JournalTOCs

Convergence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.521

Citation Impact (citeScore): 1
Number of Followers: 50

Hybrid journal * Containing 2 Open Access article(s) in this issue *
ISSN (Print) 1354-8565 - ISSN (Online) 1748-7382
Published by Sage Publications

[1084 journals]

Bio-pixels: A stem cell-based interactive–generative interface designed
to redefine technologies of self-making in new media arts
- Authors: Diaa Ahmed Mohamed Ahmedien
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  Bio-pixels is a stem cell-based interactive–generative interface designed to investigate the concept of ‘self-making’. The project uses stem cells as a biological prototype of an identity-free substance and defines in vivo stem cell differentiation processes as nature’s self-making technology. It therefore considers in vitro-induced differentiation processes as artificial self-making technologies that were recontextualized through the interactions between the world of genes and the world of bits. The project’s system was functionally built based on three operational principles derived from convergence technologies that facilitate a mutual functional shift between bio-media and digital media and reveal the extent to which this shift leads to a reconciliation between our biological and narrative identities.Empirically, the project remodelled visual maps of cellular activities during the induced differentiation processes by which cells acquire their identity. Finally, a generative biological–digital mirror was architected by which the viewers see their faces resynthesized as the result of the interactions between the artificial remodelled differentiation processes and the participants’ activities at the project’s physical place and its Twitter page. Within this context, Bio-pixels highlights the consequences of today’s bioinformatics on in vitro artificial processes of self-making through which the public can control, enhance or resynthesize their identities.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-29T10:59:25Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519890096
Book Review: Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds
- Authors: Melanie M Wong
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-28T09:30:09Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519890097
‘How can you not be romantic about baseball'’ Or how we
are platonic about data
- Authors: Gerald Sim
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  Due to the influence of Michael Lewis’s book and its film adaptation of the same title, ‘Moneyball’ is now a euphemism for using data analytics to generate insights. These texts perform important cultural explications of machine learning. Methodologically informed by critical discourse analysis, film studies, and cultural studies, this essay describes how the 2011 film in particular aestheticizes epistemological notions such as data framing, the semantic gap, and deep learning. Moneyball also proffers a view of analytics as Platonic knowledge, functioning ideologically alongside nerd archetypes and buddy-comedy conventions. The resultant duality between the Platonic and embodied, innervated by relations between visibility and invisibility, typifies the way people relate to Big Data and to the institutions that govern our digital lives in algorithmic culture. Moneyball performs cultural work by encouraging us to embrace data science while remaining alienated from technology and deferential to experts. Calls for technological literacy in the age of Big Data cannot underestimate the importance of cultural literacy.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-28T09:28:17Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519890611
Bicycle kicks and camp sites: Towards a phenomenological theory of game
feel with special attention towards ‘rhythm’
- Authors: Bo Kampmann Walther, Lasse Juel Larsen
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  The goal of the article is to present a theory of game feel inspired by phenomenology. Martin Heidegger’s tool analysis and concept of time (Sorge), as well as Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Body-Subject including the related phenomena intentional arc, maximal grip and flow of coping, are of special interest. The aim is to move beyond the descriptive game design take on game feel by inserting the body in a first-person perspective, highlighting a sensuous approach with emphasis on rhythm and controller. We offer a methodological framework for analysing game feel consisting on three levels: ‘Dance’, ‘Learn’ and ‘Inhabit’. Finally, we arrive at an understanding of game feel explaining reasons for player sensitivity towards game feel and clues to why players care so deeply about it.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-21T02:50:05Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519885033
Book Review: Governing Future Emergencies: Lived Relations to Risk in the
UK Fire and Rescue Service
- Authors: Sam Hind
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-12T03:03:11Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519887659
Book Review: The Internet of Things
- Authors: Sam Lehman-Wilzig
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-11T02:31:51Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519887652
Book Review: Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America
- Authors: Jane Cronin
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-11T02:31:32Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519885483
Book Review: The Politics of Mass Digitization
- Authors: Lizzie Martin
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-07T02:51:40Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519882924
Book Review: Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed
- Authors: Sabrina Wilkinson
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-06T03:01:45Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519885316
Book Review: A Networked Self: Identity, Community and Culture on Social
Network Sites
- Authors: Tatiana Mendonça de Sousa e Silva
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-11-04T03:18:54Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519885481
Mobility and affect in the #deletuber mo(ve)ment
- Authors: Maggie Griffith Williams, Ishani Mukherjee, Courtney Utsey
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  This study examines the material, spatial, and temporal implications of mobility discourses in the viral #deleteuber hashtag and the affective public that emerged in response to the Trump administration’s so-called ‘Muslim ban’ in January 2017. A thematic analysis of 3611 tweets suggested that the hashtag produced various mobility discourses debated among an affective public disgusted at the company’s actions or the call to action implied by the hashtag. These discourses were framed by the spatial qualities of mobility discourses and this moment of halted movement, the timing of this hashtag and hashtivism generally, and #deleteuber’s material, real-world implications. Our research reveals how mobility discourses can be used to understand mobility topics beyond transportation, and it provides a glimpse into the consciousness of some social media users reeling from significant political change.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-25T03:44:39Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519883739
Securing the kids: Geofencing and child wearables
- Authors: James N Gilmore
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  This article provides a critical analysis of the child wearable Jiobit, a locational tracking device that is designed to allow parents to monitor how children move through space. Emphasizing the device’s incorporation of geofencing features, which allow users to program ‘fences’ on a paired smartphone application and receive notifications when a Jiobit wearer enters and leaves the ‘fenced’ areas, I demonstrate how the operations of this device are part of a cultural politics that values the tracking of children through a variety of technological and infrastructural processes. Through an artifactual analysis of the device itself and its smartphone application, as well as an examination of the company’s promotional language, I demonstrate how the logic of ‘securitization’ is used to encourage parents to delegate some of the work of monitoring children to this device. This artifactual analysis is paired with a discursive analysis of the company’s policy documents, which readily acknowledge Jiobit’s inability to serve as a fully reliable security system, while also detailing the ways in which the extraction of data is stored indefinitely and, in some cases, disclosed to third parties. Through this case study of Jiobit, I argue for critical studies of wearable technologies to attend to the ways in which their producers promise ‘security’ and the ways in which ‘security’ acts as an alibi for continuous data collection.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-18T06:33:56Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519882317
Data journalism’s many futures: Diagrammatic displays and prospective
probabilities in data-driven news predictions
Open Access Article
- Authors: Christian Pentzold, Denise Fechner
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  This article explores how newsmakers exploit numeric records in order to anticipate the future. As this nascent area of data journalism experiments with predictive analytics, we examine its reports and computer-generated presentations, often infographics and data visualizations, and ask what time frames and topics are covered by these diagrammatic displays. We also interrogate the strategies that are employed in order to modulate the uncertainty involved in calculating for more than one possible outlook. Based on a comprehensive sample of projects, our analysis shows how data journalism seeks accuracy but has to cope with a number of different prospective probabilities and the puzzle of how to address this multiplicity of futures. Despite their predictive ambition, these forecasts are inherently grounded in the past because they are based on archival data. We conclude that this form of quantified premediation limits the range of imaginable future thoughts to one preferred mode, namely extrapolation.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-17T03:08:17Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519880790
Player conceptualizations of creativity in digital entertainment games
- Authors: Johanna Hall, Ursula Stickler, Christothea Herodotou, Ioanna Iacovides
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  Creativity has been widely studied across various disciplines such as psychology and education from a variety of perspectives and has been argued to provide a range of different benefits such as the development of transferrable skills. However, not much is known about how creativity is conceptualized within digital entertainment games from the perspective of the player. In addition to providing a scoping review of the field, this study aims to address current gaps in the literature by answering the research question: how do players conceptualize creativity within digital entertainment games' Data from 24 semistructured interviews and 14 narrative surveys with regular players of various genres of digital games were analyzed using qualitative methodology. Thematic analysis was performed, resulting in three main categories of conceptualizations: ways of thinking, constructing in games, and games as an art form. By providing an insight into how players view creativity in digital games, this article aims to illuminate this understudied facet of player experience and pave the way for future studies seeking to explore how digital games may promote creativity in those who play them.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-16T03:16:21Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519880791
Playing it Cool: Considering McLuhan’s Hot and Cool taxonomy for
Game Studies
- Authors: Steven Conway, Marc Ouellette
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  While Marshall McLuhan is often acknowledged as an influential theorist for Game Studies, there is very little work currently available that directly attempts to apply McLuhan’s theoretical framework and terminology. This article, therefore, provides an overview, interrogation and application of McLuhan’s taxonomy of Hot and Cool media to digital games. McLuhan describes Hot media as ‘high fidelity’ and ‘low participation’, while Cool media are conversely ‘high participation’ and ‘low fidelity’. The article summarizes McLuhan’s conceptual spectrum and articulates how these qualities can exist not only within digital games but also within the player: their skills, competencies and literacies. In doing so, we propose the further quality of ‘pattern’ to better describe how Hot and Cool features operate within game experiences. The article finally discusses how Hot and Cool game designs can impact user’s affective, cognitive, motoric and sociocultural responses to the play experience.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-15T03:24:28Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519880789
Book Review: Worried About the Wrong Things: Youth, Risk, and Opportunity
in the Digital World
- Authors: Victoria Jaynes
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-14T03:05:08Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519880133
Voices on display: Handwriting, paper, and authenticity, from museums to
social network sites
- Authors: Chaim Noy
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  The study examines the communicative functions that handwriting (mode) and paper (medium) have come to serve in increasingly digital and intermedial environments. The study begins in museums, where handwritten documents are profusely on display nowadays, and where the display affordances and communicative functions of handwriting are productively explored. Three curatorial display strategies are outlined. These are arranged chronologically, and range from traditional displays, where paper documents are presented inside glass cases, through artistic installations, where documents and handwriting are aesthetically simulated, to interactives, where the audiences/users themselves generate documents on-site. Exploring these strategies illuminates the concept of display as an agentic amalgamation of showing and telling, which produces authentic performances of voice-as-participation. These performances facilitate a move from private to public spheres – in museums and online. The study then proceeds to examine public displays of handwritten documents outside museums, specifically on social network sites. It asks whether and how conceptual sensitivities and sensibilities that originated in displays of handwritten artifacts in museums can shed light on the newer communicative functions of paper in digital environments. It also asks what are the intermedial consequences of the juxtaposition of analogue and digital surfaces. The study points at the current resurrection of handwriting and paper. It argues that the popularity of paper and handwriting results from their evolution into ubiquitous resources for display on and off the web, specifically as authentic bearers of voice that index human action and agency.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-10T04:41:51Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519880141
Book Review: A Networked Self and Human Augmentics, Artificial
Intelligence, Sentience
- Authors: Neal Thomas
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-10-10T04:40:11Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519880134
Viking tattoos of Instagram: Runes and contemporary identities
- Authors: Lisa Bennett, Kim Wilkins
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  In this essay, we explore how and why rune tattoos – that is, tattoos created out of single runes or longer runic inscriptions – become implicated in modern reimaginings of Viking identity. What is critically interesting here is not whether Vikings actually wore rune tattoos. Rather, we are interested in analysing the cultural processes by which certain contemporary subjects come to adapt and inscribe Viking runes as living artwork on their own bodies and to display images of these personal markings on Instagram. That is, we are not arguing from the perspective of trying to find a simple equivalence between the medieval and the modern. Instead, we are trying to understand what kind of cultural work the medieval (in the form of Viking runes) performs in shaping 21st-century identities in a cultural moment when self-perception and social relations have become increasingly embedded in social media.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-08-30T03:12:54Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519872413
The production of space through transmediated identity practices: Spatial
self in Instagram at Mavibahçe Shopping Centre in İzmir
- Authors: Ahenk Yılmaz, Ezgi Kocabalkanlı
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  Widespread use of locative media and its integration with social media applications has provided individuals with the new ways of identity practices. Through checking in at locations, uploading still and moving images of/with certain spaces, and adding hashtags to proliferate meanings, space has turned into a stage where self-identities are digitally practiced. Within this context, this article explores the production of space through these practices on Instagram in the case study of Mavibahçe Shopping Center in Izmir, Turkey. The analysis based on questionnaires and digital media surveys targets the converged space of the same digital and physical location of Mavibahçe with the aim of providing insights into the use of space for identity constructions. The study concludes that visitors reproduce space through transmediated identity practices in Instagram in order to demonstrate their affiliations to certain lifestyles as part of their digital habitus. While they perform these acts, they prefer to use the spatial attributes that they favor as the background setting of their spatial self and tag only affirmative hashtags for their spatial experiences along with these representations, which reproduce the space of the chosen architectural settings in the digital media.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-08-26T03:20:28Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519869995
Digital first personality: Automation and influence within evolving media
ecologies
- Authors: Jonathon Hutchinson
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  This article is about the new roles within social media as a result of the software that automatically gathers and influences our usage: digital first personalities. I use cultural intermediation as a framework to locate the automated processes, such as algorithmic generated recommender systems, that influence content consumption practices driven by digital first personalities. First, the article applies cultural intermediation to celebrity, social media influencers and algorithms to highlight how media is produced and distributed by new forms of intermediation. This section outlines the new players in social media, how the value of media content is transferred from one stakeholder group to another and how algorithms increasingly place prominence on particular types of content. The article then presents fieldwork from several digital agencies that are responsible for creating the digital first personality role. These agencies are demonstrable of those that produce commercially oriented content alongside other more public affairs-oriented content. Finally, the article argues that digital first personalities are crucial actors within cultural intermediation to ensure public issues remain visible to those stakeholders who are most impacted by timely information on societal issues.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-07-19T04:11:13Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519858921
Exploring the digital poorhouse
- Authors: Nathan W Fisk
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-07-18T03:12:31Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519863143
Book Review: A Networked Self and Love
Open Access Article
- Authors: Chrysi Dagoula
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-07-10T03:47:30Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519863142
Book Review: Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture
Industry
- Authors: Amanda C Cote
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-07-09T04:05:37Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519861739
Palmer Luckey and the rise of contemporary virtual reality
- Authors: Daniel Harley
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  Despite a lack of consumer interest as recently as 2012, virtual reality (VR) technologies entered the mainstream in 2014 backed by multinational corporations, including Facebook and Google. At the heart of this transition is Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus and purported ‘face’ of VR. This article develops a case study centred on Palmer Luckey to examine the rise of contemporary VR within the overlapping, contemporaneous contexts of video game culture and the misogynistic gamergate movement. As gamergate expanded its scope with far-right political fervour, Luckey’s political ambitions also expanded in scope. I argue that Luckey’s promotion under the banner of ‘progress’ serves to reify White, male systems of power that are both established and contested within cultures of technological development.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-07-02T03:46:48Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519860237
Travel Frog: Traversing cultural borders with mobile games
- Authors: Hugh Davies, Zhuying Li
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  This study concerns the Japanese mobile game Tabi Kaeru (2017), ‘旅かえる’, or Travel Frog as it is known in English. We explore Travel Frog’s astonishing success in China in early 2018 despite no marketing campaign or Chinese localization of this Japanese language game. First outlining the game and its development, we then trace its reception in Chinese and Western social media and its popularity among Chinese players. Combining comparative media and digital ethnographic methodologies, we explore the role of Internet influencers and investigate North Asian cultural commonalities such as Buddhist Zen philosophy, work ethic, and family values examining how they may have contributed to the popularity of the game. Recognizing the cultural appeal of this game outside its native language, we call for an interrogation of the process of games localization as a factor in the success of videogames. This article brings a rare examination of the transnational impact of games by exploring how they are transmitted through contemporary social media and interpreted through enduring cultural connections.
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-07-01T03:11:54Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519856619
Watch to win' E-sport, broadcast expertise and technicity in Dota 2
- Authors: Ben Egliston
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-06-11T02:46:10Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519851180
‘I gave someone a good death’: Anonymity in a community of Reddit’s
medical professionals
- Authors: Nicole M Henninger
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-05-23T03:48:28Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519847329
Digital detox: Media resistance and the promise of authenticity
- Authors: Trine Syvertsen, Gunn Enli
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-05-17T02:47:42Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519847325
Archival adventuring
- Authors: Melissa Kagen
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-05-07T02:06:36Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519847875
Tweeting the cosmos: On the bot poetry of The Ephemerides
- Authors: Richard A Carter
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-04-12T03:59:51Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519837796
Collecting and media change, or: Listening to Phish via app
- Authors: Scott Kushner
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-04-05T03:03:19Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519838741
What do home robots want' The ambivalent power of cuteness in robotic
relationships
- Authors: Catherine Caudwell, Cherie Lacey
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-04-03T04:16:45Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519837792
Discourse or gimmick' Digital marginalia in online scholarship
- Authors: R Lyle Skains
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-02-27T03:58:25Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519831988
Memes against sexism' A multi-method analysis of the feminist protest
- Authors: Cornelia Brantner, Katharina Lobinger, Miriam Stehling
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-02-15T04:46:07Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519827804
Political ‘apptivism’ in the Middle East: The case of iNakba
- Authors: Oren Golan, Noam Tirosh
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-02-13T03:48:13Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519825757
From textual orality to oral textuality: The case of voice queries
- Authors: Oren Soffer
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-02-07T02:20:19Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519825773
Winning and losing on social media: Comparing viral political posts across
platforms
- Authors: Anders Olof Larsson
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-01-14T06:15:41Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856518821589
Book Review: Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation,
and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media
- Authors: Joseph Seering
  First page: 1185
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-06-27T02:17:17Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519854976
Book Review: Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women
Technologists and Lost its Edge in Computing
- Authors: Ofra Klein
  First page: 1186
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-06-27T02:17:35Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519856621
Book Review: Actionable Media: Digital Communication Beyond the Desktop
- Authors: Cory Barker
  First page: 1188
  Abstract: Convergence, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: Convergence
  PubDate: 2019-07-02T03:46:09Z
  DOI: 10.1177/1354856519856623