Michael Walsh is Associate Professor in the School of Politics, Economics & Society in the Faculty of Business, Government & Law at the University of Canberra
This Research Note reports on an analysis of the speeches, media releases, opinion pieces, and tr... more This Research Note reports on an analysis of the speeches, media releases, opinion pieces, and transcripts of the utterances of both major party leaders, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese, during the 2022 federal election campaign. We undertake a reflexive thematic analysis of these documents to identify the key messages of the two campaigns. Method We focused on examining the topics raised by the two major party leaders during the 2022 federal election campaign. On each day of the election campaign, we downloaded from their official websites the transcripts of all their speeches, interviews, and doorstops, along with media releases, and, in Albanese's case, opinion pieces written
Music streaming represents a highly personalised, portable technology that enables a ubiquitous l... more Music streaming represents a highly personalised, portable technology that enables a ubiquitous listening quality and transforms the relationship people have with music. It has implications for how music recordings can be engaged with and what people sense they can do with music. Streaming therefore expands the ability of users to inflect music audio across everyday life (DeNora 63), contributing to advancements in playback audio technologies that disarticulate performance spaces from listening contexts (Nowak and Bennett 53). Furthermore, they afford convenient, ostensibly inexpensive, and various opportunities to sort and organise music recordings while also enabling users to engage in personalised recommendations (Lüders 2342).
Crucially, though, streaming services extend listening as a secondary activity (Lüders 2351) in which users of these technologies “listen alongside” (Drott 257) and situate music with other everyday activities. In other words, streaming services afford users the capacity to render music listening as a secondary or background activity, with “backgroundness” now a highly apparent component of streaming cultures (Hagen 238). In this article, I investigate and focus on this background quality. While not representing the only way listeners experience acts of listening while using these services, this quality of music in the background now appears firmly etched into the experiences of many users of streaming services.
Disinformation research is increasingly concerned with the hierarchies and conditions that enable... more Disinformation research is increasingly concerned with the hierarchies and conditions that enable the strategic production of false and misleading content online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was revealed that 12 influencers were responsible for a significant volume of antivaccine disinformation. This article examines how influencers use antivaccination memes for commercial and political gain. Drawing on a 12-month digital ethnography of three disinformation producers on Instagram and Telegram, we conceptualize their strategy of meme warfare in terms of the logics of spoiled identity, demonstrating how stigma is used to galvanize and recast the antivaccination movement around themes of persecution and moral superiority. Dispensing with the idea that content moderation has forced disinformation “underground,” we find that disinformation producers configure memes to adapt to specific platforms by directing mainstream audiences to less regulated platforms, personal newsletters, and sites. By examining the tactics and techniques disinformation producers use to spread antivaccination messaging online, we question the effectiveness of content moderation policies as a solution to regulate influencers whose visibility and status strategically straddle multiple sites in the broader information ecosystem.
Organization. choices, leaving crowdfunding platforms susceptible to weaponization. With Alt-Tech... more Organization. choices, leaving crowdfunding platforms susceptible to weaponization. With Alt-Tech platforms aspiring to build an 'alternative internet', this paper highlights the urgent need to explore digital constitutionalism in the crowdfunding space, establishing firmer boundaries to better mitigate fundraising platforms becoming complicit in catastrophic harms.
The contemporary, professionally-produced wedding video is a salient device of remembrance, compr... more The contemporary, professionally-produced wedding video is a salient device of remembrance, comprising a highly curated, symbolically laden, privately intimate, yet also publicly performed and dissemination-friendly artefact of memory. Such videos have become popular mementos, and their emergence aligns with three broad trends of an overarching ‘visual turn’ (Jay, 1994). The first is the proliferation of ‘prosumer’ technologies for video recording and post-production, making event videography a viable enterprise for those looking to traverse the amateur-professional divide (Moran 2002, 64-96). Second, such practices of multimodality are part of a broader ‘video turn’ in popular media consumption (Holt, 2011), beginning in the 1980s with the emergence of pop culture juggernauts like MTV, and accelerating again through ubiquitous computing and the ease of personal media creation today (Vernallis 2013; Shaviro 2017). Thirdly, as ‘the overlap between producers and users becomes significantly larger’ (Manovich 2001, 118), videos shape the crafting of personal narratives, and we are now accustomed to ‘prosuming’ such narratives through video-hosting across digital platforms (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010). Wedding videography has been well suited to exploiting and indeed escalating all these trends, proving a valued artefact in memorialising this ‘momentous occasion’ (Bezner 2002; Mead 2008).
In this article we focus on the soundtracks used in wedding videos. We argue that music plays a vital role towards inducing desired emotional effects and narrative thrust, providing a sense of continuity, shot-to-shot rhythm, lyrical theming, and interpretive anchoring. Altogether, these musical soundtracks constitute a powerful aural framing device that aids personal and collective memory construction. Moreover, contemporary wedding videographers lean heavily on the appeal of ‘highlight’ packages , which are expressly produced for dissemination on social media. As memories are increasingly mediated via network technologies, we must remain cognizant that the ‘boundaries between present and past are no longer given, but they are the very stakes in debating what counts as memory’ (van Dijck 2007, 404). The music within these videos thus functions as a mnemonically pliable ‘artefact of memory’, holding a special status because of its ‘temporal and non-representational character’ (DeNora 2003a, 81). As such, it can be readily re-coded to complement other texts, particularly in tagging, mapping, and suggesting expected emotional engagement to the viewer. In this context, music soundtracks play an understated role, cutting across and weaving together the various actors, artefacts, and rituals of the occasion, enclosing the video within a suitably affecting auditory frame.
Social media have been central in informing people about the COVID-19 pandemic. They influence th... more Social media have been central in informing people about the COVID-19 pandemic. They influence the ways in which information is perceived, communicated and shared online, especially with physical distancing measures in place. While these technologies have given people the opportunity to contribute to public discussions about COVID-19, the narratives disseminated on social media have also been characterised by uncertainty, disagreement, false and misleading advice. Global technology companies have responded to these concerns by introducing new content moderation policies based on the concept of harm to tackle the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. In this essay, we examine some of the key challenges in implementing these policies in real time and at scale, calling for more transparent and nuanced content moderation strategies to increase public trust and the quality of information about the pandemic consumed online.
Drawing on Erving Goffman's microsociology, this article explores the networking of music streami... more Drawing on Erving Goffman's microsociology, this article explores the networking of music streaming technologies and their convergence with social media. Acts of privatized music listening that were once seamlessly secluded in back regions like the home and therefore removed from the view of others can now become presented more widely in front region contexts. Reporting on in-depth qualitative interviews with users of music streaming and how they perceive their musical listening has been altered, I investigate some of the affordances of streaming as it contributes to an unravelling or collapsing of demarcations between front and back region activity. As a result, users of streaming services describe how they become mindful of how they undertake their music listening and how these technologies consequently require careful management.
Purpose-: To respond to the COVID-19 "infodemic" and combat fraud and misinformation about the vi... more Purpose-: To respond to the COVID-19 "infodemic" and combat fraud and misinformation about the virus, social media platforms coordinated with government healthcare agencies around the world to elevate authoritative content about the novel coronavirus. These public health authorities included national and global public health organisations, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). In this article, the authors evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy by asking two key questions: (1) Did people engage with authoritative health content on social media? (2) Was this content trusted? Design/methodology/approach: The authors explore these issues by drawing on data from a global online questionnaire on "Public Trust in Experts" (n 5 429) conducted during the initial phase of the pandemic in May 2020, a crucial period when reliable information was urgently required to influence behaviour and minimise harm. Findings: The authors found that while the majority of those surveyed noticed authoritative health content online, there remained significant issues in terms of Internet users trusting the information shared by government healthcare agencies and public health authorities online. Originality/value: In what follows, the authors examine the role of trust in implementing this novel public health strategy and assess the capacity for such policies to reduce individual and social harm.
In this article we examine the proliferation of anti-vaccine content on social media during the C... more In this article we examine the proliferation of anti-vaccine content on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ a case study approach to analyse the techniques used by 13 antivaccine influencers to promote vaccine refusal on Instagram for 19 months from January 2020 to July 2021. Our findings reveal that the maternal is strategically invoked in anti-vaccine content by appealing to three interrelated ideal types: the protective mother; the intuitive mother and the doting mother. These portrayals of the maternal are used to encourage vaccine refusal by presenting hegemonic ideals of the 'good mother' as one who is natural, holistic and authentic; depicting anti-vaccination as a feminine ideal to which mothers ought to aspire. Authenticity is framed here as a form of embodied expertise, uncorrupted by culture, politics and the medical establishment. Our findings question the pejorative portrayal of suburban mothers in popular media as critical actors in the anti-vaccine movement by revealing the ways anti-vaccine influencers strategically target mothers on social media to achieve visibility, attention and to support their cause.
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 2021
Tourism and hospitality service experiences are both delivered with and experienced amongst other... more Tourism and hospitality service experiences are both delivered with and experienced amongst other individuals as part of the service setting. Understanding consumer perceptions of these shared experiences is essential for providers. Consumer recollection of these experiences, however, are sometimes limited. This paper explores the opportunity to use paired interviews as a qualitative method for moderating self-reported data “on the spot”. Paired interviews that explore shared experiences can be clarified, or corrected contemporaneously, with reduced bias or modification of what was experienced, particularly when that behaviour may not be socially acceptable. This article presents data collected after a shared tourism experience of an overnight visit to a luxury lodge at a zoo and proposes a framework to classify interactions between participants in a paired interview situation. The method of shared or paired self-reporting interviews results in enriched qualitative data based on the exchanges of pairs participating in the interview process. This method is useful in practice by mitigating limitations identified in self-reporting situations, particularly after a shared service experience.
The COVID-19 crisis highlighted issues of trust in government and experts, as citizens were asked... more The COVID-19 crisis highlighted issues of trust in government and experts, as citizens were asked to accept restrictions on liberties in order to slow the spread of the virus. Based on a survey of 1992 Australians conducted in May 2020, this paper reports on the attitudes of Australians toward the responses of their State and Federal governments to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, we found support for government responses differed with partisan alignment. However, when we controlled for values differences, we found that values predicted social distancing attitudes and behaviour. This oppugns the common conclusion in political psychology that party alignment is a proxy for values. Scientists were trusted more than political institutions or actors for accurate COVID-19 information, and likewise, traditional media were preferred to online sources. These findings have implications for policy communication when individual action is required to address collective goals.
Context collapse blurs the boundaries between public, private, and professional selves and has em... more Context collapse blurs the boundaries between public, private, and professional selves and has emerged as an important research focus in relation to vocational identity. However, the conditions under which context collapse occur have been empirically neglected in the literature. Utilizing Davis and Jurgenson’s theoretical framework of context collapse (i.e., context collusion and context collision) and Erving Goffman’s theory of face-work, this study seeks to determine the consequential outcomes associated with the different context collapse conditions in two phases (Quasi-experimental in Phase 1 and open-ended questions in Phase 2). Specifically, a quasi-experimental study with scenarios was used to examine whether intentionality within context collusion and context collision influenced participants’ perception of loss of face and affect. First-year tertiary students (N = 151) who were also working were randomly selected from a capital state university student population and asked to respond to hypothetical online context collapse scenarios. Multivariate analysis of variance was conducted and the results indicated that context collapse has significant impact on participants’ loss of face and affect (emotion). In addition, a follow-up analysis of variance reveals partial support for the significant impact of context collapse on loss of face and affect.
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2021
In a context where Twitter has come under criticism for enabling and encouraging hostile communic... more In a context where Twitter has come under criticism for enabling and encouraging hostile communication, this article explores how users adopt a ‘Twitter face’ when navigating interactions on the platform. Extending Goffman’s observation that face-work is applicable to both immediate and mediated interaction, this article provides a novel application of face-work on Twitter. Reporting on data from an online questionnaire completed by general Twitter users, we explore how uncivil interaction is experienced on the platform and the interaction strategies users employ to protect their face. We examine how interactions on the platform can lead to a ritual break-down that generate forms of alienation arising from aggressive uses of face-work. We contend that attempts to enhance Twitter as a medium by limiting and restricting particular interactions are ultimately attempts at shaping Twitter’s affordances. In analysing user experience, our discussion considers how incivility is responded to and how the platform encourages users to engage in the avoidance components of face-work, while simultaneously inhibiting the easy adoption of its restorative dimensions. While both dimensions of face-work are vital, the downplaying of restorative aspects of face-work arguably undermines Twitter’s efforts to encourage inclusive interactions across the platform.
Food cultures are shaped by the ubiquity of digital photography. Embedded in social media sites, ... more Food cultures are shaped by the ubiquity of digital photography. Embedded in social media sites, such as Instagram, images of food are used in photographic exchanges to perform identity and interact with community. In a context of proliferating food media, an ethics of “clean eating” – dietary practice adhering to consuming “healthy” foods deemed to be “pure” – is presented as a form of moral food consumption that embraces particular foods while eschewing others. In this article we explore the symbolic dimensions of top post clean eating food images associated with the hashtags #eatclean and #cleaneating and consider how they mobilize photographic practices to present and encourage this lifestyle. Drawing on Mary Douglas and Erving Goffman as our theoretical foundation, we argue that the photographic capturing of food plays a symbolic role in extolling purity through the presentation of idealized images of “clean” foods that are contrasted with foods perceived as defiled. Clean eating posts draw on forms of idealization that aims to garner esteem and attention, while also generating a sense of community through food media. These practices are also configured around an ethics of food that encourage responsible consumption for the individual as a healthy subject.
In this article, we synthesize Goffman's microsociology with recent developments in fields such a... more In this article, we synthesize Goffman's microsociology with recent developments in fields such as aesthetics, geography, and urban studies labeled “atmosphere theory.” Our central rationale is if microsociology is to deepen its account of embodiment and the noncognitive it needs a theory of spatialized moods. In the second half, we develop our synthesis with respect to musical atmospheres and conclude by drawing on our own research regarding how social actors use music to shape “involvements” and “disinvolvements” in the spatial ambiances of public transportation, the street, the workplace, and the home.
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2019
Professionally produced wedding videos are evocative artefacts. Capturing the ritual of the weddi... more Professionally produced wedding videos are evocative artefacts. Capturing the ritual of the wedding, the wedding video stands as a postcard that showcases the conspicuous display of emotion that assumes a central place in the memorialization and indeed the very praxis of the modern wedding ritual. The role of music in the wedding video is crucial; representing a key partner to the imagery of the wedding, the musical dimensions emotionally charge the artefact in perpetuity. In this article we argue that the musical soundtrack of wedding videos services manifold functions, including the enabling of narrative continuity, providing a sense of propulsive rhythm, pacing and supporting the successful communication of emotions that sits at the centre of the compressed iconography of the wedding. Although the visual elements play a lead role, we contend that the unseen qualities of the musical materials also play an integral function; undergirding the images of the wedding and mediating the emotional and affective display. The argument presented is based on an analysis of 132 selected publicly available videos, sourced from wedding videographers based in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne.
Drawing upon Goffman’s notion of the interaction order we propose
that home and homeliness pertai... more Drawing upon Goffman’s notion of the interaction order we propose that home and homeliness pertain to the degree to which we can control our auditory involvements with the world and with others. What we term “homely listening” concerns the use of music to make oneself feel at home, in some cases, through seclusion and immersion, and, in others, through either the musical ordering of mundane routines or the use of music to engage in sociality with others. Drawing on 29 in-depth qualitative interviews concerning mundane instances of musical listening, we propose the home is a complex sonic order involving territoriality as well as the aesthetic framing of activity through musical and non-musical sounds. We argue the home represents a negotiated sonic interaction order where individuals skilfully manage involvements with others and activities through their musical and other sound practices.
This article presents an account of the social media tourist gaze. It does this by reporting on a... more This article presents an account of the social media tourist gaze. It does this by reporting on a qualitative exploratory study that considers the use of photography and its dissemination on social media while participants stayed overnight at a zoological park. To examine the impact of photography and social media, our study separated participants into two groups: those we asked to refrain from posting on social media and those whom we placed no restrictions on while undertaking this overnight tourist experience. Results indicate that participants experienced heightened levels of connection with tourist activities and increased interactions between participants who were refraining from social media use. But participants also indicate some consternation and difficulty associated with social media abstention. Our contribution provides an understanding of the impact of the social media tourist gaze which suggests that photography has become a critical instrument for sharing experiences within tourism contexts. Tension appears ever present between a need to capture tourist experiences for digital dissemination on the one hand, and engage in the tourist activity itself, which suggest that tourist contexts and providers may need to explore better ways to manage both face-to-face and digital involvements that travellers increasingly feel compelled to perform.
In an era where digital and co‐present involvements become entangled, the role of face‐to‐face co... more In an era where digital and co‐present involvements become entangled, the role of face‐to‐face conversation now vies with mediated communication. Applying insights provided by Erving Goffman, we explore conversational interaction and consider how engrossing face‐to‐face conversation can be understood as a form of socialized trance. We explore how this interaction represents one type of “involvement obligation” that can become disrupted and, increasingly, uniquely impacted by mediated involvements that are enabled through mobile and “smart” devices. The crux of the argument is considered in the context of a burgeoning digital era where conversation is found to become meshed together in uneven ways with mediated interaction. We highlight the efficacy of Goffman's approach with regards to the current information environment, providing insights into how engrossing conversation and its involvement obligations are impacted by mediated interactions and how breaches of conduct are experienced.
Social networking sites are important platforms for visual self-presentation online. This article... more Social networking sites are important platforms for visual self-presentation online. This article investigates how content producers present their gender identities on the social networking site, Instagram. We draw upon and develop Goffman’s analytic framework to understand the self-presentation techniques and styles users employ online. Conducting a visual content analysis of clean eating–related top posts, we examine how users deploy clean eating hashtags and how the architecture of Instagram constrains and enables certain identities around shared lifestyles and commercial interests. Our findings reveal the symbolic significance of hashtags for group membership and the degree to which gender identities on Instagram are configured around platform interfaces.
This Research Note reports on an analysis of the speeches, media releases, opinion pieces, and tr... more This Research Note reports on an analysis of the speeches, media releases, opinion pieces, and transcripts of the utterances of both major party leaders, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese, during the 2022 federal election campaign. We undertake a reflexive thematic analysis of these documents to identify the key messages of the two campaigns. Method We focused on examining the topics raised by the two major party leaders during the 2022 federal election campaign. On each day of the election campaign, we downloaded from their official websites the transcripts of all their speeches, interviews, and doorstops, along with media releases, and, in Albanese's case, opinion pieces written
Music streaming represents a highly personalised, portable technology that enables a ubiquitous l... more Music streaming represents a highly personalised, portable technology that enables a ubiquitous listening quality and transforms the relationship people have with music. It has implications for how music recordings can be engaged with and what people sense they can do with music. Streaming therefore expands the ability of users to inflect music audio across everyday life (DeNora 63), contributing to advancements in playback audio technologies that disarticulate performance spaces from listening contexts (Nowak and Bennett 53). Furthermore, they afford convenient, ostensibly inexpensive, and various opportunities to sort and organise music recordings while also enabling users to engage in personalised recommendations (Lüders 2342).
Crucially, though, streaming services extend listening as a secondary activity (Lüders 2351) in which users of these technologies “listen alongside” (Drott 257) and situate music with other everyday activities. In other words, streaming services afford users the capacity to render music listening as a secondary or background activity, with “backgroundness” now a highly apparent component of streaming cultures (Hagen 238). In this article, I investigate and focus on this background quality. While not representing the only way listeners experience acts of listening while using these services, this quality of music in the background now appears firmly etched into the experiences of many users of streaming services.
Disinformation research is increasingly concerned with the hierarchies and conditions that enable... more Disinformation research is increasingly concerned with the hierarchies and conditions that enable the strategic production of false and misleading content online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was revealed that 12 influencers were responsible for a significant volume of antivaccine disinformation. This article examines how influencers use antivaccination memes for commercial and political gain. Drawing on a 12-month digital ethnography of three disinformation producers on Instagram and Telegram, we conceptualize their strategy of meme warfare in terms of the logics of spoiled identity, demonstrating how stigma is used to galvanize and recast the antivaccination movement around themes of persecution and moral superiority. Dispensing with the idea that content moderation has forced disinformation “underground,” we find that disinformation producers configure memes to adapt to specific platforms by directing mainstream audiences to less regulated platforms, personal newsletters, and sites. By examining the tactics and techniques disinformation producers use to spread antivaccination messaging online, we question the effectiveness of content moderation policies as a solution to regulate influencers whose visibility and status strategically straddle multiple sites in the broader information ecosystem.
Organization. choices, leaving crowdfunding platforms susceptible to weaponization. With Alt-Tech... more Organization. choices, leaving crowdfunding platforms susceptible to weaponization. With Alt-Tech platforms aspiring to build an 'alternative internet', this paper highlights the urgent need to explore digital constitutionalism in the crowdfunding space, establishing firmer boundaries to better mitigate fundraising platforms becoming complicit in catastrophic harms.
The contemporary, professionally-produced wedding video is a salient device of remembrance, compr... more The contemporary, professionally-produced wedding video is a salient device of remembrance, comprising a highly curated, symbolically laden, privately intimate, yet also publicly performed and dissemination-friendly artefact of memory. Such videos have become popular mementos, and their emergence aligns with three broad trends of an overarching ‘visual turn’ (Jay, 1994). The first is the proliferation of ‘prosumer’ technologies for video recording and post-production, making event videography a viable enterprise for those looking to traverse the amateur-professional divide (Moran 2002, 64-96). Second, such practices of multimodality are part of a broader ‘video turn’ in popular media consumption (Holt, 2011), beginning in the 1980s with the emergence of pop culture juggernauts like MTV, and accelerating again through ubiquitous computing and the ease of personal media creation today (Vernallis 2013; Shaviro 2017). Thirdly, as ‘the overlap between producers and users becomes significantly larger’ (Manovich 2001, 118), videos shape the crafting of personal narratives, and we are now accustomed to ‘prosuming’ such narratives through video-hosting across digital platforms (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010). Wedding videography has been well suited to exploiting and indeed escalating all these trends, proving a valued artefact in memorialising this ‘momentous occasion’ (Bezner 2002; Mead 2008).
In this article we focus on the soundtracks used in wedding videos. We argue that music plays a vital role towards inducing desired emotional effects and narrative thrust, providing a sense of continuity, shot-to-shot rhythm, lyrical theming, and interpretive anchoring. Altogether, these musical soundtracks constitute a powerful aural framing device that aids personal and collective memory construction. Moreover, contemporary wedding videographers lean heavily on the appeal of ‘highlight’ packages , which are expressly produced for dissemination on social media. As memories are increasingly mediated via network technologies, we must remain cognizant that the ‘boundaries between present and past are no longer given, but they are the very stakes in debating what counts as memory’ (van Dijck 2007, 404). The music within these videos thus functions as a mnemonically pliable ‘artefact of memory’, holding a special status because of its ‘temporal and non-representational character’ (DeNora 2003a, 81). As such, it can be readily re-coded to complement other texts, particularly in tagging, mapping, and suggesting expected emotional engagement to the viewer. In this context, music soundtracks play an understated role, cutting across and weaving together the various actors, artefacts, and rituals of the occasion, enclosing the video within a suitably affecting auditory frame.
Social media have been central in informing people about the COVID-19 pandemic. They influence th... more Social media have been central in informing people about the COVID-19 pandemic. They influence the ways in which information is perceived, communicated and shared online, especially with physical distancing measures in place. While these technologies have given people the opportunity to contribute to public discussions about COVID-19, the narratives disseminated on social media have also been characterised by uncertainty, disagreement, false and misleading advice. Global technology companies have responded to these concerns by introducing new content moderation policies based on the concept of harm to tackle the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. In this essay, we examine some of the key challenges in implementing these policies in real time and at scale, calling for more transparent and nuanced content moderation strategies to increase public trust and the quality of information about the pandemic consumed online.
Drawing on Erving Goffman's microsociology, this article explores the networking of music streami... more Drawing on Erving Goffman's microsociology, this article explores the networking of music streaming technologies and their convergence with social media. Acts of privatized music listening that were once seamlessly secluded in back regions like the home and therefore removed from the view of others can now become presented more widely in front region contexts. Reporting on in-depth qualitative interviews with users of music streaming and how they perceive their musical listening has been altered, I investigate some of the affordances of streaming as it contributes to an unravelling or collapsing of demarcations between front and back region activity. As a result, users of streaming services describe how they become mindful of how they undertake their music listening and how these technologies consequently require careful management.
Purpose-: To respond to the COVID-19 "infodemic" and combat fraud and misinformation about the vi... more Purpose-: To respond to the COVID-19 "infodemic" and combat fraud and misinformation about the virus, social media platforms coordinated with government healthcare agencies around the world to elevate authoritative content about the novel coronavirus. These public health authorities included national and global public health organisations, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). In this article, the authors evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy by asking two key questions: (1) Did people engage with authoritative health content on social media? (2) Was this content trusted? Design/methodology/approach: The authors explore these issues by drawing on data from a global online questionnaire on "Public Trust in Experts" (n 5 429) conducted during the initial phase of the pandemic in May 2020, a crucial period when reliable information was urgently required to influence behaviour and minimise harm. Findings: The authors found that while the majority of those surveyed noticed authoritative health content online, there remained significant issues in terms of Internet users trusting the information shared by government healthcare agencies and public health authorities online. Originality/value: In what follows, the authors examine the role of trust in implementing this novel public health strategy and assess the capacity for such policies to reduce individual and social harm.
In this article we examine the proliferation of anti-vaccine content on social media during the C... more In this article we examine the proliferation of anti-vaccine content on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ a case study approach to analyse the techniques used by 13 antivaccine influencers to promote vaccine refusal on Instagram for 19 months from January 2020 to July 2021. Our findings reveal that the maternal is strategically invoked in anti-vaccine content by appealing to three interrelated ideal types: the protective mother; the intuitive mother and the doting mother. These portrayals of the maternal are used to encourage vaccine refusal by presenting hegemonic ideals of the 'good mother' as one who is natural, holistic and authentic; depicting anti-vaccination as a feminine ideal to which mothers ought to aspire. Authenticity is framed here as a form of embodied expertise, uncorrupted by culture, politics and the medical establishment. Our findings question the pejorative portrayal of suburban mothers in popular media as critical actors in the anti-vaccine movement by revealing the ways anti-vaccine influencers strategically target mothers on social media to achieve visibility, attention and to support their cause.
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 2021
Tourism and hospitality service experiences are both delivered with and experienced amongst other... more Tourism and hospitality service experiences are both delivered with and experienced amongst other individuals as part of the service setting. Understanding consumer perceptions of these shared experiences is essential for providers. Consumer recollection of these experiences, however, are sometimes limited. This paper explores the opportunity to use paired interviews as a qualitative method for moderating self-reported data “on the spot”. Paired interviews that explore shared experiences can be clarified, or corrected contemporaneously, with reduced bias or modification of what was experienced, particularly when that behaviour may not be socially acceptable. This article presents data collected after a shared tourism experience of an overnight visit to a luxury lodge at a zoo and proposes a framework to classify interactions between participants in a paired interview situation. The method of shared or paired self-reporting interviews results in enriched qualitative data based on the exchanges of pairs participating in the interview process. This method is useful in practice by mitigating limitations identified in self-reporting situations, particularly after a shared service experience.
The COVID-19 crisis highlighted issues of trust in government and experts, as citizens were asked... more The COVID-19 crisis highlighted issues of trust in government and experts, as citizens were asked to accept restrictions on liberties in order to slow the spread of the virus. Based on a survey of 1992 Australians conducted in May 2020, this paper reports on the attitudes of Australians toward the responses of their State and Federal governments to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, we found support for government responses differed with partisan alignment. However, when we controlled for values differences, we found that values predicted social distancing attitudes and behaviour. This oppugns the common conclusion in political psychology that party alignment is a proxy for values. Scientists were trusted more than political institutions or actors for accurate COVID-19 information, and likewise, traditional media were preferred to online sources. These findings have implications for policy communication when individual action is required to address collective goals.
Context collapse blurs the boundaries between public, private, and professional selves and has em... more Context collapse blurs the boundaries between public, private, and professional selves and has emerged as an important research focus in relation to vocational identity. However, the conditions under which context collapse occur have been empirically neglected in the literature. Utilizing Davis and Jurgenson’s theoretical framework of context collapse (i.e., context collusion and context collision) and Erving Goffman’s theory of face-work, this study seeks to determine the consequential outcomes associated with the different context collapse conditions in two phases (Quasi-experimental in Phase 1 and open-ended questions in Phase 2). Specifically, a quasi-experimental study with scenarios was used to examine whether intentionality within context collusion and context collision influenced participants’ perception of loss of face and affect. First-year tertiary students (N = 151) who were also working were randomly selected from a capital state university student population and asked to respond to hypothetical online context collapse scenarios. Multivariate analysis of variance was conducted and the results indicated that context collapse has significant impact on participants’ loss of face and affect (emotion). In addition, a follow-up analysis of variance reveals partial support for the significant impact of context collapse on loss of face and affect.
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2021
In a context where Twitter has come under criticism for enabling and encouraging hostile communic... more In a context where Twitter has come under criticism for enabling and encouraging hostile communication, this article explores how users adopt a ‘Twitter face’ when navigating interactions on the platform. Extending Goffman’s observation that face-work is applicable to both immediate and mediated interaction, this article provides a novel application of face-work on Twitter. Reporting on data from an online questionnaire completed by general Twitter users, we explore how uncivil interaction is experienced on the platform and the interaction strategies users employ to protect their face. We examine how interactions on the platform can lead to a ritual break-down that generate forms of alienation arising from aggressive uses of face-work. We contend that attempts to enhance Twitter as a medium by limiting and restricting particular interactions are ultimately attempts at shaping Twitter’s affordances. In analysing user experience, our discussion considers how incivility is responded to and how the platform encourages users to engage in the avoidance components of face-work, while simultaneously inhibiting the easy adoption of its restorative dimensions. While both dimensions of face-work are vital, the downplaying of restorative aspects of face-work arguably undermines Twitter’s efforts to encourage inclusive interactions across the platform.
Food cultures are shaped by the ubiquity of digital photography. Embedded in social media sites, ... more Food cultures are shaped by the ubiquity of digital photography. Embedded in social media sites, such as Instagram, images of food are used in photographic exchanges to perform identity and interact with community. In a context of proliferating food media, an ethics of “clean eating” – dietary practice adhering to consuming “healthy” foods deemed to be “pure” – is presented as a form of moral food consumption that embraces particular foods while eschewing others. In this article we explore the symbolic dimensions of top post clean eating food images associated with the hashtags #eatclean and #cleaneating and consider how they mobilize photographic practices to present and encourage this lifestyle. Drawing on Mary Douglas and Erving Goffman as our theoretical foundation, we argue that the photographic capturing of food plays a symbolic role in extolling purity through the presentation of idealized images of “clean” foods that are contrasted with foods perceived as defiled. Clean eating posts draw on forms of idealization that aims to garner esteem and attention, while also generating a sense of community through food media. These practices are also configured around an ethics of food that encourage responsible consumption for the individual as a healthy subject.
In this article, we synthesize Goffman's microsociology with recent developments in fields such a... more In this article, we synthesize Goffman's microsociology with recent developments in fields such as aesthetics, geography, and urban studies labeled “atmosphere theory.” Our central rationale is if microsociology is to deepen its account of embodiment and the noncognitive it needs a theory of spatialized moods. In the second half, we develop our synthesis with respect to musical atmospheres and conclude by drawing on our own research regarding how social actors use music to shape “involvements” and “disinvolvements” in the spatial ambiances of public transportation, the street, the workplace, and the home.
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2019
Professionally produced wedding videos are evocative artefacts. Capturing the ritual of the weddi... more Professionally produced wedding videos are evocative artefacts. Capturing the ritual of the wedding, the wedding video stands as a postcard that showcases the conspicuous display of emotion that assumes a central place in the memorialization and indeed the very praxis of the modern wedding ritual. The role of music in the wedding video is crucial; representing a key partner to the imagery of the wedding, the musical dimensions emotionally charge the artefact in perpetuity. In this article we argue that the musical soundtrack of wedding videos services manifold functions, including the enabling of narrative continuity, providing a sense of propulsive rhythm, pacing and supporting the successful communication of emotions that sits at the centre of the compressed iconography of the wedding. Although the visual elements play a lead role, we contend that the unseen qualities of the musical materials also play an integral function; undergirding the images of the wedding and mediating the emotional and affective display. The argument presented is based on an analysis of 132 selected publicly available videos, sourced from wedding videographers based in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne.
Drawing upon Goffman’s notion of the interaction order we propose
that home and homeliness pertai... more Drawing upon Goffman’s notion of the interaction order we propose that home and homeliness pertain to the degree to which we can control our auditory involvements with the world and with others. What we term “homely listening” concerns the use of music to make oneself feel at home, in some cases, through seclusion and immersion, and, in others, through either the musical ordering of mundane routines or the use of music to engage in sociality with others. Drawing on 29 in-depth qualitative interviews concerning mundane instances of musical listening, we propose the home is a complex sonic order involving territoriality as well as the aesthetic framing of activity through musical and non-musical sounds. We argue the home represents a negotiated sonic interaction order where individuals skilfully manage involvements with others and activities through their musical and other sound practices.
This article presents an account of the social media tourist gaze. It does this by reporting on a... more This article presents an account of the social media tourist gaze. It does this by reporting on a qualitative exploratory study that considers the use of photography and its dissemination on social media while participants stayed overnight at a zoological park. To examine the impact of photography and social media, our study separated participants into two groups: those we asked to refrain from posting on social media and those whom we placed no restrictions on while undertaking this overnight tourist experience. Results indicate that participants experienced heightened levels of connection with tourist activities and increased interactions between participants who were refraining from social media use. But participants also indicate some consternation and difficulty associated with social media abstention. Our contribution provides an understanding of the impact of the social media tourist gaze which suggests that photography has become a critical instrument for sharing experiences within tourism contexts. Tension appears ever present between a need to capture tourist experiences for digital dissemination on the one hand, and engage in the tourist activity itself, which suggest that tourist contexts and providers may need to explore better ways to manage both face-to-face and digital involvements that travellers increasingly feel compelled to perform.
In an era where digital and co‐present involvements become entangled, the role of face‐to‐face co... more In an era where digital and co‐present involvements become entangled, the role of face‐to‐face conversation now vies with mediated communication. Applying insights provided by Erving Goffman, we explore conversational interaction and consider how engrossing face‐to‐face conversation can be understood as a form of socialized trance. We explore how this interaction represents one type of “involvement obligation” that can become disrupted and, increasingly, uniquely impacted by mediated involvements that are enabled through mobile and “smart” devices. The crux of the argument is considered in the context of a burgeoning digital era where conversation is found to become meshed together in uneven ways with mediated interaction. We highlight the efficacy of Goffman's approach with regards to the current information environment, providing insights into how engrossing conversation and its involvement obligations are impacted by mediated interactions and how breaches of conduct are experienced.
Social networking sites are important platforms for visual self-presentation online. This article... more Social networking sites are important platforms for visual self-presentation online. This article investigates how content producers present their gender identities on the social networking site, Instagram. We draw upon and develop Goffman’s analytic framework to understand the self-presentation techniques and styles users employ online. Conducting a visual content analysis of clean eating–related top posts, we examine how users deploy clean eating hashtags and how the architecture of Instagram constrains and enables certain identities around shared lifestyles and commercial interests. Our findings reveal the symbolic significance of hashtags for group membership and the degree to which gender identities on Instagram are configured around platform interfaces.
In a time when music streaming has become the dominant mode of consuming music recordings, this b... more In a time when music streaming has become the dominant mode of consuming music recordings, this book interrogates how users go about listening to music in their everyday lives in a context where streaming services are focused on not only the circulation of music for users but also the circulation of user data and attention. Drawing insights directly from interviews with users, music streaming is explained as never merely a neutral technology but rather one that seeks to actively shape user engagement. Users respond to streaming platforms with some relishing these aspects that provide music to be drawn into daily activities while others show signs of resistance. It is this tension that this book explores. This unique and accessible study will be ideal reading for both scholars and students of popular music studies, communication studies, sociology, media and cultural studies.
Social Beings, Future Belongings is a collection of sociological essays that address an increasin... more Social Beings, Future Belongings is a collection of sociological essays that address an increasingly relevant matter: what does belonging look like in the twenty-first century? The book critically explores the concept of belonging and how it can respond to contemporary problems in not only the traditional domains of citizenship and migration, but also in detention practices, queer and feminist politics, Australian literature and fashion, technology, housing and rituals.
Drawing on examples from Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, each topic is examined as a different kind of problem for the future – as a toil, an intensity or a promise. Ultimately, the collection argues that creating new ways to belong in contemporary times means reimagining the traditional terms on which belonging can happen, as well as the social itself. Read on their own, each chapter presents a compelling case study and develops a set of critical tools for encountering the empirical, epistemological and ontological challenges we face today. Read together, they present a diverse imagination that is capable of answering the question of belonging in, to and with the future.
Social Beings, Future Belongings shows how belonging is not a static and universal state, but a contingent, emergent and ongoing future-oriented set of practices. Balancing empirical and theoretical work, this book will appeal to researchers, students and practitioners alike.
In this article, we synthesize Goffman's microsociology with recent developments in fields such a... more In this article, we synthesize Goffman's microsociology with recent developments in fields such as aesthetics, geography, and urban studies labeled "atmosphere theory." Our central rationale is if microsociol-ogy is to deepen its account of embodiment and the noncognitive it needs a theory of spatialized moods. In the second half, we develop our synthesis with respect to musical atmospheres and conclude by drawing on our own research regarding how social actors use music to shape "involvements" and "disinvolvements" in the spatial ambiances of public transportation, the street, the workplace, and the home.
Philosophical and Cultural Theories of Music, 2010
This chapter explores how social boundaries are formed through the activity of listening to music... more This chapter explores how social boundaries are formed through the activity of listening to music. I argue through investigating listening practices, we are able to show that boundary-work is integral to forms of musical listening that occur within public and private social contexts. I suggest listeners draw and sculpt boundaries around social activity in an effort to affect the extent to which they are exposed to the immediate social environment. Through listening practices individuals create islands of seclusion from others even when within the environment of the home. Overall, I contend that boundary-work is implicit in musical listening and affords an increased perception of control over how interaction is undertaken by the individual.
Despite some contentions and ambivalences, the Western wedding retains a vaulted place in cultura... more Despite some contentions and ambivalences, the Western wedding retains a vaulted place in cultural imaginaries. However, little scholarship exists on wedding videography, despite holding rich insights regarding memorialization of belonging. Accordingly, this content analysis of 132 videos explores their utterances, signifying artefacts, and ritual displays. Focusing on life narratives and role designations, we explore their discursive valorizing function. Wedding videos present rare occasions where actors explicitly inscribe requisite emotions, intimacies, values, and aspirations. Typically, however, these films reinforce ‘traditional’, heteronormative stances. Moreover, by skirting reflexive capacities through emotive and seductive repertoires, they may present problematic forms of belonging, given what is conspicuously excluded.
Regional Cultures, Economies, and Creativity Innovating Through Place in Australia and Beyond, 2020
In the digital era, there is a tendency to consider knowledge and its creation to be increasingly... more In the digital era, there is a tendency to consider knowledge and its creation to be increasingly untethered from place. No longer limited by linguistic, cultural and spatial barriers, knowledge and its production can be acquired and shared with ease on a global scale. In this chapter, however, we contend that knowledge and its role in the contemporary economy, while impacted by digitalisation, nonetheless remains fundamentally situated within geographic contexts. We argue that cities and regions play a prime role in generating knowledge and facilitating and nurturing knowledge work. In line with this argument, we present the Knowledge City Index for 25 Australian cities to showcase the connections and tensions between the capacity of knowledge situated within regions of Australia and the knowledge economy of urban localities. We find that for some localities the work-related technological transitions will impact favourably on local residents, ensuring the skills and creativity of workers is valued and harnessed by knowledge-intensive activities. For other localities, however, the skills and associated work practices appear increasingly ill-suited to the knowledge economy. These transitions are played out differently within Australian cities. Understanding and exploring this context of knowledge-creation and the implications that stem from its geography is crucial. Findings from this investigation will provide insight into the changing nature of work practices and the cities and regions that are likely to be most and least susceptible to the uneven knowledge-derived social and economic transitions currently underway.
Digital technologies have altered the way that many people consume food. Whereas food was traditi... more Digital technologies have altered the way that many people consume food. Whereas food was traditionally consumed in co-present situations, digital technologies function as ‘disembedding mechanisms’ that ‘lift out’ social relations from local contexts of interaction so they can be experienced across indefinite spans of time-space (Giddens, 1992, pp. 21–22). The result is a profoundly different understanding of food and its relationship to physical space. While the internet allows information to be communicated at an unprecedented rate, social media facilitate social interaction among online communities. Social media sites, such as Instagram, alter how we treat public space. Free from the confines of co-presence, hashtags can be used on these platforms to access like-minded communities at any time and from any space (Baker & Walsh, 2018).
The Routledge International Handbook of Goffman Studies, 2022
While Erving Goffman’s renown stems from his pioneering efforts legitimising the study of the int... more While Erving Goffman’s renown stems from his pioneering efforts legitimising the study of the interaction order and everyday life, an appreciation for his conceptual contributions to the study of social media remains less understood. This could be due to the way Goffman articulated his ideas through the use of metaphor, a general reticence to systematize ideas in consistent fashion, and perhaps most crucially because by the time of his passing the Internet was merely in its infancy. In this chapter, my aim is to outline Goffman’s contribution to the sociological understanding of social media by tracing several concepts that illuminate vital ideas about the interaction order with respect to social media. By adapting several Goffmanian concepts such as facework, framing and gender display, I seek to demonstrate how Goffman’s ideas pertaining to social interaction remain at the heart of many social media practices that are fundamentally ordered and maintained via the visual dimensions of social media. I argue that while Goffman never explicitly provides an analysis of social media his ideas provide fertile grounding for explorations of the digital, offering sociologists insights into the way social interactions remains at the centre of life online.
Public and Private, Erving Goffman, Social Boundaries, Framing, Sound-space, 2011
This thesis explores how the social boundaries contained in musical listening are used to manage ... more This thesis explores how the social boundaries contained in musical listening are used to manage the ‘interaction order’ of everyday life (Goffman 1959; 1983). It draws on Erving Goffman’s approach to social interaction and contends that, through the management of sound, individuals strive to maintain and reinforce an unambiguous definition of social situations (Goffman 1959: 254). Because individuals perpetually listen throughout everyday life, and are unable to literally ‘close’ their ears, compensation for this is achieved through the act of framing social situations with musical listening. By framing experiences of the auditory, individuals respond to and anticipate the variability of sound across everyday life. Framing is taken to be the cognitive ability to separate and demarcate perceptual phenomena from one another, to open and close individuals to parts of the world around them (Goffman 1974). Frames, though often associated with tactile and visual phenomena, are shown in the current study to be also fundamental to how the auditory dimensions of everyday life are experienced. Through framing social activity with musical listening individuals attain heightened control over how social situations are defined. Individuals form personal territories around themselves that function to protect the exposure of the person during the course of everyday interactions. Territories are used by individuals to register forms of encroachment, and this is evidenced in the context of sound by the formation and management of ‘sound-space’ (Goffman 1971: 46). Sound-space is the immediate territory around individuals that, although widely fluctuating depending on location, defines an acceptable sound level for individuals. This threshold level represents for listeners the difference between being exposed and comfortably experiencing everyday auditory phenomena. The notion of sound-space is shown in the current work to be directly connected to the use of musical listening as a framing device. Musical listening is shown as a way listeners shape, limit and define the scope of their sound-space. This confirms and builds on Goffman’s contention that sound-space is a type of ‘sacred’ territory of the self that individuals aim to keep unperturbed throughout everyday life. Musical listening is one of the ways that individuals maintain their auditory preserve. This thesis argues that when framing social situations through musical listening, individuals provide themselves with principles of organisation that govern events and those individuals’ involvement in them (Goffman 1974: 10-11). In the case of the home, this thesis finds that music is used to organise the activity of cooking, cleaning and other domestic duties; in office situations, it is used to construct suitable auditory working conditions; and during commuting to and from work, listening acts as a social resource used to configure the experiences of public and private travel. In each of these social situations of musical listening, I observe that musical listening is linked with how interpersonal interaction is undertaken and how social situations are coherently defined by social actors. I conclude by suggesting that the framing device of musical listening helps to shape social boundaries and therefore plays a crucial role in ensuring the coherence of public and private modes of social behaviour.
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Journal Articles by Walsh J Michael
Crucially, though, streaming services extend listening as a secondary activity (Lüders 2351) in which users of these technologies “listen alongside” (Drott 257) and situate music with other everyday activities. In other words, streaming services afford users the capacity to render music listening as a secondary or background activity, with “backgroundness” now a highly apparent component of streaming cultures (Hagen 238). In this article, I investigate and focus on this background quality. While not representing the only way listeners experience acts of listening while using these services, this quality of music in the background now appears firmly etched into the experiences of many users of streaming services.
In this article we focus on the soundtracks used in wedding videos. We argue that music plays a vital role towards inducing desired emotional effects and narrative thrust, providing a sense of continuity, shot-to-shot rhythm, lyrical theming, and interpretive anchoring. Altogether, these musical soundtracks constitute a powerful aural framing device that aids personal and collective memory construction. Moreover, contemporary wedding videographers lean heavily on the appeal of ‘highlight’ packages , which are expressly produced for dissemination on social media. As memories are increasingly mediated via network technologies, we must remain cognizant that the ‘boundaries between present and past are no longer given, but they are the very stakes in debating what counts as memory’ (van Dijck 2007, 404). The music within these videos thus functions as a mnemonically pliable ‘artefact of memory’, holding a special status because of its ‘temporal and non-representational character’ (DeNora 2003a, 81). As such, it can be readily re-coded to complement other texts, particularly in tagging, mapping, and suggesting expected emotional engagement to the viewer. In this context, music soundtracks play an understated role, cutting across and weaving together the various actors, artefacts, and rituals of the occasion, enclosing the video within a suitably affecting auditory frame.
that home and homeliness pertain to the degree to which we
can control our auditory involvements with the world and with
others. What we term “homely listening” concerns the use of
music to make oneself feel at home, in some cases, through seclusion
and immersion, and, in others, through either the musical
ordering of mundane routines or the use of music to engage in
sociality with others. Drawing on 29 in-depth qualitative interviews
concerning mundane instances of musical listening, we propose
the home is a complex sonic order involving territoriality as well as
the aesthetic framing of activity through musical and non-musical
sounds. We argue the home represents a negotiated sonic interaction
order where individuals skilfully manage involvements with
others and activities through their musical and other sound
practices.
Crucially, though, streaming services extend listening as a secondary activity (Lüders 2351) in which users of these technologies “listen alongside” (Drott 257) and situate music with other everyday activities. In other words, streaming services afford users the capacity to render music listening as a secondary or background activity, with “backgroundness” now a highly apparent component of streaming cultures (Hagen 238). In this article, I investigate and focus on this background quality. While not representing the only way listeners experience acts of listening while using these services, this quality of music in the background now appears firmly etched into the experiences of many users of streaming services.
In this article we focus on the soundtracks used in wedding videos. We argue that music plays a vital role towards inducing desired emotional effects and narrative thrust, providing a sense of continuity, shot-to-shot rhythm, lyrical theming, and interpretive anchoring. Altogether, these musical soundtracks constitute a powerful aural framing device that aids personal and collective memory construction. Moreover, contemporary wedding videographers lean heavily on the appeal of ‘highlight’ packages , which are expressly produced for dissemination on social media. As memories are increasingly mediated via network technologies, we must remain cognizant that the ‘boundaries between present and past are no longer given, but they are the very stakes in debating what counts as memory’ (van Dijck 2007, 404). The music within these videos thus functions as a mnemonically pliable ‘artefact of memory’, holding a special status because of its ‘temporal and non-representational character’ (DeNora 2003a, 81). As such, it can be readily re-coded to complement other texts, particularly in tagging, mapping, and suggesting expected emotional engagement to the viewer. In this context, music soundtracks play an understated role, cutting across and weaving together the various actors, artefacts, and rituals of the occasion, enclosing the video within a suitably affecting auditory frame.
that home and homeliness pertain to the degree to which we
can control our auditory involvements with the world and with
others. What we term “homely listening” concerns the use of
music to make oneself feel at home, in some cases, through seclusion
and immersion, and, in others, through either the musical
ordering of mundane routines or the use of music to engage in
sociality with others. Drawing on 29 in-depth qualitative interviews
concerning mundane instances of musical listening, we propose
the home is a complex sonic order involving territoriality as well as
the aesthetic framing of activity through musical and non-musical
sounds. We argue the home represents a negotiated sonic interaction
order where individuals skilfully manage involvements with
others and activities through their musical and other sound
practices.
Drawing on examples from Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, each topic is examined as a different kind of problem for the future – as a toil, an intensity or a promise. Ultimately, the collection argues that creating new ways to belong in contemporary times means reimagining the traditional terms on which belonging can happen, as well as the social itself. Read on their own, each chapter presents a compelling case study and develops a set of critical tools for encountering the empirical, epistemological and ontological challenges we face today. Read together, they present a diverse imagination that is capable of answering the question of belonging in, to and with the future.
Social Beings, Future Belongings shows how belonging is not a static and universal state, but a contingent, emergent and ongoing future-oriented set of practices. Balancing empirical and theoretical work, this book will appeal to researchers, students and practitioners alike.