#AoIR2024 Industry

Session Chair: Kath Albury
 
Presentation 1
 
AFFECTIVE TEMPORALITIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA: WORLD YOUTH DAY 2023
Ana Jorge⁽¹⁾, Ana Kubrusly⁽²⁾
1: Lusófona University; 2: NOVA University of Lisbon
 
Post-secular pilgrimage is increasingly popular, affording communitas (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013) as well as collective effervescence (Serazio, 2013) to pilgrims. Pilgrimage can be augmented by digital media (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013), but pilgrims usually limit their access to habitual devices, people, and digital services during their pilgrimage (Jorge, 2023). This paper focuses on the case of the World Youth Day 2023, hosted in Lisbon, and seeks to explore the role of digital and social media in sustaining pilgrim communities as atmospheres developed through time flows (Hitchen, 2021). To such end, we use the notion of affective temporalities (Nikunen, 2023). We performed a content, multimodal analysis (Bouvier & Rasmussen, 2022) on the material gathered through searching Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Giphy, and maps and apps related to the event.
While Facebook groups allowed for coordination and peer support and advice, TikTok and Instagram afforded gains of visibility through hashtags. Giphy appears as a repository of humorous content from both official and vernacular cultures. As for apps and maps, they seemed to be more focused in the present, as they were helpful tools to navigate and manage the logistics of the event, but did not take on a collaborative mode. Anticipation, coordination and rememorating were shared affective temporalities shared by pilgrims through social media, through which communitas, effervescence and longing were processed.
 
 
Presentation 2
 
“DIGITAL PEACEBUILDING”: EXAMINING YOUNG WOMEN LEADERS' USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TO BUILD PEACE IN THE PHILIPPINES
Lynrose Jane Genon
Digital Media Research Center, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
 
This paper conceptualises digital peacebuilding by demonstrating how Muslim, Lumad, and Christian young women leaders, who are marginalised in peacebuilding processes, are using Facebook and TikTok in building everyday peace in the Philippines' Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Through an intersectional feminist lens and employing social media analysis, the article demonstrates how these women navigate their diverse identities online, shaping discussions on peace and security within BARMM and extending their influence beyond the region's peace process. Preliminary findings reveal that (1) social media is a vital platform for young women to voice their peace agenda, often neglected in traditional and institutional peacebuilding platforms; (2) within the diverse context of BARMM, different groups of young women have distinct perceptions of peacebuilding; (3) practising care both to the self and community is central to their peacebuilding work; and (4) digital peacebuilding of young women leaders extends beyond the mere use of technology to promote peace and encompasses unique ‘platform vernaculars’ (Gibbs et al., 2015). This paper broadens the narrow 'tool' view of digital peacebuilding,' emphasising the crucial interplay between technology and social practices in understanding its effectiveness in achieving and sustaining peace. Additionally, by documenting the active involvement of young women in digital peacebuilding, it ensures their perspectives are integrated into peace processes, promoting more inclusive and equitable paths to conflict resolution.
 
 
Presentation 3
 
The work of digital inclusion: Exposing the digital labour of community workers fostering digital participation
Peta Mitchell⁽¹⁾, Amber Marshall⁽²⁾
1: Queensland University of Technology, Australia; 2: Griffith University, Australia
 
This paper presents findings from a national-scale project that worked with disadvantaged communities across Australia to examine digital inclusion in low-income families and the role of social infrastructure (e.g., schools, libraries, charities, government services) in supporting digital participation. Drawing on data collected in interviews and community workshops in an outer urban community with significant socioeconomic challenges, we illuminate the digital labour of community sector workers who routinely act as digital mentors. These workers support family members who often lack access to digital devices and services along with the requisite skills to use digital technologies to perform everyday tasks, such as helping families to contact telecommunications providers, access government apps, and apply for jobs or rental leases online.
In light of our results, our study extends the concept of digital labour to include work undertaken in the service and advocacy of digital inclusion in community contexts. Specifically, we articulate the activities, challenges, frustrations, and costs (in time and resources) that characterise digital inclusion support of low-income families, often beyond role expectations. In doing this, we seek to expand understandings of digital labour both as a category and concept. Overall, the paper demonstrates that digital inclusion initiatives must not only accommodate the intersecting socio-cultural needs of low-income families, but include appropriate support and resourcing for community workers performing critical digital mentoring work.
 
 
Presentation 4
 
ALTERNATIVE FUTURES! FOSTERING ECO-DIGITAL AGENCY IN GENERATIVE AI WORKSHOPS WITH YOUNG PEOPLE
Minna Vigren
LUT University
 
The ability to imagine alternatives is important in fostering hope for more just futures. However, it is not easy. In fact, it has been argued that the decline of imagination has prevented us from finding effective solutions to urgent planetary crises and alternatives to capitalism. In this paper, I present how the challenge was methodologically tackled and ways to spark imagination searched for in an ongoing research project. The paper presents methodological reflections, observations, and critical considerations from seven experimental workshops in which an AI image generator was used as a tool for imagining. The starting point was that young people's perceptions, hopes, and fears about the future matter because the future concerns them particularly. Yet, their voices often remain unheard.
The pedagogical approach was a combination of feminist, critical, anarchist, speculative, and utopian pedagogies. The use of an AI image generator allowed the playful creation of images, simultaneously providing opportunities to critically examine AI’s ethics and sustainability. It fostered the participants’ _eco-digital agency_ in creating a collective space in which hopes and fears were voiced and heard, and today’s society and needs for its transformation were discussed. Yet, there are issues in using generative AI as a research tool. Proprietary applications prevent researchers from evaluating their ethical foundations and sustainability. With datasets consisting of images harvested from the past and present, the question is to what extent it is possible to imagine something completely new and previously unimaginable with them.