something for the weekend

Last Post of the year: Facebook, SingStar and 2009

Well, I am obviously a dreadful blogger….  I keep getting distracted and forget to update it, then I forget that about the things I wanted to blog anyway…  A few things have happened recently that I wanted to jot down.

1) I was at www.icis2008.org early in December presenting our work on Facebook (see my last post).  The work went down well (I think) we still have some more work to do on making the contribution stronger, but it’ll get there.  I’m particularly interested in looking at the power as related the morality of technology – how do non-human actors engage in the processes of the exercise of power with us?  Also, another interesting thing happened at ICIS, a few people asked about my work on www.gaydar.co.uk, not only was this flattering, but it was satisfying given the age it has taken to get this work published!  Also, it was great that both men and women asked about the work as central to some of it are notions of masculinity and all too often this can be conflated with men, and men’s interests… So the fact that women gender researchers were interested in this was refreshing given the nature of the conference – (within information systems gender, I feel very much equates with Women in the main and I don’t think that’s very helpful).  Obviously it’s different in other fields where gender research takes place – I do acknowlege that.

2) This is as exciting as my life gets…. Finally, Sony have seen fit to release an update for the SingStar PS3 game which allows PS2 discs to be used within the PS3 game (although only on certain versions of the PS3 console which is strange).  As I’m researching this, it’s going to be interesting to see how this change is viewed by the players I am enaged with.  I know on various social networking sites and forums, the upgrade has been eagerly anticipated, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in practice.

Anyway, all the best for 2009 for those people that actually look at this – I’m hoping my cold shifts soon, so I feel a bit more refreshed before I go back to work on the 5th January…  I’m sure I’ll get through my new year party though… ;o)

Here we go again!

Well, as usual, I’m running late with my preparations for a conference – I leave for the AOIR meeting in Copenhagen tomorrow.  Not since I was a research fellow over 12 years ago have I been able to plan my trip properly!  I have however made a point this time of printing off the programme as it looks really interesting – in fact it’s one of the most interesting programme’s I’ve seen in a long time and I’m really looking forward to presenting our work on SingStar.  Who would have thought that I’d end up presenting in the Music stream! As I’ve mentioned before, I am doing some work with Elaine Ferneley and Gordon Fletcher regarding how the move from the PS2 to PS3 platform has reconfigured the gamer’s experiences (or not) and the experiences of those who gamers interact with beyond the game. Here’s the title and abstract… 

Access All Areas? The Evolution of SingStar from the PS2 to PS3 Platform  - Despite many challenges to technological determinism it is fair to say that technological development is often still presented to, and by, those in organisations and society as inevitably good.  The internet is positioned as affording access to a range of information and services that can qualitatively improve our every day lives.  Whilst this clearly can be acknowledged as the case, we also know that the internet can raise difficulties and even disadvantages.  Understanding this interconnected complex domain of sociotechnical experience precludes broad generalizations and requires recognition of the nuances that surround specific sets of sociotechnical assemblages.  By drawing upon Dutton’s (2005) reconfiguration of access arguments we investigate the use of digital games within recreational environments. The ideas in this paper are based upon two intersecting ethnographies and a qualitative non-participant field study of the console based game, SingStar. Through this approach we demonstrate that the sociotechnical choices associated with different versions of the game have constructed a reconfiguration of access to SingStar that critiques the automatic association of new versions of technology with improvement and examines the ways in which non-use and, in effect, non-access could similarly alter and even extend a game play experience. More broadly, studying the evolution of what was, in effect, a ‘stand alone’ digital game to a network enabled version demonstrates how a move to becoming an internet based platform may restrict rather than enable access.  Utilising an entertainment oriented activity and technology to examine the issues that underlie Dutton’s rubric of ‘access’ also permits intersecting consideration of the respective roles that developer, user, non-user and technology have in the mediation of social experience.

You can find a copy of the paper here (aoirv7 )- admittedly we need to work on it some more. Comments welcome!

Meanwhile, I need to get home, get packed and go for a guitar lesson….