Living in the Mediatope: A Multimethod Study on the Evolution of Media Technologies in the Domestic Environment

Abstract

Domestication is a productive concept for analyzing the sensemaking processes behind the integration of media technologies into everyday life. However, researchers have yet to take advantage of the full heuristic potential of this metaphor. So far, most studies have focused on single devices and employed qualitative methods, mainly case studies, to generate insights into the process of domestication. The authors suggest broadening of perspective to the overall domestic ecology within which media cohabitate and compete. Toward this goal, they conducted a large-scale multimethod study involving observations and interviews in 100 households, thereby analyzing not only the "birth" of individual media devices into households, but also examined how these devices reside in certain "mediatopes" (media environments), how they compete as different media "species," and how they change their social and spatial positions during their lifecycle. More generally, the study demonstrates how to apply domestication research to the topography of a domestic media environment that is complementary to the ethnographical descriptions that have dominated the literature thus far.

Composition and role of convergent technological repertoires in audiovisual media consumption

“…The domestication perspective specifically gained prominence due to the stark increase in the number of technologies in the home, in the 1980-1990s, whereas before, the focus was uniquely directed at media texts, and their interpretation (Haddon, 2007). This evolution has not ceased to persist, and consequently, it is ever important to keep interest in the physical dimension of technology appropriation in the context of everyday media consumption, especially because the opportunities they enable persist to expand (Quandt & von Pape, 2010).…”

Elderly people and morality in virtual worlds: A cross-cultural analysis of elderly people’s morality in interactive media

“…Recent approaches in migration studies accentuate the notion that migration is not a one-way process of assimilation, but rather a complex process consisting of different acculturation strategies (Levitt and Jaworsky, 2007;Nauck, 2008). This is paralleled in findings from research and theory on the appropriation of media and technology literature (such as social shaping/construction of technology, domestication theory and the social construction of technology), which stresses a similar social negotiation process (Quandt and von Pape, 2010). We argue that when elderly people are confronted with morally challenging situations in a virtual world, they might indeed experience a similar situation that migration literature describes when migrants are confronted with a new and unfamiliar culture (Feather, 1979) -a situation causing feelings of disorientation and a reliance on the values and norms known to them from their host culture (Esser, 1980: 71).…”

Exploring (un)sustainable growth of digital technologies in the home

“…Re-adoption (or re-domestication) of technology, and re-definition of the meanings of technologies [25] (e.g. John's old TV now having a different meaning in his ecology) play a role in the growth of digital technologies, as technologies that have already been adopted and integrated into practice can more easily-as we see for John's second TV-be re-domesticated.…”

“…For the new technology to be integrated in everyday they pass through two phases, adoption and integration [25]. The ownership of one technology from a single manufacturer can sometimes lead to future purchases from the same manufacturer, leading to growing ecologies of a particular ecosystem (e.g.…”