Jörgen Skågeby

The Performative Gift: A Feminist Materialist Conceptual Model

Gifting (or gift-giving) is a particularly interesting form of communication that envelops both material and social dimensions. Objects are transformed into gifts through particular socio-material practices. While these practices are, of course, interesting in themselves, this paper will take a step back and revisit attempts to define and theorize the gift as a concept. In a time when the gift economy is often called upon as a potential candidate for more “participatory alternatives to capitalist totality”, particularly in relation to theorizing of labour on and through the Internet, theories of gifting provide an important foundation for discussing the boundaries of alternative futures and economies.So far, little effort has been taken to advance gift theory into a new materialist or posthumanist thinking. In an attempt to take that first step, this paper provides two contributions. First, it highlights how feminist theorizing of the gift comprises interesting forerunners in a new materialist conception of the gift. Second, it explores the analytical traction that can be gained from interlocking theories of the gift, feminist materialism and digital media, the result being a conceptual model that addresses the gift as a form of virtual-digital-material communication.

Semi-public end-user content contributions-A case-study of concerns and intentions in online photo-sharing

As social networks and rich media sharing are increasingly converging, end-user concerns regarding to whom, how and why to direct a certain digital content emerge. Between the pure private contribution and the pure public contribution exists a large research and design space of semi-public content and relationships. The theoretical framework of gift-giving correlates to semi-public contributions in that it envelopes social relationships, concerns for others and reciprocity, and was consequently adopted in order to reveal and classify qualitative semi-public end-user concerns with content contribution. The data collection was performed through online ethnographic methods in a large photo-sharing network. The main data-collection method used was forum message elicitation, combined with referential methods such as interviews and application observation and usage. The analysis of data resulted in descriptions concerning end-user intentions to address dynamic recipient groupings, the intentions to control the level of publicness of both digital content and its related social metadata (tags, contacts, comments and links to other networks) and the conclusion that users often refrained from providing material unless they felt able to control its direction.

File-Sharing Relationships — conflicts of interest in online gift-giving

This paper suggests a relationship model for describing, analyzing and foreseeing conflicts of interest in file-sharing networks. The model includes levels of relationship ranging from the individual (ego), to the small group of close peers (micro), to a larger network of acquaintances (meso) to the anonymous larger network (macro). It is argued that an important focal point for analysis of cooperation and conflict is situated in the relations between these levels. Three examples of conflicts from a studied file-sharing network are presented. Finally, the relationship model is discussed in terms of applicability to other domains, recreational as well as professional.

Analytical dimensions for online gift giving: 'other-oriented' contributions in virtual communities

This paper presents five analytical dimensions regarding online gift giving. The dimensions were derived through a six-month ethnographic study of two co-evolving online communities (one web-based and one application-based). The dimensions are: initiative (active/passive), direction (public/private), incentive (enforced/voluntary), identification (anonymous/recognised) and limitation (open/restrictive). Gifting is a central human activity in many communities, both offline and online. Also, it is, in many ways, a convivial and collaborative activity with a rich history of functioning as a social membrane, which could be at the very core of community management. However, research on the relational and structural embeddedness of gifting in technology-mediated contexts is in its infancy. Consequently, it is suggested that the presented gifting dimensions will support the comparison of similar technologies with dissimilar social effects; that they can aid in using social practices to simplify, or improve, a technical implementation; and that they provide a clearer picture of the requirements of gifting technologies and the social objectives and needs of gifting individuals.

Pre-produsage and the remediation of virtual products

This paper introduces and explores cycles of pre-produsage and produsage. 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-produsage. Pre-produsage is 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, and design sketch), 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 qualities of previous technologies and enters 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 provide insights that relate to both anticipated and actual user experience (UX). 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 and potential solutions. Finally, the paper shows how proprietary products become subject to produsage, resulting in artifacts negotiated by cycles of produsage.

The irony of serendipity: disruptions in social information behaviour

Purpose. This paper proposes that the current social media surge gives rise to what can be called social information behaviour. Social information behaviour is characterized, at least partly, by a ...

Dismantling the guitar hero? : A case of prodused parody and disarmed subversion

A ‘shreds’ video combines existing live music concert footage, predominantly including a famous male rock guitarist or guitar based rock group, with a self-produced overdubbed soundtrack. The result is a musical parody that exists in an intersection between production and consumption and works as a within-genre evolution. The shred is controversial and its most popular instalments have been pulled from YouTube on claims of copyright infringement. This paper examines shreds as a form of multimodal intertextual critique by engaging with the videos themselves, as well as audience responses to them. As such, the applied method is genre analysis and multimodal semiotics geared towards the analysis of intertextual elements. The paper shows how prodused parody exists as a co-dependence between: (1) production and consumption; (2) homage and subversion; (3) comprehension and miscomprehension; and (4) media synchronicity and socioeconomic dis/harmony. The paper also discusses how shreds can be interpreted as tampered-with gender performances. In conclusion, it becomes clear that the produsage of shred videos is part of ‘piracy culture’ because it so carefully balances between the mainstream and counter-culture, between the legal and the illegal, and between the commoditized artefact and networked production.

Online Friction: Studying Sociotechnical Conflicts to Elicit User Experience

This article presents conflicts as a central unit of analysis in investigations of online social media sharing. Social media sharing services generate interesting sociotechnical problems as they often make social structures explicit, resulting in observable user experience conflicts. As such, they also present a genre of services where theories of social structure become highlighted and, at times, challenged. Three examples of conflicts, from three different types of networks, are presented. The conflicts were elicited through online, ethnography-inspired, methods. It is argued that the conceptual conflicts help researchers and designers to postulate, find and examine concerns and intentions of users who try to resolve the conflict or move from one end of the conflict to the other. The article also demonstrates three viable ways to communicate analytical conflict insights, intended to inform interaction design, namely use qualities, analytical dimensions and design patterns.

The media archaeology of file sharing : broadcasting computer code to Swedish homes

What form did file sharing take before the internet’s usage became mainstream, and what practices from that period remain? This article examines a Swedish radio show that broadcast listener-contributed computer code in the mid 1980s. It applies a combined theoretical framework of intermediality and sharing theory and argues that this combination is central to the analysis of piracy and social change. The results indicate an interesting paradox in terms of pushing and pulling content as the practice relied on both in public broadcasting as well as with contributing media users. As such, the case of Datorernas värld prefigures how peer interaction and sharing relies on more centralized and controlled channels of communication. The article historically situates themes such as intermediality, surveillance, gender representation, and piracy and provides a piece of computing history that is topical but, strangely, critically ignored.