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Blog Post 10 (Ching Yee)

In this week’s reading, Crawford et al. made comparisons between the weight scale and wearable device, as well as the impacts of metrics and self-tracking on users. To begin with, both technologies promise agency through mediated self-knowledge, and through that, the capacity for self-improvement with normative values as the ideal. While this may be the case when users choose to purchase and use the device, and experience a sense of community when they share their data with others, it also brings about questions of control, access, consent, and privacy. This is especially so since the information collected by the device is made available to parent companies and even third parties, allowing them to conduct analyses and make predictions based on aggregates. They then pressure individuals to make decisions that align them more to the norm, all while users lack understanding of the algorithms and outputs of these technologies. In other words, the increased focus on self-measurement has resulted in the capitalization of this phenomenon and the creation of standards that aim to normalize and extract data from people’s self-knowledge.

I agree with the authors’ view that self-measurement devices seldom deliver what they promise. Even if they do, users are often disadvantaged as their personal information can be exploited by anyone who has access to them. I feel that this applies not only to wearable technology, but almost all digital devices in today’s world. This includes the smartphones, tablets, and laptops/computers that we use on a daily basis and cannot live without. While the applications and programs facilitate productivity, entertainment, and interpersonal connections, they are at the same time collecting our data and profiting from it. As such, it can be said that users do not actually have autonomy over what they rightfully own.

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Blog Post 9 (Ching Yee)

In this week’s reading, Lambert discusses the relationship between intimacy and cosmopolitanism, which is increasingly mediated by digital media. According to him, the definition of intimacy comes with a lot of ambiguity, and yet is fixed within ethics. Intimacy is inseparable from terms such as “presence”, “love”, “trust”, etc., and should be seen as a dynamic process instead of a static concept. While intimacy is compared to an enclosure, cosmopolitanism is viewed to be an opening. Though the latter expands one’s social circle through promoting encounters with strangers, it can be met with resistance, discrimination, and exploitation. The feeling of being challenged by an outgroup gives rise to antagonism, and eventually problems of recognition and representation. Hence, people more often than not favor intimacy over cosmopolitanism. That said, it is possible to marry the two together by transforming cosmopolitan encounters into more than just short-lived events, facilitating repeated sociality, and promoting cosmopolitan virtues, which leads to the acceptance of non-intimates. This gives way to the potential for digital media to promote cosmopolitan intimacy – technological structures can be redesigned to accommodate the three enablers mentioned above.

I agree with Lambert’s views, especially about society’s resistance to unfamiliar others. In many ways, individuals only care about in-group members, and seldom make an effort to find out more about people who are different from themselves. This is evidenced from the ongoing phenomenon of prejudice happening worldwide. Examples include sexual orientation, gender, racial, disability, age, and many more types of discrimination. Although the annual Pink Dot event in Singapore has garnered more support over the years, there are still many who hold negative views of those in the LGBTQ+ community. A salient instance that sparked public outrage was that of influencer Joanna Theng, who associated the pride flag to Satan. This goes to show that people often make judgmental statements about those they do not yet understand, thus undermining cosmopolitanism.

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Blog Post 8 (Ching Yee)

In this week’s reading, Pelletier uses Žižek’s concept of interpassivity to analyze educational game play. Žižek opposes the first three versions of cyberspace and proposes a fourth version on the basis of his own political convictions. The first version claims that games are pain relievers because they enable students to forget about the fact that they are learning, by making the process fun. According to Žižek, though, it is precisely the oppressive nature of the education system, which acts as an obstacle to game-based learning, that makes playing fun. The second version of cyberspace states that games are sensual temptations, where players are unconcerned with grounding themselves in reality when encountering the multitude of simulations offered during game play. Žižek argues that the main worry is not about reality being lost, but about how the online realm does not attempt to mimic reality. As such, this could potentially distract students from striving to achieve the designated learning outcomes. The third version asserts that games are replicas of non-virtual life in that avatars can be developed over time by the player’s values, desires, and actions. Nevertheless, Žižek is of the opinion that the real-life consequences of learners being more willing to take risks in a virtual world where impacts are lowered, is unclear. Hence, Žižek proposed a fourth version of cyberspace in which games are dramatic stages for reality construction. Here, he puts forward the idea that games fulfill people’s needs to be passive, since they require that players follow the rules to win.

I agree with Žižek in that what makes games entertaining is the juxtaposition of the freedom one gets from the online world with the constraints posed by the real world. Thus, the notion of doing something forbidden appeals to people and is a big reason why games are attractive. That being said, it is also important to take note of the downsides of using games as educational tools. Although the goal of incorporating games is to enhance students’ learning experience, teachers should be careful so as to avoid straying too far from the learning objectives. For example, the game, Minecraft could be used to introduce students to programming and to encourage creative thinking in an immersive environment. However, certain modes run the risk of promoting violence or aggression as players fight to survive. Therefore, it is important to have a mentor who can guide students when using such games for educational purposes.

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Blog Post 7 (Ching Yee)

In this week’s reading, Webb et al. covered the Bourdieu’s three most important theoretical concepts, which are cultural field, cultural capital, and the habitus. Bourdieu defines cultural field as “a series of institutions, rules, rituals, conventions, categories, designations, appointments, and titles which constitute an objective hierarchy, and which produce and authorize certain discourses and activities”. It is comprised by and out of the disputes that arise when people try to delineate what falls under capital and how that capital should be distributed. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital acts as a social connection in an exchange system, and can be applied 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”. Lastly, it is said that Bourdieu refers to the unconscious internalizing of rules, values, and dispositions as the habitus. This means that habitus is acquired from individuals’ cultural history and is stable across contexts. The habitus can be tweaked, thus allowing people to react to cultural rules and contexts in many ways. However, these responses are mainly determined and regulated by one’s culture.

I agree with Webb et al. that the competition for and gaining of capital can often result in greater power disparity and hence, inequality. Not only does an individual’s expectations and motivations play a part in determining how much cultural capital they eventually accrue, the amount of resources they start out with can be said to play an equally, if not more important, role. Children whose parents are celebrities, for example, would find it easier to break into the entertainment industry and gain popularity owing to their parents’ fame. On the other hand, aspiring stars who come from less well-to-do backgrounds would find it significantly more difficult to build social capital, and therefore, would have to work harder to do so. This results in the rich becoming increasingly powerful, while those with little capital fall further behind.

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Blog Post 6 (Ching Yee)

In this week’s reading, Ravenelle defines the sharing economy and points out the problems that it has brought about. 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”. The boom this industry experienced seems to be caused by technological advancements, namely, the pervasiveness of smartphones, secure, cashless payment systems, as well as customer review sites. Despite claiming to “share” products and services, they charge fees as the middleman and lack trust in their employees, choosing to artificially create the concept instead. Although they promote themselves to be a source of work and income, thus providing entrepreneurship opportunities and financial stability to the masses, the author thinks that these businesses make up the gig economy because they only offer options for short-term income. Additionally, the sharing economy often portray themselves as uniting people in a Gemeinschaft, they actually create a Gesellschaft, where both buyers and sellers hide behind the veil of anonymity and minimize interactions with each other. Moreover, requiring that users provide personal information to make them more credible perpetuates discrimination. By casualizing employment in an attempt to avoid responsibilities towards their employees, they put these workers at higher risks of injury and come up with excuses to give them lower wages. Therefore, while the sharing/gig economy may reduce unemployment, they increase underemployment on the other hand.

I feel that Gesellschaft is commonplace in today’s society, and this is especially visible when engaging ride-sharing services. Before such services came into the market, the majority of taxi drivers would interact with their passengers throughout the journey by conversing with them. However, when ride-sharing companies like Grab and Gojek entered the market, an increasing number of people, particularly the younger generation, are switching away from hailing traditional taxis to booking rides through applications. With this change, car journeys are now mostly silent and conversations rarely take place between the driver and passenger. These stark differences demonstrate that the sharing economy could have accelerated the shift to a Gesellschaft.

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Blog Post 5 (Ching Yee)

In this week’s reading, Fuchs critiques Henry Jenkins’ writings on participatory culture and spreadable media. It was said that Jenkins reduces the concept of participation to a singular dimension, culture, and in the process, ignores democracy, stating that people’s involvement in decision-making is what matters. Fuchs disagrees, claiming that “a truly participatory media democracy must also be an ownership democracy”, and concern itself with disparities in class and capitalism, as well as its implications. Additionally, Fuchs asserts that Jenkins erroneously made a connection between fandom in popular culture and political protest. However, it is thought that this was an attempt to rationalise his own love for commodity culture by establishing some semblance of political. Furthermore, Jenkins was seen as idealising participatory culture to be solely progressive and purposely excluding the fact that it may quite often be regressive in nature, especially considering how it can support the growth of radicalisation. Finally, Fuchs is of the opinion that Jenkins overlooked the significance of economic gains. To the former, exploitation should not be legitimised even if the victims enjoy the labor they engage in.

I am on the fence when with respect to the issues of spreadable media and participatory culture discussed above. While I do agree with Fuchs, especially in his push for true democracy. It is especially important for exploitation in every form to be abolished. Besides, power should be shifted away from large corporations and distributed to all media users, such that the vicious cycle of inequality would not be perpetuated. On the other hand, I also concede to Jenkin’s argument that media has the potential to promote greater equality through welcoming user-generated content. Individual content creators, even amateur ones, for example, can make use of social media platforms to publish their views and let their voices be heard. Such channels give them the opportunity to eventually become key opinion leaders as well as make a career out of their passion. Therefore, there is no straightforward answer to the discourse on participatory culture and spreadable media. Instead, it requires a multi-perspective and nuanced approach.

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Blog Post 4 (Ching Yee)

The authors, Horkheimer and Adorno focused on the culture industry and how mass culture under monopoly is identical. While some might argue that the industry is established on consumers’ need for standardised forms, it is in fact the cycle of manipulation and retroactive need that unifies the system more tightly. Although people seek novelty and to disagree, mechanically differentiated products are ultimately all the same. Instead of straying from the norm, society is just conforming to what is accepted. Moreover, the term “culture” in itself already contains the process of identifying, cataloguing, and classifying, which subsumes it under the realm of administration. In this age, anyone who does not go along with what society delineates as tolerable or forbidden is subjected to financial barrenness and ostracised for being eccentric.

This phenomenon of the world transforming into a homogenous place with the same culture everywhere is becoming more visible in daily life. This can be seen from many, if not the majority of people jumping on the bandwagon of what is now defined as mainstream or popular culture. It has infiltrated our lives in many ways, most notably in the form of music, shows, fashion, and even food. These fads suggest the ever-changing landscape of culture and at the same time, highlights the similarities in mindsets that people share across time. There is an inherent pressure for people to be aware of and keep up with such trends because being able to do so is now viewed in a positive light – retaining one’s position in the majority is seen as desirable or “woke”, and hence, part of the in-group. Such are the inevitable outcomes of processes like globalisation and capitalism working hand in hand. Even though such occurrences have made many products more accessible everywhere, it has also eroded the uniqueness that differentiates one culture from the next.

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Blog Post 3 (Ching Yee)

The researchers in this study chose to focus on how contemporary urbanites interact with the infrastructure and places around them through the use of portable information objects. This array of information and communication technologies support an individual’s identity, relationships, and activities through the phenomena of cocooning, camping, and footprinting. In the case of cocooning, people often engage with audio and visual devices to construct a personal media environment in public spaces. These cocoons are meant to kill time (usually during commute) and provide effective yet respectful escapes from one’s immediate surroundings. Camping, on the other hand, involves bringing portable media to specific locations where the individual feels a personal connection to. Unlike cocooning, where commuters are simply passing through, those who include setting up encampment in their schedules see value in residing in a desirable location for a period of time. The final case of footprinting describes the formation of individualised relationships to commercial establishments, more specifically, this manifests mostly in the form of loyalty schemes. This happens through the mediation of various member, reward, stamp, and access cards, which offers a systemic way of recognising a regular customer. This multitude of programmes one signs up for, however, can be increasingly difficult to keep track of as more businesses adopt such a model. In addition, it raises concerns of privacy and depersonalisation. All in all, there is no doubt that people are becoming more reliant on automated systems and technologies to customise their spaces and manage their everyday lives.

This study is very relatable as all three phenomena are commonly observed in Singapore. I, too, have similar portable objects and use them in the ways discussed. While travelling to school, I try to maximise productivity on public transport by using my mobile phone to go through class readings. On the journey home, I create a cocoon to unwind in by listening to music. During the weekends, I sometimes visit cafes or libraries with friends to complete assignments and compile notes. Us camping at the particular location from morning till evening is not a rare occurrence. Lastly, I have frequented food and beverage as well as fashion stores, making me an active participant in the footprinting these places promote.

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Blog Post 2 (Ching Yee)

In this chapter, Spigel is of the opinion that television offers a space where the virtual and material co-exist. It has also become a platform through which media creates uneven development, and yet unifies the economy by producing homogenous products simultaneously. The rapid and widespread adoption of television has inevitably impacted many domains of everyday life, including domestic space, suburban towns, virtual worlds, and mobility. Some believe that TV serves to bring families closer together because it provides a common space and activity, and hence encourages bonding. Others, however, feel that it promotes isolation especially when it is placed in the bedroom and can thus negatively affect intimacy. At the same time, people’s views on television’s role in racial equality/segregation are divided – it is used as both a means of perpetuating exclusion, as well as a means to provide equal access to content for all. Lastly, as the screen becomes more portable with technological advancement, media can now be brought out from the private space of the home to public places, bringing with it control but also disconnection. While the TV is a double-edged sword and has accrued its own share of advocates and critics over the years, it is here to stay as media becomes more ubiquitous in our lives.

Even though the concerns of opponents to television are not unfounded, it cannot be denied that TV brings about a wide range of possibilities to people from all walks of life. An example is the use of virtual reality for the treatment of anxiety disorders. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) allows the therapist to control and customize stimuli according to the patient’s needs. Patients, on the other hand, often find it more acceptable and immersive than in vivo or imaginal exposure. As the television evolves to include more capabilities, its quintessential feature, the screen, plays an important role in presenting opportunities to the various segments of society.

References: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00773/full

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Blog Post 1

In this week’s reading, Couldry and Hepp argue that face-to-face interaction is not the center of today’s social world. Instead, they say, our lives have become so interwoven with media that it brought with it an additional layer of complexity to the social world. This has led to the coining of the term “mediatisation”, which is derived from the mediation of communicative practices that are in turn shaped by institutionalisation and materialisation. The authors are also of the opinion that the social world is intersubjective, that everyday reality is the foundation of the social world, and that the social world is differentiated into various domains. Moreover, media plays a big part in these fundamental theories by offering the ability to communicate across time and space, by intertwining physical existence with mediated experience, and by differentiating yet supporting the different domains that make up the social world. They also claim that the everyday reality of the social world is constructed by institutional facts that people recognise, accept, and reproduce. While we live in a single material world, the specific features of this reality are often contested. Nevertheless, media undoubtedly binds together multiple aspects of the social world, giving it an indispensable role in people’s lives.

I definitely agree with Couldry and Hepp on the fact that people (we, ourselves) jointly construct the social world through institutionalisation, with media being integrated in the entire process. An example would be the use of abbreviations such as “ROFL”, “LMK”, “TL;DR” on social media platforms. As online communities introduce these short forms for convenience, more and more users recognise the common function of efficiency, and start using these terms in their own texts and posts as well. When people perpetuate the use of such online language, they are inventing abbreviations and giving them meaning. By doing so, they are defining the social world through the popularisation of contractions, with online platforms acting as the media.