[Air-L] Internet Researchers?

Jörgen Skågeby jorgen.skageby at jmk.su.se
Mon Jul 19 01:25:17 PDT 2010


Hello Barry and list,

Early on, I found the personal opinions about the iPad in themselves so
interesting that I conducted a study of 'anticipated user experiences'. The
study focuses on online discussions about the iPad after the Apple event,
but before the public release of the material product. The paper is under
review, but the current abstract reads as follows:

Pre-prosumption and the remediation of virtual products

Abstract
How do prosumers experience ICT products prior to actual use? This paper
examines a particular form of concurrent consumption, use and production
(i.e. prosumption) that has emerged with the rise of digital media and
communication. It reports on the results from an online ethnographical study
of the Apple iPad conducted before the public release of the material
product. Consequently, most users had not physically interacted with the
device in question. Nevertheless, the release of the technical
specifications and marketing material generated a massive amount of
produsage related online discussion. As such this paper explores the concept
of pre-prosumption. Pre-prosumption can be compared to a form of predicted
or expected use, relating to products or services that are only accessible
to users as a form of representation (e.g. technical specification, virtual
prototype, design sketch, or even idea), but with an added element of
user-generated design suggestions, conflict coordination and software
development. Remediation ­ the process by which new digital media
technologies reuses features of previous technologies and enter an existing
media ecology ­ is a prevalent theme in pre-produsage and involves a tension
between features that support protracted use and features that provide total
innovation. The paper argues that an analysis of pre-produsage can bestow
designers with insights that relate to overall user experience, user
satisfaction, and prioritization of usability-related problems. More
specifically, pre-produsage analysis can trace the underlying reasons for a
certain problem, intention or concern and connect it to a specific set of
features. Finally, the paper shows how even proprietary products can become
subject to prosumption resulting in artefacts negotiated by production, use
and consumption.


> From: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
> Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:17:37 -0400
> To: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
> Subject: [Air-L] Internet Researchers?
> 
> Mebbe I missed it in the rush of emails, but aside from danah's discussion
> of her fieldwork, does anyone have any EVIDENCE on iPod use?
> 
> I'm seeing lots of personal opinions but the R in this list should be
> real.
> 
> 
>   Barry Wellman
>   _______________________________________________________________________
> 
>    S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
>    Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
>    University of Toronto   Toronto Canada M5S 2J4   twitter:barrywellman
>    http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman             fax:+1-416-978-3963
>    Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>   _______________________________________________________________________
> 
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