalisation of customer loyalty might also be observed because the membership system is so impersonal and instrumental whereby everyone is using the same membership system and the same app, so individuals might not feel that there is an element of uniqueness and personalisation.

References

Ito, M., Okabe, D., & Anderson, K. (2017). Portable objects in three global cities: The personalization of urban places. In The Reconstruction of Space and Time (pp. 67-87). Routledge.

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Blogpost 2: Domestic media (Phang Jing Lin)

Spigel (2015) discusses the television’s relation to the “spatial geographies of everyday life”, and she talks about how television has affected the relationship between and social construction of the private and public sphere. In the reading, she touches on five main points, namely (1) television in homes affecting the domestic space, (2) television affecting outside activities (e.g. theatres); (3) television allowing people to experience virtual travel, (4) television giving viewers a sense of liveness and “telepresence”, and (5) television is transiting from a domestic medium to mobile technology and “everywhere” cultural form (Spigel, 2015).

The television is relevant and used frequently in my household, because my family do have our family time where we would often watch Channel 8 TV dramas in the living room together and during mealtimes. Also, during the weekend, we would sometimes have movie nights where the TV is converted to home theatre and thus my family hardly go to the movie theatres to watch movies. The television in my house is a symbolic object, as we also have decorations and place objects around our television set to make our living room cosy so that it feels like home. Whenever my family and I are watching television in the living room, I feel that it brings us closer together. However, most of the time, I would still find myself using my own devices such as laptop and phone in my study room and therefore spending more time in the study room instead of the living room. I feel that this is also mainly because my laptop and chargers are located in my study room.

I also realised that when watching the television together, my family would tend to watch TV shows/movies that my father is interested in (power dynamics of gender related to TV watching where males dominate the remote control can be seen here). Hence, he usually gets to decide which channel or show to watch on the television. My parents use the television more often than me, because they watch the news on television every night. Since they spend more time in the living room watching television than me, they have more authority and control in the living room space, and thus they can get to decide what to watch on the television more than me. Other than the television in the living room, my parents’ bedroom also has a television. However, the television in the living room is bigger and newer than the television in my parents’ bedroom, so this might be seen as a way to show off our class status to guests visiting our house.

I agree that television is changing from a domestic media to mobile technology and “everywhere” cultural form as mentioned by Spigel (2015). Even local TV programmes in Singapore, which I often watch with my family since I was young, have taken into account the prevalence of mobile technology. For instance, meWATCH, Mediacorp’s digital entertainment service, allows viewers to watch live TV and entertainment programmes and catch up on local TV programmes which they have missed. People can also download the meWATCH app and watch TV programmes on multiple devices such as mobile phones, tablets and smart TVs. They aim to allow viewers to enjoy entertainment on-the-go. Thus, individuals do not even need a television to watch local TV programmes because they can watch them on their personal devices such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Viewers are not confined to their living rooms or bedrooms and can watch TV on-the-go anywhere and anytime, thus the idea of privatised mobility can be observed.

References

Spigel, L. (2015). TV and the Spaces of Everyday Life. In Mediated Geographies and Geographies of Media (pp. 37-63). Springer, Dordrecht.

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Blogpost 1 (Phang Jing Lin)

Our social world is not just mediated but mediatised, as media continuously shape and construct our social reality and social world. Mediatisation refers to how the media has become so integrated and relevant in our social world and social reality as they are essential “reference-points and resources” in our daily life (Couldry & Hepp, 2017). For instance, when meeting with friends physically, we often refer to media by talking about the things we see on social media or trending topics on social media. These shared experiences through media help to construct and shape our social reality and social world. Even in university, particularly during this covid-19 pandemic, media and technology have become important parts of our lives as we are heavily dependent on platforms like Zoom for our online classes now. Even in face-to-face class settings, the class cannot be conducted without any references to materials online, such as our course materials on Luminus and even our assignments require us to use media as our resource (e.g. doing research online). Hence, our knowledge is also mediated. I also find myself becoming very reliant on media and technology (phones, laptops), and find it hard to detach myself from them sometimes.

Universities’ communication and internal structure have become so heavily reliant on media (Krotz, 2017). For instance, the dominant mode of communication with our professors is often through email and school portal (e.g. Luminus). We start to develop norms and habits surrounding these media and technologies, for example, email is commonly seen as a formal mode of communication by many people, so when writing an email, we would usually write in a formal and respectful manner and usually write to people whom we are not familiar with, as compared to our conversations with our family and friends on messaging platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp where we would tend to use GIFs, stickers, emojis and more informal languages.  

I agree with the authors, because mediatisation is becoming a relevant phenomenon now. Every aspect of our social life is mediated and cannot be separated from media and technologies. They are necessary for us to build social relations and conduct our human activities (school, work, leisure) and are becoming an essential and relevant part of our life, especially during this covid-19 pandemic. This can be further seen through how the government has set up a new division/office called SG Digital Office (SGO) last year, which promotes digitalisation and encourages digital adoption among Singaporeans and businesses, starting by reaching out to the elderly and hawker stallholders, and teaching them basic digital skills. This is to ensure that no one gets left behind as Singapore moves forward to becoming more digitally connected. Thus, the government can be seen as trying to integrate and institutionalise media and technology into our social life by creating a legitimate division/office to help people adopt the necessary digital skills they need in order to keep up with the digital world, which shows that mediatisation is a real phenomenon.

References

Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2017). The social world as communicative construction. Chapter 2 in The mediated construction of reality. Cambridge, UK;Malden, MA;: Polity Press. Pp. 15-33.

Krotz, F. (2017). Explaining the mediatisation approach. Javnost - The Public, 24(2), 103-118. DOI: 10.1080/13183222.2017.1298556