[Air-L] physical/digital worlds

[Charles Ess]

Hi Andrea and colleagues,
Two sorts of quick suggestions -

1. In the direction of the history of the broader conceptualizations of the
relationships/interactions you describe:
A) partly by way of invoking both Barry Wellman's taxonomy of "the three
ages of Internet Studies" and Heidi Campbell's similar taxonomy of three
waves of research on religion online (both in Consalvo and Ess, The Handbook
of Internet Studies, Blackwell, 2011), I developed an overview chapter on
the history of the virtual/online //
actual-real-material-"meatspace"/offline distinctions-relationships for our
2011 anthology: 
Self, Community, and Ethics in Digital Mediatized Worlds.  In C. Ess and M.
Thorseth, eds., Trust and Virtual Worlds: Contemporary Perspectives, 3-30. 
Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011.
B) For a variety of reasons, AoIRists will likely want to also be aware
generally of the now publicized results of the Onlife Initiative, a European
Commission "Digital Futures" project -
<https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/onlife-initiative>.
Broadly, the project sought to move us conceptually further down the road
regarding the basic assumptions that have undergirded most of our thinking,
research, and policy-making in conjunction with, e.g., "the information
society" over past several decades.  As the phrase "onlife" is meant to
suggest, the once hard (with the usual caveats) distinctions asserted
between "the online" and "offline life" have been (largely) shifted towards
strong interrelationality (a point that is now made in many, many ways, of
course, but is also one of the characterizations of the third Age / Wave in
Campbell and Wellman's taxonomies).
In addition to what the Onlife Manifesto articulates in terms of developing
new conceptual approaches towards what is characterized as a hyperconnected
era, AoIRists may find some of the background papers that contributed to the
development of the manifesto helpful as well:
<https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/onlife-web-output>

2.  In terms of more specific analyses, I find especially helpful
A) Lomborg, Stine. Negotiating Privacy Through Phatic Communication: A Case
Study of the Blogging Self. Philosophy and Technology 25 (2012):415­434. DOI
10.1007/s13347-011-0018-7.
Stine draws on Simmel's understanding of the sociable self - i.e., as first
used to theorize and describe "offline" sociabilities - to analyze
interactions and negotiations online between a prominent blogger and her
readers/respondents.  This analysis I found to be particularly useful in a
number of ways, beginning with the details Stine careful documents of the
negotiations between those engaged with the blog, as these negotiations
involve perspective-taking and phatic communication that work to both
preserve individual privacy while simultaneously constructing and
maintaining the shared personal space (in Danish and other Germanic
language, the _intimsfære_ - the "intimate sphere" of close(r/est)
relationships) online.  These details, among other things, show how such
online processes are extremely similar to their offline counterparts -
again, challenging especially 1990s' tendencies towards hard dualisms
between the online and the offline.
More broadly - though this may take you beyond your primary focus - Stine's
work thereby provides an empirically-grounded analysis that fits with both
other similar work in Internet Studies as well as in contemporary philosophy
on identity and, most basically, conceptions/assumptions regarding selfhood
- hence the article's inclusion in this special issue of the journal
Philosophy and Technology, as dedicated to these matters.
For the introduction:
³At the Intersections Between Internet Studies and Philosophy: ³Who Am I
Online?² (Introduction to special issue), Philosophy & Technology: Volume
25, Issue 3: (September, 2012): 275-284. DOI 10.1007/s13347-012-0085-4.

(In these directions - of course, "the networked self" from Wellman and
Haythornthwaite has worked prominently over the past decade, e.g., most
recently in Julie Cohen's 2012 _Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code,
and the Play of Everyday Practice_. New Haven: Yale University Press.
<http://www.juliecohen.com/page5.php>.  At the same time, however, still
more strongly relational notions of selfhood have been emerging in
neurobiology (e.g., enactivism, the embodied mind, and other umbrella terms)
and ethics (beginning with ecological ethics and feminist ethics / ethics of
care - now with feminist concepts of "relational autonomy" and parallel
notions of distributed epistemic and ethical responsibility).  Such strongly
relational emphases, most broadly, appear to have been characteristic of
notions of selfhood in the pre-modern "West" and still typically function
strongly in societies shaped by Confucian and Buddhist traditions, for
example.  
What's of interest here regarding ethics is how such relational selves draw
on virtue ethics: hence the importance of Shannon Vallor's work on virtue
ethics vis-a-vis social networking - most recently, Social Networking and
Ethics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/ethics-social-networking
/>. 
As well, the relational emphases in several Confucian and Buddhist societies
appear to be shift towards more individual emphases, e.g.,
Hansen, Mette Halskov and Rune Svarverud (eds.). 2010. The Rise of the
Individual in Modern Chinese Society, Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian
Studies.)

For my part, I find the "flow" you refer to helpfully analyzed especially
from phenomenologically-informed frameworks (where such flow experiences are
initially described in offline contexts) as well as, classically, in
Csíkszentmihályi et al.  I know there's some work along these lines in Game
Studies, for example, and, when I get a few more minutes, can cobble
together a list of those references. In the meantime, someone(s) else on
this list may have such a bibliography ready to hand?

In any event, hope some of this is of some use - and hope to hear more about
your work at AoIR in Denver!

Best,
- charles
Associate Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication

Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/>

University of Oslo 
P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
NO-0317 
Oslo Norway
email: charles.ess at media.uio.no




On 10.02.13 00:54, "Baker, Andrea" <bakera at ohio.edu> wrote:

> Hi, everyone,
> 
> Thanks so much for all your help, from those of you commenting both here in
> the list and off of it.
> 
> Yes, Barry, it was Nathan Jurgenson's work that first inspired me to carry on
> with my current project, sorry I didn't mention knowing about it.  I also
> consulted with him initially, well before posting my inquiry.   Nathan and PJ
> Rey are running their third Theorizing the Web conference, this year in NYC.
> 
> Of course, much work has dealt with the issue some, including mine on
> relationships, identities and communities, and thanks for your own important
> list of contributions, your references.  Thankfully there is now such a wealth
> of writing and research available.  However, some of us think we still have a
> way to go in, to use your words, "flesh"-ing out dimensions of the processes.
> There's really still much more to say about it at this time, imo.  Most these
> days seem to not only accept that online/mobile/cmc interaction is real but
> that it is less discrete from other activities than many of us early internet
> researchers and private citizens had originally conceived, and experienced
> back then.
> 
> Anyone else who has specific references, please feel free to continue sending
> them to me and/or posting them.
> 
> Here are my original questions previously posted to the aoirlist.  I'm hoping
> the formatting is better this time:
> "For a piece I'm preparing on interaction back and forth between online and
> offline or from digital to physical worlds and back, I'm looking for
> references about how that works for people, especially those who are members
> of online communities.
> 
> More than particular data to show this communication in process, although that
> is good too, I want to conceptualize themovement, the "flow" from one realm to
> another, to describe what is happening.  Also, how does the online
> communication, including that through mobile phones, affect the offline
> interaction, and how do the offline encounters affect what goes on inside the
> online communities and in other social media containing some of the same
> people interacting offline. This project is part of my music fan research on
> fan communities, identities, and relationships.
> I'm already aware of the articles in the first issue of Mobile Media and
> Communication (January, 2013), and of Lauren Sessions-Goulet's excellent paper
> of a few years back on offline meetings and online communities, and have a few
> other helpful sources.  I've done a body of work on romantic online
> relationships so I understand many of the dynamics there.
> 
> Please feel free to write off list or on.  Thanks so much in advance!
> cheers,
> andee (andrea baker)"
> 
> thanks!  --a
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
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