constructions

f**king banner

2007-08-22T20:37:00.000+01:00

No, I'm not at all happy with the new banner on the top of my blog. After four years at start.no and home.no.net, I will have to move. Think I'll just resign and use blogspot. I am using Blogger after all. URL: marika75.blogspot.com.

summary of my phd-thesis

2007-08-10T12:45:00.000+01:00

Being in mediated spaces: An enquiry into personal media practices

The main purpose of this thesis has been to analyse mediated practices among young people: what significance do use of personal media have for the individual user? The concept of personal media is understood as denoting tools for interpersonal communication and personal content creation. Although the history of personal media did not commence with digital network technologies, the development since the mid 1990s indicates that new patterns of being in mediated spaces have materialised. The consequences are potentially considerable, and it is therefore vital to understand personal media practices from a user-perspective. Moreover, the recent development affects previous notions of communication media. A crucial ambition has consequently been to conceptualise the notion of personal media and the distinctions between personal communication and mass communication. This study is primarily based on qualitative interviews with 20 users, aged between 15 and 19 years old. Participants all have a multifaceted online presence and, accordingly, a particular knowledge on the area of study. Throughout the research project I also observed their ever-changing presence online.

The thesis opens with a synthesizing discussion, in which I present previous research on personal media; introduce eight specific research questions; consider the methodological approaches pursued; and theoretically deliberate on aspects concerning communication, subjectivity and privacy in networked cultures. The opening discussion is followed by five articles, which comprise the main part of the thesis.

In “Conceptualising personal media”, I explain the main characteristics of personal media. I introduce a two-dimensional model, locating personal media and mass media differently according to a horizontal interaction axis, and a vertical institutional/professional axis.

In “Mediated subjects: how personal media affect performances of selves”, I examine perceptions of self-performances. Mediated communication is characterised by other qualities than offline communication, and users regularly disclose private information. As a consequence boundaries between what is considered public and private are changing, yet the constructed mediated self cannot be described as unfiltered.

The main purpose of “Becoming more like friends: a qualitative study of personal media and social life”, is to examine the qualities of mediated interaction and the integration of mediated and immediate social spheres. Mediated communication differs from face-to-face communication, not by being less meaningful, but by enabling other forms of disclosing practices. I argue that the ability to integrate different social spaces has become a characteristic element of social competence in network societies.

“’I made this!’ Being through creative digital practices” was written in order to analyse the creative aspects of being in mediated spaces. Sharing fragments of everyday stories appears to be important for media practices to be personally and socially meaningful. I argue that perceptions of creative strategies are connected to originality and the ability to create aesthetically pleasing expressions. Creative practices are nonetheless ordinary and essential parts of life, and being creative in mediated spaces is a way of being social and receiving recognition from peers.

In the final article “Converging forms of communication? Interpersonal and mass mediated expressions in digital environments”, I examine the grey-areas, which cannot be described as purely interpersonally mediated or mass mediated. The concept of communication is discussed by examining aspects of interaction, participation and social integration. These aspects are applied as variables in an analysis of conversations in a personal weblog, Underskog and a reader-discussion in the online edition of the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet.

mountains

2007-08-01T10:13:00.001+01:00

Idunn
Originally uploaded by Marika.

I'm off to Telemark together with Idunn, Janne and Mette. Four women and a simple cottage for a few days. Very low-tech, I'm looking forward to it a lot. Idunn and I had a couple of wonderful days there in August 2005. Peace and serenity, here I come!

Oh, had an interesting experience yesterday. After Simpsons (which was fun), we ended up on the rock-pub Maiden. Featuring "Karaoke from Hell". Not the average karaoke-bar and not the average karaoke-concept. Instead, old metal classics to choose from, a live band to sing with. Lights and action. Uh, I didn't sing, I have never seen such dedicated karaoke-performers.

being in mediated spaces

2007-07-31T13:15:00.000+01:00

My now submitted PhD-thesis is entitled Being in mediated spaces: An enquiry into personal media practices. Yet, curb your enthusiasm, no need to get all excited yet. After all, I now have to wait for almost six months before I know whether the thesis-committee will even approve my work. I feel kind of empty and anxious since I can no longer re-write, re-work and improve my thesis.

I loved being a PhD-student.

gossip

2007-07-16T19:27:00.001+01:00

One of my favourite fun-girls is clearly also a smart girl. Look, Cameron D reads books about globalisation on the beach: Thomas L. Friedman's The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Globalised World in the 21st Century (link to nytimes review) from 2005.

Learning to know important things such as this of course explains my daily visits to gossip site Popsugar.

a messy post starting with Lessig on Keane and ending with me

2007-07-11T14:08:00.000+01:00

Lawrence Lessig has written an inordinately clever review of Andrew Keen's The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture. I'm quite sure Keen has a few valid points, but Lessig's comments convince me more than Clay Shirky's semi-defence of Keen's main ideas.

A side-point: I find it particularly interesting to read the section entitled "The Least Important (Lessig) Fallacy", where Lessig comments on Keen's interpretations of his ideas. I do wonder how many scholars I misinterpret throughout my thesis? You know, communication and dialogues are really just continuous misinterpretations :)

Btw, I was quoted in Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet, apparently having said: "We are in the midst of a gigantic psychological experiment, which for ever will change the traditional distinction between public and private. As if I said that! Well of course, boundaries between private and public are being adjusted, partially because of individual online practices, but, "gigantic psychological experiment". Oh well, I'm learning to live with my tabloid self.

hanging out

2007-06-24T11:56:00.000+01:00

danah boyd has often argued that children and youth in the US go online to socialise because they are no longer allowed to walk the streets and meet friends in public spaces. Here is an article from the Daily Mail, claiming the same is true in UK: How children lost the right to roam in four generations.

The article addresses the situation for children. Children and youth in Norway are still allowed to get around by themselves, meeting friends and hanging out. Embarassingly, I did feel slightly uncomfortable leaving my 14-year old niese and her bestfriend alone at Friday's teen-favourite happening in Oslo, a three hour long live hit-show at Rådhusplassen. Silly me, they are 14! And, the concert-arena was heavily supervised by the police and guards.

mediate/immediate

2007-06-20T09:05:00.000+01:00

Lately, I have sometimes been using "immediate interaction" to describe face-to-face interaction, though I'm not at all sure whether it is an appropriate term. According to the Wordnet Database, immediate can be defined as "having no intervening medium", which is of course how I think of it as opposed to mediated interaction. Clearly, I am aware that communication is never immediate, but, in face-to-face situations, always mediated through the body, language, speech, non-verbal signs. I do like the online/offline distinction, but this is not always appropriate as I also discuss communication mediated through phones and even postal letters.

I can't believe I barely have six weeks left to finish my thesis. I will make it, but it feels weird. The last three years have been wonderful.

Navy Numa

2007-06-17T16:10:00.000+01:00

What can I say? Some Numa Numa versions are more fun than others. I especially love the guys who appear at about 1.23/4.11. I'm actually embarrassingly addicted to that section. Hot moves!

Superstreng

2007-05-31T11:55:00.000+01:00

I still find it utterly uncomfortable to talk on radio. But you know, I guess the practice is valuable. Or rather, I don't find it very uncomfortable to talk, but to listen to myself afterwards. A couple of weeks ago I visited Eirik Newth's "Superstreng"-show, and we were of course talking about social networking services, especially Facebook. Kind of common sense stuff. Here's the podcast. It's in Norwegian of course.

Facebook is highly profiled as vicious by the mass media these days. They apparently exploit all your personal information and intend to use your private photos in commercial campaigns. Or something. If you know Norwegian, you might want to read Ove Skåra's answers to readers of the Norwegian tabloid VG. Skåra represents the Norwegian Data Inspectorate.

I don't have the time to comment. Obviously, I have read Facebook's terms of service. My short answer is that mediated practices are experienced as so meaningful that they outweigh the perceived threats to privacy.

narrated memories

2007-05-29T13:51:00.001+01:00

It's hardly too late yet to search for books and anthologies I still need to read, or at least browse, in order to be able to finish my thesis? Don't think so. Besides, some are really short, like Annette Kuhn's Family History. Acts of Memory and Imagination.

I am of course already familiar with relevant literature. Literature, which indicates that the relatively long history of documenting experiences, interactions and thoughts through journals, photographs and letters imply that subjects appear to embrace possibilities to create traces of life and social relationships. Personal media, such as mobile phones, instant messenger and social network sites, are similarly useful machines, facilitating interaction and the active creation of narrated memories.

Some of these are essentially ephemeral, such as telephone conversations, usually not recorded for the future. Others are, at least claimed to be, for better or worse, digital traces for eternity. The increasing potentials to document all aspects of life through textual, visual and audible traces, and additionally to archive these traces in private, semi-public and public digital spaces, can clearly be seen to have consequences for our individual sense of self, both present and past. It seems so significant that I easily forget that most people in the world do not have very extensive online presences.

networks

2007-05-21T09:36:00.000+01:00

This week I aim to finish a part of my thesis concerning subjectivity in network societies, I need to have a first draft ready for a newspaper comment about ephemeral connections (working-title, who knows where I'll end up), and I need to start thinking about my presentation for a conference next week, working title "social competence in network societies". No wonder I kept waking up tonight, frantically thinking about networks.

What is a paradox?

2007-05-14T13:29:00.000+01:00

I'm sometimes puzzled by how I apply certain concepts and then realise I might be using them all wrong. For instance how I use "paradox" in a work-in-progress (which will be part of a mighty interesting Norwegian anthology to be published in the fall):

The opportunity to design personal performances through edited pieces of textual, visual and sonic elements denotes that the individual has control with her or his own presentation, but only to some degree. As such online personal practices are characterised by a control-paradox: on the one hand individuals can construct filtered yet accurate and beneficial self-presentations (both socially and professionally); and on the other hand, once published, users have little control over content and little chance of preventing abuse such as republishing without consent.

Considering actual definitions of "paradox" I am not at all sure this is the concept I should be using.

Paradox: an argument which seems to justify a self-contradictory conclusion by using valid deductions from acceptable premises.

Other definitions.

By the way, the actual article concerns digital dilemmas: briefly summarised:

Users of social network services experience that having a publicly available online presence is meaningful. However, sharing texts, photos, videos, communicative acts and visualisations of social networks with known and unknown others may contest issues of privacy. Users consequently face a dilemma with two unfavourable options: protecting one’s privacy by not using social network services, despite potentially undesirable personal and social consequences. Or, alternatively, choosing to have an online presence and hence put one’s privacy at risk.

Personlige medier. Livet mellom skjermene

2007-05-04T08:20:00.001+01:00

Our book about personal media
Originally uploaded by Marika.

Lin, Terje and I have edited an anthology about the social and societal significance of personal media. Lin and I also featuring as cover-girls, very appropriate considering the theme of the book. It is, as you can see, a Norwegian anthology. Still interested?

Table of contents:
Jo Helle-Valle: Kontekstualiserte medier, kontekstualiserte mennesker - et annet blikk på mediebruk

Beathe Due: Viktige overraskelser. Ideer om uforutsigbar teknologibruk

Kristin Ørjasæter: Det skriftlige møtet. Om privatbrevet som en potensiell offentlig samtale

Lin Prøitz: "Alle har sitt familietre - og her er mitt:" Å skrive sin egen historie, en studie av familiebildepraksis via familiealbum til mms

Knut Ove Eliassen og Yngve Sandhei Jacobsen: Hvor var media før Samuel Morse?

Susanne Nordbakke, Randi Hjorthol, Mona Hovland Jakobsen og Rich Ling: Det mobile hverdagsliv. Kommunikasjon og koordinering i moderne barnefamilier

David Brake: Personlige bloggere og dere publikum: Hvem tror bloggerne at de snakker med?

Anders Fagerjord: Å skape fra en mal: preskripter i personlige medier

Gunnar Sæbø: Fleksible medier og kontrollert kommunikasjon. Om unges bruk og forståelse av peer-to-peer (p2p)-teknologi

Rich Ling: SMS og hvordan eldre blir utestengt

Marika Lüders: Private subjekter i digitale miljøer: iscenesettelse i endring?

Terje Rasmussen: Nettverksintegrasjon og personlige medier

happily ever after

2007-04-30T12:25:00.000+01:00

150 000 Norwegians (a crude estimate) are browsing Facebook friends-lists, groups and networks, looking for people they know and people they once knew. I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to people I used to know 10 or 20 years ago but no longer do, they kind of scare me. Who are they now? Do they even recognize me? Do they care? I therefore find the popularity of Facebook in Norway these days challenging and exciting. How do I relate to people I no longer know? I accept friends requests from friends of the past, and I'm happy when people add me (oh, she remembers me). I've been searching for old friends, but I don't know whether I'll add them unless they add me first. Facebook challenges my conception of my social life as constantly evolving; loosing some friends and meeting others. Are we all supposed to be friends for ever after in the future?

Employer Branding strategies

2007-04-24T12:10:00.000+01:00

I just talked to a guy from Universum Communication, an employer branding company offering help for companies who are searching for attractive employees. I declined to give a talk on a seminar in May about new approaches for recruiting people. I'm learning to say no to extra work assignments, that's good. But we had a brief and interesting conversation: there's very little unemployment in Norway, and the competition for the brightest people is tough. Hence, try advertising in Facebook? or any social network service, even MySpace? You have LinkedIn of course, but the point is that having a comprehensive online presence does not at all imply less chances of a future career. Quite the contrary.

Given the beneficial conditions for well-qualified people in Norway, I should have pretty good chances of finding interesting work after my PhD?

digital annoyance

2007-04-10T10:36:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I dropped my camera while photographing. It, surprise, did not survive the fall. I should get it repaired of course. But you know the problem: fixing digital cameras seem to cost more than buying a new one. I really hate that about digital stuff. Argh. Maybe I should buy an approachable and user-friendly SLR-camera? And still get my other camera repaired?

edit: The service-guy at foto & video looked at me as if I were from the moon when I asked whether my camera could be repaired. At least I tried to do the right thing. I bought a Nikon D40x. Now I just have to learn how to use it.

security through obscurity

2007-03-29T08:54:00.000+01:00

In computer security engineering (of which I know nothing at all), "security through obscurity" is a principle where secrecy is used to ensure security. The idea is, as far as I can understand, not to tell anyone about how your system works. Consequently flaws in the system are not known to others than the owners and designers and attackers are unlikely to find them (for more, see AllExperts. It is a controversial principle, but my interest stems from the use of the principle to explain why users voluntarily expose private information without worrying about the hazards these performances pose to their privacy. danah boyd for example writes the following in "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites"

Most people believe that security through obscurity will serve as a functional barrier online. For the most part, this is a reasonable assumption. Unless someone is of particular note or interest, why would anyone search for them?

Keeping the original meaning of the principle in mind, is this argument valid only for users who are determined to keep their performances a secret? I mean, it can hardly be applied to explain the practices of users who do little to hide their presence? Moreover, it is hardly the case that users themselves actually think that security through obscurity functions as a barrier securing their privacy. My impression is rather that users perceive the sheer magnitude of expressions online to be a protection towards their own privacy. Which is how David seems to apply the term in his contribution to the forthcoming anthology Personlige medier. Livet mellom skjermene (in English, Personal media. Life between screens): "For the most part those interviewed rely on ‘security through obscurity’ (the sheer number of weblogs and web pages in general) to ensure what they write is not read by anyone save the ‘innocuous’ passing stranger." (David's contribution is translated from English and concerns how bloggers relate to their readers).

computers and time

2007-03-22T09:53:00.000+01:00

So I have this silly personal hypothesis. Computers affect the experience of time. It is of course related to the fact that time appears to pass more quickly when you're having fun (such as my experience of time at the magnificent Dolly Parton concert a week ago - oh, it was wonderful). The difference is I'm not necessarily having fun when I work with computers - yet time passes so quickly.

I have no other explanation for the fact that the years 2001-2007 ("my adult working life") feels like a much shorter period than 1995-2001 (student-years, when I generally didn't spend the whole day in front of a computer). It could of course be related to the fact that I'm getting older. I've also considered whether time actually passes more quickly than before.

But I like boring-time. Maybe I need to log off.

substitute or supplement

2007-03-08T14:11:00.000+01:00

Are you tired of discussions of whether new technologies substitute or supplement old technologies? I think Eric A. Havelock's moves beyond such a discussion in his beautiful book The Muse Learns to Write. He discusses how literacy, as it emerged with the Greek writing system, created the character of modern consciousness. Yet, it was not so that writing merely replaced or supplemented oral storytelling. Neither did the introduction of the radio represent a reversion to past oral times. No, these technological developments represent marriage and remarriage between the spoken word and the written. I've only reached page 33, looking forward to the rest. Havelock was 83 when he wrote the book.

(...) the epics as we know them are the result of some interlock between the oral and the literate; or to vary the metaphor, the acoustic flow of language contrived by echo to hold the attention of the ear has been reshuffled into visual patterns created by the thoughtful attention of the eye (page 13).

Wow, the art of writing .

IM vs. face-to-face interviews

2007-02-19T14:55:00.000+01:00

Interestingly, when reading my thesis-articles, quotes from face-to-face interviews appear just as eloquent as quotes from instant messenger-interviews. Yet talking (putting experiences into narratives on the go), is rarely a very smooth process, and I have edited quotes from face-to-face interviews to make them more readable (I'm not doing a conversation analysis in any case). I consequently disguise a rather interesting and important methodological aspect of instant messenger versus face-to-face interviews.

Consider the following excerpt from a face-to-face interview with 17-year old Morten:

"I have therefore added many people to my Live Journal friends-list just so that I can read what they write by watching my friends updates without them having the possibility to. Maybe they think they are on my friends-list and get to read all of my entries, but they really don’t get access to read my closed entries, because they are not in the right group like, you know."

I was rather intrigued when I realised how much I have actually edited the above quote, but I guess (hope) the meaning is intact:

"I’ve added many people to my Live Journal friends-list to be able to keep track of their updates. Maybe they think they get to read all of my closed entries, but they can’t because they are not in the right friends-group."

My MSN-interviews (only five) last longer in time, but yield about 1/3 of the words if compared to face-to-face interviews. The answers are more concise with a lot less filling-words. Consequently they do not contain a lot less in "content".

concerts

2007-02-19T14:33:00.001+01:00

Wolfmother
Originally uploaded by dreadfuldan.

Wonderful Nina bought tickets to yesterday's Wolfmother concert at fabulous Sentrum Scene. The ambient was electric last night, and I can easily understand why they received three Arias back in October.

Last weekend, Nina, Jo and I experienced Pleasure's cool 80's disco-music at John Dee (though the new album doesn't quite match the last album from 2003).

I'm now so looking forward to the 15th of March: Dolly Parton live in Oslo!

My taste in music is so post-modernist eclectic, ha, ha :-D

phone calls

2007-02-05T10:08:00.000+01:00

A journalist from Kanal 24 just called me, hoping that I could verify her hypothesis that we spend less time on the phone because we spend more time communicating through other means (texting, IM). I couldn't give her a definitive answer. There are just too many variables at play here. My informants often claim that they would prefer to call their friends if money was no issue. But they are young, and there's no doubt young people spend more time socializing than older users. If you're a busy grown-up professional with family obligations, there's hardly too much time chatting on the phone? Clearly texting and IM are pretty flexible (and hence valuable) communicating-tools for users with little time to spare. Actually I doubt that we are spending less time on the phone (statistics are welcome, Norsk Mediebarometer does not say anything about time spent on the phone). When 92% of Norwegians (2005) have their own cell-phone, it seems unlikely that we spend less time on the phone.

I'm not particularly fond of talking on the phone myself, though I spend a lot of time talking to Lasse (who now works in Hamar during the week). We have time to talk, there's a geographical distance between us, and the telephone supports a level of intimacy consonant with the bond we share.

No wonder I wasn't able to answer her question.

mystery

2007-01-26T09:51:00.000+01:00

How is it that whenever, and I mean every single time, I have to shorten an article I've written (argh, did they mean max. 8000 words including notes and references!), the result is always an improved article? I've just cut nearly 2000 words in one of my articles, and it reads so much better now. I guess this means I should definitely work to keep number of words in my final dissertation down to a minimum, right?

1986

2007-01-16T16:13:00.000+01:00

During my three months in Australia, I became fond of the TV-show "What a Year" (I'm embarrassed to admit this, as it's also a quite lame show). It's because I'm rather nostalgic, to the point where past times can make me relatively emotional. NRK (the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) currently runs a series called "Back to the 80s" feeding my nostalgia. Yesterday I was was taken back to 1986: the Challenger-explosion, Thatcher visits Norway and is met by a huge demonstration, Sandra Kim wins the Eurovision Song Contest, the Swedish prime minister Oluf Palme is shot and killed. And I remember it all so clearly. I was 11 years old and increasingly paying attention to mass mediated stories of the world. To me 1986 or any other year I have lived almost has a thing-like quality.

And today I read the following in Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy: "Before writing was deeply interiorized by print, people did not feel themselves situated every moment of their lives in abstract computed time of any sort" (...) Persons whose world view has been formed by high literacy need to remind themselves that in functionally oral cultures the past is not felt as an itemized terrain, peppered with verifiable and disputed "facts" or bits of information."