[Air-L] Research on Skype

[Robyn Longhurst]

Hi everyone

I am relatively new on this list. My name is Robyn Longhurst and I am
social and cultural geographer at Waikato University (NZ) who is
interested in screen, media and communication.

I am wondering if anyone is able to direct me to any work on Skype. I
am currently setting up a project that aims is to advance dialogue
between human geographers and media studies by examining how family
and household members in New Zealand are currently using Skype to
reconfigure their everyday familial, social, gendered, sexual,
inter-generational, emotional and affectual geographies.

I am especially interested in if there is there something
qualitatively different about the ‘real-time’ video communication
offered by Skype - hearing, and seeing the lived flesh of the ‘real’
person and space on the screen - rather than just written, text and
phone communication, that is changing everyday familial geographies
and relationships?

If anyone knows of any literature on Skype that might be relevant I’d
be enormously grateful and willing to share information with others
who might also be interested. Thanks in advance.

Best wishes
Robyn

Robyn Longhurst
Professor of Geography
Editor-in-Chief: Gender, Place and Culture:
A Journal of Feminist Geography
Geography Programme
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105
Hamilton 3240
Aotearoa New Zealand

Tel +64 7 856 2889 Ext 8306
Fax +64 7 8384633