1,720,970 research outputs found
Practice Theory and Media Infrastructures: “Infrastructural Disclosures” in Smartphone Use
Full text linkThe article concentrates on the contamination between practice theory and infrastructure studies by
focussing on the routines and practices related to smartphone use. In order to address on an empirical
ground the infrastructural implications of smartphone-based practices, the article presents the results
of a qualitative research, based on a total of 26 qualitative interviews and one focus group with young
smartphone users, residents of different cities of the Veneto Region in Italy. Theoretically, the article
introduces the notion of infrastructural disclosure, which is adopted in the empirical analysis as an
analytical tool to favour the visibility of infrastructural implications in smartphone practices. Infrastructural
disclosures do not represent qualities of infrastructures but analytical strategies that bring
to light the often “invisible” and “taken-for-granted” infrastructural qualities in smartphone use. On
this basis, the article addresses five main dimensions of infrastructural disclosures in smartphone use:
electricity, radio signal, data, operative systems and platforms. Finally, after the analysis of these five
main infrastructural dimensions, the authors outline in the conclusion how a stronger emphasis on
infrastructural relationships could improve our understanding of today’s digital media practices
A depasteurization of Italy?: Mediations of consumption and the enrollment of consumer within the Raw-Milk Network
Full text linkWhat difference does it make to buy milk raw? During the last ten years a network of vending machines selling raw milk has sprouted in Italy. Such milk is sold directly by breeders but, thanks to refrigerated tanks and vending machines, it can be bought far from the premises of the farms where it is produced. Thus, the raw milk vending machine network has established a way of purchasing milk which is alternative to the traditional one, connected to the milk pasteurizing industrial chain, usually ending up in supermarkets. Our article, by further developing the Actor-Network Theory approach to consumption, aims at accounting for the mediating role of the facilities where raw milk vending machines are usually installed and for
the resulting enrollment of consumers within the network. In order to better account for the specificities of such enrollment, we have compared the raw milk facilities’ mediation with the one carried out by supermarket fridge counters. Our analysis is based on resorting to the concept
of script, elaborated by Madeleine Akrich and Bruno Latour, in enhancing it by delving into its semiotic foundations and in integrating it with the concept of role and enrollment as elaborated by Michel Callon. What emerges from our de-scription is that raw milk vending facilities dispose for consumers a role complying with the “logic of care,” as recently outlined by Annemarie Mol
Latte e lotte: On the difficulty of dairy farmers, vending machines, microbes and cows of becoming a movement
No full textBetween 2004 and 2009, Italian dairy farmers have contributed to establish a network able to rearticulate milk’s and other dairy products’ everyday sale-purchase and consumption practices. Such rearticulation has been also possible because the emerged network allowed to completely bypass the dairy processing industry by directly selling blast-chilled just milked milk through vending machines. The proponents of the raw milk project have set the foundations for the constitution of a network that would go beyond the exchange of goods, seeding a possible movement able to reconfigure the actual system of social relations within the dairy context. Such reconfiguration of the dairy sector has not occurred and the network has gone through a process of disarticulation, as soon as a series of attacks by media and institutions put it under pressure. The narrations of the dairy farmers show that, despite their attempted struggles and despite the unexpected forms of solidarity the experienced, they felt isolated and left alone. What has then happened so that some of the conditions favourable to the emergence of a collective actor able to mobilize itself did not fully developed or have even been jeopardized
La famiglia mediata. I passaggi d’uso tra media tradizionali e media digitali nella percezione di un gruppo di studenti universitari
No full text«How I learned to stop worrying and love the smartphone»: Mobile technologies and the re-composition of smartphone collective practices
Full text linkLe immagini di sé in politica. Un’analisi visuale delle rappresentazioni degli amministratori territoriali su Instagram
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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