Outlines of Some of Domestication Key Themes - Term Paper Example

Domestication of Contemporary Media Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Domestication Introduction The ‘domestication’ concept began to attain some currency in approaches to comprehend how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) including social media found a place in our lives. The process of consumption originally derived more general studies but the current framework to provide a constructive way of assembling a range of perspectives and assumptions of the relationships with ICTs. Nonetheless, the concept was initially applied in British studies to offer a framework for ICT’s thinking in the home and not the portable ones. In a broader perspective, it reiterates the interactions among members of the household. Developing a framework to handle technologies like a social networks and mobile telephony presents something of a challenge when it goes beyond the home (Berker et al. 2005). Outlines of some of domestication key themes are provided but they are by no means specific to this framework, and therefore a link is made to indicate their position in the empirical mobile phone research. There are limitations in the domestication approach mainly on the type of issues it does not challenge to address. Mobilizing the domestic is about mobile phones creating hybrid spaces of private-in-public. At the same time, managing of micro-events allows one to by-pass the ways possibilities of using a phone especially relating to the landline have been mediated by the values, rules, and norms of the place (Mikkelsen & Christensen 2009). A further insight is provided in the paper to address the issues raised in mobile phone studies that may suggest ways to expand the domestication framework outside the home irrespective of connotations arising from the word ‘domestic’. On the contrary, the framework indicates additional questions asked regarding mobile phones and how they are addressed. History and orientation Households are regarded as a section of a transactional system of social and economic relations within a more objective or formal economy and public sphere of the society. Households within this framework are regarded as having engaged actively with the products. Ultimately they offer meanings of this formal, individual and commodity based economy. Goggin and Hjorth (2009) suggest that this engagement engendered domestication by involving the commodity appropriation into the domestic culture. In different terms, through appropriation they are redefined and incorporated, in relation to the household’s own interests and values. The domestication concept surfaced in the early 1990s from a theoretical and empirical project organized by Brunel University Professor Silverstone. It was also partly influenced by consumption addressed in the emerging literature on more generally. For example, a study undertaken in Sussex University which studies of teleworkers, young elderly and lone parents and allowed for further exploration on application of this approach enabling incremental development surrounding the key themes (Goggin & Hjorth 2009). Subsequently, the domestication concept then spread to a broader European audience somewhat through the European academic networks in this sphere emerging in the 1990s. The framework was applied in further studies for companies specifically Internet consumption for NCR and the cable TV for Telewest. These formed a basis for discussions and policy-related document issues such as social exclusion and ICTs (Lievrouw 2012). Summing up the domestication approach, ICTs emerges pre-meditated with meanings by such processes as design, advertising and all the surrounding media discourses. But afterwards individuals and households bank on them with their own worth. This involves the effort applied before acquisition in conjuring how they may find a role in people’s lives and a place in the home. The households’ discussion regarding acquisition decisions and process helps in locating ICTs in the domestic space and time (Spurgeon & Goggin 2007). Employed in the analysis is how exactly the concept of domestication has been and with what emphases has depended on the particular goals of the project and upon the researcher. Core Assumptions and Statements Domestication relate to the social, cultural and technological networks of the households’ everyday life. According to Logan (2010) describing the works of Silverstone notes that the significance, and meanings of all information and media products, relies on the user participation. He describes the concept of domestication in four phases; 1) Appropriation: Technology it is appropriated when it leaves the world of commodity. Then it can be owned by being taken by a household or an individual (Logan 2010; Berker et al. 2005). From this dimension, appropriation exemplifies the whole of consumption process and also for that moment where the object extends beyond the threshold between the moral and the formal economics. This happens when taking possession of the object or purchasing the commodity. 2) Objectification: It involves locating and displaying the device within the home. The expression is in usage but also in psychical objects dispositions in the spatial home environment like the living room. As such, it is also expressed as the environment in the construction. All these technologies have the capability to be appropriated to an aesthetic environment. As for their functional significance, many are bought as much for their appearance of the home. 3) Incorporation: Incorporation constitutes the way technology participates in the routines of daily life like the time and house internal structure. It also influences the ways in which objects especially technologies are employed (Livingstone 2002). These are functional technologies. They serve other cultural functions in appropriation and may be bought with other features in mind. They become functional in situations that are far removed from the objective of marketers or designers. Technologies have extended functions. 4) Conversion: Television is social capital and a means of contributing to the social life. It is also an active ingredient in domestic relations. The media defines the relationship between the outside world and the household as technologies extend beyond the household defines. They have a claim in the membership of the ‘wider society’. First, rather than mere use, there is a greater emphasis on consumption. Therefore, attention has been given to what ICTs especially mobile phone technologies mean to people, the roles ICTs in people’s lives and how they are experienced (Stewart 2007). Understanding both use and adoption requires the need to appreciate the interaction and negotiation between the politics of the home and household members which lie behind both tensions, conflicts and consensus in the areas of formation. Rules or any understandings regarding the appropriate application of ICTs emerging from this process occasionally has some bearing on the circumstances and what people do with the services and technologies. There is need for awareness of household, individual, and strategies to control technologies. In the two circumstances, there is a sense of control of use by others and control of place embracing technologies in one’s life. This in turn connects to the identity and the type of life aspired by people. Any attempt to fully appreciate the symbolic perspectives of ICTs requires the perception of aspects of consumption like how technologies are displayed and talked about (Berker et al. 2005). Domestication and contemporary media The interrelationship between rest of everyday life and the home was initially considered both in empirical studies and the theoretical discussions of domestication. One case would be in explorations of how education, work or other commitments impose upon home life. Alternatively, there would be studies into the way in which ICTs much talked about outside the home becomes a form of display such as lifestyle orientation, display of knowledge or competence. For example, anticipation of a development in mobile phone studies, explored more into how teenagers become involved in peer group culture. Haddon (2007) acknowledges that it is one thing to focus on it as a study object in its own right and another to register the relevance of life outside the home. The emergence of mobile phones drove interest in advancing the approach of domestication out of the home (Mikkelsen & Christensen 2009). The first attempt is consideration of the key themes signaling the term domestication. This can be applied in new settings after a review of some earlier European research on mobile phones. Besides noting how some of the processes noted with regard to the home, they can be applied to the outside of ICT’s experience. The initial review established that there was scope for more symbolic analysis, more so the visual display of ICTs outside the home (Berker et al. 2005). This came as people converted the personal and private connotation, to the outside world of their ICTs into public statements. Secondly, to a degree, the public space rules are analyzed as counterparts to ICTs regulation in the home. Noticeably, the difference is what is being dealt with in the interaction of just a few household members. Mikkelsen and Christensen (2009) suggest that in the broader public settings, any such rules are often more tacit, ordinarily less formalized, in most cases ambiguous. It has a greater dimension in the form of expectations regarding the appropriate behavior held by those who are co-present. Consequently, the extension of domestication outside the home has shown that the mobile telephony literature may possibly as the unit of analysis, shift focus away from the household. Originally, the household was privileged in formulating the domestication concept specifically because home and the household relationships formed a significant part of life. Such relationships cannot be often harmonious but are normally profound (Berker et al. 2005). For example, teleworking studies seek to understand the implication for all household members when paid work employing ICTs goes into the home. The household members have a bearing upon the entire experience in technology and work (Mikkelsen & Christensen 2009). Clearly there is a possibility of asking equivalent question about mobile phones. Considering such non-domestic social relationships takes one into the realm of analysis of the social networks. Higgins (2006) notes that approaching this domain with the kind of questions referred to in the domestication framework brings about an entirely different prominence in quantitative terms from the type of analysis when networks are measured. A more textured picture is generated instead reminisces the ethnological tradition inside sociology where the social life of particular groups of friends is charted like in the classic study of the Street Corner Society (Haddon 2007). The looser relations or friendship in the case above is that youth are different from the relationship exhibited among household members. Friendship networks are unbounded, fuzzy edged, and vague on who forms part of the group. They are much weaker despite being intense. They have a shorter and temporary history without the depth accompanying biographies intertwined with the domestic ones (Stewart 2007). These relations neither occupy similar shared home space nor have financial relationships as households, despite their colonization of certain public spaces. However, these relationships unlike household have some shared histories, identities, own politics, understanding of the appropriate and use of strategies vis-á-vis peers. ICTs like mobile phones domestication in this context ask how and what processes are used in acquiring meaning above and over the marketing of firms. The issue is what makes the mobiles or specific mobiles to be (or not) fashionable. It highlights the forms of negotiation taking place in the social networks and how the collective practices emerge (Grosswiler 2010). There must be rules of use and how they are the policed. Others are type of career in mobile telephony under the group context. Generally, consumption is shaped by the collective influence. Demystifying domestication The observation of the domestication applied to the mobile telephone is its career over time. In the public or wider history of mobile phone, its span is relatively a short life as a mass market product evolving in certain respects. There are changes in design, more so in size shrinkage and presentation as an object of fashion. Regarding functionality, there is text messaging additions with significant implications for its use by youth. Marketing changes with respect to the addition of pre-payment cards bears on how the phone is managed within the relationships of the household (Quandt & Von Pape 2010). Generally, the mobile phone has witnessed a change in symbolism, trending from exclusivity of its earlier days linked with ‘yuppies’ to amongst large sections of people ‘a must-have’ globally. Other changes witnessed are its regulation in public spaces with regard to when and where its use is banned (Stewart 2007). Certainly, it has influenced the degree and nature of integration in the people’s day to day practices as was regard as emergency phone in its very early days. A mass market product, the mobile is relatively young and taking a longer term perspective that may anticipate research object evolving in years to come. The scenario in ‘the’ phone rather than a mobile phone shows a variation in the study object introduced by the ‘Wireless Application Protocol’ (WAP). This allows some mobile to access the Internet in expectation of further design and technical developments (Quandt & Von Pape 2010). Additionally, the past suggest that the sheer multiplication in households of even common technologies such as TVs, computers, videos, and phone handsets has a bearing on consumption. Thoughts on the new media Logan (2010) on McLuhan suggests that a medium is any expansion of a natural human faculty, either physical or mental. The vehicle which is precisely the wheel is an extension of feet and legs. An axe can have an arm extension. The wheel or the axe is a technological medium. Therefore, mental extensions like the alphabet and print extends human thought. They are associated with the forms we now refer as TV and radio. These are extensions of the central nervous system (Haddon 2007). The medium content is another medium. For example, a rubber maid box or Russian dolls may fit into each other. The telegraph encodes the printed word medium containing the alphabet carrying the human speech which has the human thought. The impact of messages is obscured since the “content” matters and is inseparable from container (Livingstone 2002). New media is not about to replace prior media but its obscures or modifies. The printing press is not about to replace handwriting, but alters the ways of use. The bible in the Kindle or iPad will replace bound, printed books, but will not change people’s perception on them. Media are dissimilar. Some have a high level data “high definition” or “hot.” Movies have swirling experiences in light, sound and story. In contrast, other media are cool, low definition and thus demand the physical senses in engagement and filling in of missing data like cartoons or telephone. Quandt and Von Pape (2010) argue that the effect of introducing a new technology such as an extension to human function or medium is numbness. McLuhan notes that human senses are thrown off by new technologies with its effects felt much later. Excluding the artists and prophets this can be a talk of another time. Contemporary media and daily life The current issue regards the implications of moving from one mobile per household, to one mobile per person, and also multiple mobiles per person. Consumers have changed over time. For example, in the youth and the mobile, the consumption of this present cohort changes as members grow older and the mobile with regard to a particular status as adolescents ceases to apply (Quandt & Von Pape 2010). In the earlier concept, the career of mobile technology has changed in the specific cohort of users. Technology played a role in the youth because it arrived at a specific stage in their course of life. There will be differences in consumption for future generations of younger children or youth as the status of ICT gets more established. The difference it takes to grow up with a technology is taken-for-granted as opposed to generations experiencing its first arrival (Berker et al. 2005). Regarding age and age cohorts, mobile telephony consumption has changed for the elderly given that more people are retiring having used mobile phones in their youthful years. The circumstances of household members bear on ICT consumption and envisage studies on the impacts on the mobile phone. Previous call traffic over the traditional phone shows changing life stages with changing patterns (Livingstone 2002). For example, moving from single, having a partner and having children have ramifications on the mobile phone. Conclusions In its assumptions, the concept of domestication is not peculiar. Other studies and literature have shared but it remains a useful way of signaling to others. It provides referencing on the package of understanding that lie behind specific studies without the demand of explicitly going through each moment (Rice 2007). People are sensitized in the avenues of research. The main elements in that package as outlined include the stress on consumption over use and adoption. The subsequent careers of ICTs and the adoption as a process imply that domestication is not simply ‘successful’. There is need to place individual consumption in wider context so as to broaden the understanding of how ICT consumption is shaping and is shaped. Certain elements have already being investigated in mobile phone research (Lievrouw 2012). The paper has addressed the thoughts of the new media and examined the domestication concept beyond the home. Portable ICTs like the mobile phones, in particular, explores the questions if consider is to be made in the wider social networks from this dimension. Finally, there was an illustration of how existing work on the ICT careers from a domestication dimension may inform the perspective of longer term studies into on mobile phone and social media. Reference list Berker T, Hartmann M, Punie Y & Ward K 2005, Domestication of Media and Technology, McGraw-Hill International. Goggin G & Hjorth L 2009, Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media, Journal of Cultural and Media Studies, Vol 20: 155-187. Grosswiler P 2010, Transforming McLuhan: Cultural, Critical, and Postmodern Perspectives, Peter Lang Haddon L 2007, The Contribution of Domestication Research to In-Home Computing and Media Consumption, The Information Society: An international Journal, Vol 22 (4): 123-165. Higgins M 2006, Divergent Messages in a Converging World, The Information Society Journal, Vol 16 (1): 49-63. Logan R K 2010, Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan, Peter Lang. Lievrouw L A 2012, The next Decade in Internet Time, The information, communication and society Journal, Vol 15(5): 616-638. Livingstone S 2002, Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment, Sage. Mikkelsen M R & Christensen P 2009, Is Children's Independent Mobility Really Independent? A Study of Children's Mobility Combining Ethnography and GPS/Mobile Phone Technologies, Mobilities Journal, Taylor and Francis, Vol 4(1): 37-58. Quandt T & Von Pape T 2010, Living in the Mediatope: A Multimethod Study on the Evolution of Media Technologies in the Domestic Environment, The Information Society: An international Journal, Vol 26 (5): 180-195. Rice R E 2007, New Media/Internet Research Topics of the Association of Internet Researchers, The Information Society Journal, Vol 21 (4): 285-299. Spurgeon C & Goggin G 2007, Mobiles into Media: Premium Rate SMS and the Adaptation of Television to Interactive Communication Cultures, Continuum Journal, Taylor and Francis, Vol 21(2): 317-329. Stewart J 2007, Local Experts in the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies, Information, Communication and Society, Routledge, Vol 10 (4):66-89. Read More

Subsequently, the domestication concept then spread to a broader European audience somewhat through the European academic networks in this sphere emerging in the 1990s. The framework was applied in further studies for companies specifically Internet consumption for NCR and the cable TV for Telewest. These formed a basis for discussions and policy-related document issues such as social exclusion and ICTs (Lievrouw 2012). Summing up the domestication approach, ICTs emerges pre-meditated with meanings by such processes as design, advertising and all the surrounding media discourses.

But afterwards individuals and households bank on them with their own worth. This involves the effort applied before acquisition in conjuring how they may find a role in people’s lives and a place in the home. The households’ discussion regarding acquisition decisions and process helps in locating ICTs in the domestic space and time (Spurgeon & Goggin 2007). Employed in the analysis is how exactly the concept of domestication has been and with what emphases has depended on the particular goals of the project and upon the researcher.

Core Assumptions and Statements Domestication relate to the social, cultural and technological networks of the households’ everyday life. According to Logan (2010) describing the works of Silverstone notes that the significance, and meanings of all information and media products, relies on the user participation. He describes the concept of domestication in four phases; 1) Appropriation: Technology it is appropriated when it leaves the world of commodity. Then it can be owned by being taken by a household or an individual (Logan 2010; Berker et al. 2005). From this dimension, appropriation exemplifies the whole of consumption process and also for that moment where the object extends beyond the threshold between the moral and the formal economics.

This happens when taking possession of the object or purchasing the commodity. 2) Objectification: It involves locating and displaying the device within the home. The expression is in usage but also in psychical objects dispositions in the spatial home environment like the living room. As such, it is also expressed as the environment in the construction. All these technologies have the capability to be appropriated to an aesthetic environment. As for their functional significance, many are bought as much for their appearance of the home. 3) Incorporation: Incorporation constitutes the way technology participates in the routines of daily life like the time and house internal structure.

It also influences the ways in which objects especially technologies are employed (Livingstone 2002). These are functional technologies. They serve other cultural functions in appropriation and may be bought with other features in mind. They become functional in situations that are far removed from the objective of marketers or designers. Technologies have extended functions. 4) Conversion: Television is social capital and a means of contributing to the social life. It is also an active ingredient in domestic relations.

The media defines the relationship between the outside world and the household as technologies extend beyond the household defines. They have a claim in the membership of the ‘wider society’. First, rather than mere use, there is a greater emphasis on consumption. Therefore, attention has been given to what ICTs especially mobile phone technologies mean to people, the roles ICTs in people’s lives and how they are experienced (Stewart 2007). Understanding both use and adoption requires the need to appreciate the interaction and negotiation between the politics of the home and household members which lie behind both tensions, conflicts and consensus in the areas of formation.

Rules or any understandings regarding the appropriate application of ICTs emerging from this process occasionally has some bearing on the circumstances and what people do with the services and technologies.

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