Paper short abstract:

One inheritance of digital technologies is that all digital communication is hybrid. Such communication cannot be imagined as a “text” or “lore” because these four letter words approach process as if it were an object and obscure the dynamic and changing nature of digital communication practices.

Paper long abstract:

In 1975, thirty-two computer hobbyists met in a garage in what would become California's Silicon Valley. This "HomeBrew Computer Club" imagined a future utopia of individually owned computers that would grant everyone access to the technologies that were, at that time, so expensive and technical only institutions could afford them. Club member Bill Gates developed "software" while other members, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, developed the "personal computer". In 1977, the U.S. military successfully sent "packets" of on-and-off power fluctuations between computers. Their project was born of a different vision. They wanted a distributed communication system that could survive the imagined nuclear battlefields of the Cold War. The computer code they used, TCP/IP, is still the basis of all digital networks today. Born of the unlikely coupling of these two very different ideologies, the handheld mobile devices that keep us continually networked together are the inheritance of both a vision of individual freedom and a vision of bomb-proof institutional power. With this dual ideology, participatory media become locations for the emergence of diverse, hybrid, and even conflicting aggregate volitions. Because of this diversity, the digital expression of such volitions cannot be imagined in static terms as "texts" or "lore" because these four letter words approach process as if it were an object and obscure the fundamentally diverse and potentially conflicted nature of these emergent communication processes.

Paper short abstract:

Digital technologies have transformed music distribution and consumption, and streaming services such as Spotify are becoming increasingly popular. How is the dual heritage of individual freedom and commercial–institutional power played out in Spotify’s construction of users and audiences?

Paper long abstract:

Digital technologies are said to have transformed practices of music consumption, making music 'intangible' and 'ubiquitous' (e.g. Kassabian 2001; Styvén 2007). New forms of digital distribution have been launched as a response to non-authorized file-sharing - most notably commercial streaming services, such as Swedish Spotify, that promise 'free listening' to 'the right music' for 'everyone'. As people increasingly turn to this type of platforms, there is a need to understand the realities they promote and materialize. Much like Internet technologies in general, streaming media services build simultaneously on the vision of free and unlimited access ('everywhere, all the time') and on regulation through extensive curatorial practices and the collection of user data - a form of surveillance that have a profound impact on what is actually made available and to whom (e.g. Cheney-Lippold 2011).

The paper will focus on how this dual heritage of individual freedom and commercial-institutional power is played out in Spotify's construction of users and audiences. Drawing on a 'technographic approach' (Bucher 2012), I will discuss how Spotify, through their client, enable particular user practices and subjectivities. By investigating how normative assumptions are reproduced in the systematization and presentation of music collections, how personalized recommendations - either algorithmic or editorial - are constitutive of particular user positions (e.g. with respect to age, gender, location), and how users negotiate these positionings, the paper provides an understanding of how digital music platforms may be infused with norms, values, and power struggles.

Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic research at the Facebook data centre in Luleå, Northern Sweden, the paper asks how “the cloud” is culturally imagined and socially negotiated.

Paper long abstract:

In the metaphoric imagery commonly used to describe the Internet, the world wide web has been pictured as being immaterial and fluid, like an ocean to be navigated. The complex infrastructures and heavy industry securing the functionality of web services backstage are seldomly part of popular imagination and remain part of an invisible deeper ecology.

My presentation is based on empirical research conducted in a place where the materiality and immateriality of the Internet meet - the northern Swedish town of Luleå where Facebook opened its first and largest European data center in 2013. Ever since, the data center has become key to this city's self-image and a generator of collective and individual future visions. My presentation shows how visions of the cloud as an open free floating network and a secure industrial site come together and are integrated into local identity construction processes.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the role, position and responsibility of the researcher in a context where the digital is becoming a natural part of everyday life.

Paper long abstract:

The dualism of the Internet, inherited from on one hand an ideology of individual freedom, and on the other hand from efforts for the consolidation of institutional power, is reiterated in contemporary digital practices and discourses. The Internet is seen as a source of hopes and expectations for an increased democratization and empowerment that could benefit not least minority and marginalized groups. But it is also an arena where power structures, institutional and non-institutional, meet and develop.

In this context, indigenous initiatives multiply, for instance for the revitalization of endangered languages, in activism and for knowledge production. Consequently, the recent increased use of digital practices implies that new experts and authorities emerge, challenging and bypassing institutional structures.

As an effect of the re-shaping of the settings for knowledge production in (and by) digital practices, academic research is also to be re-defined and problematized. Scholarly expertise, academic authority and the role of the traditional producer of knowledge are challenged by the emergence of new experts and new forms of authority online.

Based on knowledge and experience acquired from indigenous methodologies, this paper discusses the role, position and responsibility of the researcher in a context where the digital is becoming a natural part of everyday life.

Paper short abstract:

The twofold nature of internet are manifest in every day practices, here exemplified through a synthesis of four cases regarding negotiating of authority in churches. Religious authority is undermined through interent, but at the same time new rises – for example information officers, webmasters.

Paper long abstract:

The "true" nature of internet is contested in similar ways as the nature of Christ. Is He truly divine, or is He divine and human? At the Council of Chalcedon 451 the nature of Christ was debated, and the so-called dyophysite position (emphasizing the double nature of Christ) "won". Early internet pundits hailed the liberating nature of internet. Today such position is questioned, pointing at the double nature of internet, originating from the cold war military industry and 1960s counterculture.

The twofold nature of internet shines through also in every day practices, which here will be dealt through a synthesis of four case studies regarding the negotiating of authority within churches. 1) A live streamed American televangelist scrutinized on Twitter by an Swedish online audience, 2) The twitter account of the (fake) Archbishop of Sweden, 3) virtual churches in Second Life, and 4) the use of internet within a technology skeptical Swedish Christian denomination.

In Sweden churches and their representatives regard the use of social media as a means to reach people. Paradoxically the anti-hierarchical nature of internet undermines established structures and new voices are heard.

In these cases, it is noticeable how new groups of actors have an interest in how the Church should relate to digital media, and also how they use digital media to affect how the Church is run. Through being skilled within technology and information, rather than theology, for example information officers, computer aficionados and webmasters rise up in prominence within, and undermine, established structures.

Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the digital change that Moroccan residents of Istanbul experienced due to the ubiquitous use of mobile devices. The aim of this ethnographic study is to explore how such devices facilitate the building of networks and the fostering of mutual support.

Paper long abstract:

Following the free trade agreement between Morocco and Turkey in 2006, increasing numbers of Moroccan nationals traveled to the Turkish metropolis Istanbul. This paper addresses the digital change that Moroccan residents of Istanbul experienced due to the ubiquitous use of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablet PCs, in their everyday lives. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviewing, the ethnographic study examines digital practices in depth. The main aim of this paper is to explore how mobile devices facilitate the building of networks and the fostering of mutual support. By analyzing digital culture on expat websites, social networking sites, and travel blogs, the paper describes how the intertwining of the physical world and digital spaces reshaped the everyday of Moroccan residents of Istanbul. For numerous Moroccans residing in the mega city mobile devices play a central role in keeping in touch with their families back in Morocco, arranging leisure activities, and searching for local jobs. By and large, the use of mobile devices increases their access to information and individual freedom. However, the case study also brings the institutional power of the Turkish state and its willingness to block web content to light. Finally, the investigation into the use of mobile devices raises a number of ethical concerns. Reflecting on the negotiation of informed consent in the digital and the anonymization of digital information in public presentations, the paper also discusses avenues for good practice in digital research.

Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at how the digital legend of the “Slender Man” influences offline behaviors and imitators. These ostensive behaviors are frequently circulated back into the legend cycle via social networks and demonstrate a mutually constitutive relationship between lived legends and digital media.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at how the digital legend of the "Slender Man" influences offline behaviors and imitators—many of which are digitally documented, uploaded, and then circulated back into the legend cycle via social networks. By documenting a variety of ostensive practices inspired by the Slender Man legend (including alternate reality games, practical jokes, Halloween costumes, graffiti, and photobombs), this paper seeks to further scholarly understanding of the mutually constitutive relationship of lived folklore and digital media.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will compare the vernacular spatial practices of “geocaching” to those of the augmented reality game Ingress, with particular attention to how Niantic Labs, a Google subsidiary and the makers of Ingress, structures and defines spatialized notions of heritage for its players.

Paper long abstract:

Folklorists and ethnologists have increasingly begun to take notice of the ways in which digital technologies are playing a central role in the creation of contemporary vernacular understandings of space and place (for example, McNeil 2007; 2012; Buccitelli 2013). Yet, like the digital spaces in which much of contemporary folklore is being performed, the possibilities and constraints of the different technological platforms through which these folk geographies are taking shape have not been fully explored. This paper will begin this exploration by comparing the spatializing practices of "geocaching" to those involved in the augmented reality game Ingress. In particular, the paper will focus on the ways in which each community of participants establishes important geographic sites in play, with particular attention to how Niantic Labs, a Google subsidiary and the makers of Ingress, structures and defines spatialized notions of cultural heritage for its players.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores an evolving definition of ritual, based on the significance and pervasiveness of mobile telephone use in our everyday lives.

Paper long abstract:

We witness these scenes increasingly in everyday life: A person is walking past other pedestrians on a moderately crowded street. He or she is bent over the screen of a mobile phone. Occasionally this person glances up to avoid running into another person, but for the most part, he or she is focused on a small, handheld screen. Similarly, all of us have seen a group of people at a restaurant who are waiting for their food to appear. Not one of them is engaged in face-to-face communication. Instead, each person is staring intently at a mobile phone.

Wherever we may be and whatever we are doing, chances are we will either be using a mobile phone or will be witnessing someone near us who is speaking, texting, photographing something, making a video, or turning the phone inward to compose a selfie.

This paper explores an evolving definition of ritual that is based on the pervasiveness of mobile telephones in our daily lives. Within this exploration, a few concepts emerge: The physical presence of the mobile phone is so pervasive that the object itself has become a totem that plays an important part in courtship, in the evaluation of social status, and in engagement with one's physical and cultural environment. Further, the increased reliance of the mobile phone has allowed for the emergence of gestures, greetings, and expressions that reflect the mobile-phone's ubiquitous presence as well as its apparent "disconnect" with real time and actual place.