Physical Co-presence Research Articles

Identity Construction, Social Media, and Ifugao Rice Terraces Conservation of Indigenous People's Youth Through Appreciative Inquiry

Recognizing the important contribution of the indigenous people's (IP) youth towards the sustainable development and conservation of the internationally recognized Ifugao rice terraces (IRT) of the Philippines, the University of the Philippines Open University implemented a youth capacity building and exchange program among IP youth from Hungduan, Kiangan, Banaue and Mayaoyao rice terraces in the Ifugao province. The study conducted focus group discussions that included identity construction with physical co-presence and utilization of new communication technologies (NCTs) through the strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results of an appreciative inquiry approach (SOAR). Beliefs, ethnicity and values were three key identity construction factors. Need, talent, passion, and conscience were also included among the dimensions of identity construction. These findings were subsequently used in the design and construction of training course modules customized for IP youth from the IRT using the blended-mode of learning and practical activities such as video logs and memes in NCTs.

“Hägerstrand online”: A methodical template for the analysis of space-time trajectories in collaborations

In economic geography, during the last years interest in various aspects of temporality increased, both in the context of short- as well as longer-term physical interaction constellations. Despite the empirical and theoretical differentiation of physical co-presence, two aspects have not been problematized in a sufficiently systematic fashion so far: first, the dichotomous understanding of physical co-presence (that is reduced to a binary differentiation of presence/absence) and, second, the conception of virtual co-presence as a deficient version of communication (that lacks the broad spectrum of sensual cues of face-to-face interaction). To overcome the insufficient conceptualization of co-presence we enrich our geographical argumentation with findings from adjacent disciplines and focus on the modification in communication contexts implied by virtualization. In particular, the intricate entanglement of offline and online interaction dynamics is challenging the established methodical and conceptual geographical approaches. In order to deal with these challenges, we seek to advance the time-geographic model of Torsten Hägerstrand by including the virtual dimension of interactions. The aim of our extension is the development of a methodical template that is suitable to conceptualize empirically space-time trajectories in physical, virtual and (physical-virtual) synthetic contexts. We illustrate our methodical-conceptual extension of the time-geographic model with empirical vignettes from the fields of art (music production in a studio) and science (pharmaceutical research in a laboratory).

Choreographies of entrepreneurship. How different formats of co-presence are combined to facilitate knowledge creation in seed accelerator programs

This paper explores different functions of co-presence for collaborative knowledge creation in the context of seed accelerator programs. Seed accelerators offer programs of three to six months to enhance the growth of early-stage start-ups through various means of training and organizational development. In this paper, seed accelerator programs are analysed as orchestrated sequences of different types of physical co-presence. By drawing on qualitative case study data, the paper identifies eight different ways in which physical co-presence is used during seed accelerator programs. Through these eight types of co-presence, the analysis reveals that physical co-presence unfolds unique social dynamics that are utilized in a carefully designed combination of presence and absence. It is shown that physical co-presence is a means to enact relational distance and to bridge this distance for the benefit of the entrepreneurial process. Therefore, this paper adds a new perspective on how co-presence is used to facilitate the generation of value through collaborative knowledge creation.

Physical co-presence intensity: Measuring dynamic face-to-face interaction potential in public space using social media check-in records.

Urban public spaces facilitate social interactions between people, reflecting the shifting functionality of spaces. There is no commonly-held consensus on the quantification methods for the dynamic interplay between spatial geometry, urban movement, and face-to-face encounters. Using anonymized social media check-in records from Shanghai, China, this study proposes pipelines for quantifying physical face-to-face encounter potential patterns through public space networks between local and non-local residents sensed by social media over time from space to space, in which social difference, cognitive cost, and time remoteness are integrated as the physical co-presence intensity index. This illustrates the spatiotemporally different ways in which the built environment binds various groups of space users configurationally via urban streets. The variation in face-to-face interaction patterns captures the fine-resolution patterns of urban flows and a new definition of street hierarchy, illustrating how urban public space systems deliver physical meeting opportunities and shape the spatial rhythms of human behavior from the public to the private. The shifting encounter potentials through streets are recognized as reflections of urban centrality structures with social interactions that are spatiotemporally varying, projected in the configurations of urban forms and functions. The results indicate that the occurrence probability of face-to-face encounters is more geometrically scaled than predicted based on the co-location probability of two people using metric distance alone. By adding temporal and social dimensions to urban morphology studies, and the field of space syntax research in particular, we suggest a new approach of analyzing the temporal urban centrality structures of the physical interaction potentials based on trajectory data, which is sensitive to the transformation of the spatial grid. It sheds light on how to adopt urban design as a social instrument to facilitate the dynamically changing social interaction potential in the new data environment, thereby enhancing spatial functionality and the social well-being.

Tracking opinion convergence online

Abstract We investigate whether facial attractiveness, as one source of positive/negative attitudes towards one’s conversational partner, affects the degree and type of opinion convergence online, even in the absence of physical co-presence. Our hypothesis is that when you interact with someone you find attractive, opinion convergence will occur even if you are not physically co-present with them. Additionally, we tracked different types of opinion convergence (one-sided or mutual) and how convergence is linguistically negotiated in these different circumstances. Our hypothesis was confirmed, to a point. Opinion convergence was most frequent among Attracted pairs; however, opinion convergence was greatest among Neutral pairs. Opinion convergence was qualitatively different in the 3 conditions. This research adds to previous studies which highlighted aspects of communication unique to online environments (anonymity, invisibility) to explain the heightened tendency for face-threatening behaviours to occur online, by showing how implicit biases (operationalized here as facial attractiveness) can be an additional factor influencing online behaviour.

Media, conflict and diaspora audiences

Abstract Emergence of diaspora communities has resulted in diasporic media playing a key role in enabling a reconnection of diasporic populations with a mediated homeland. This becomes more poignant amongst diaspora communities that feel marginalized, racially discriminated against and battle threats of xenophobia, Islamophobia and other forms of social exclusion in their adopted Western homes. This makes mediated co-presence more powerful than physical co-presence as diaspora individuals try to find community at a distance. Taking the Somali diaspora community as a case study, this article explores how diasporic media content is consumed amongst conflict-generated diaspora audiences. When conflict dynamics are manifested within diaspora social networks, the re-creation of conflict takes place, which then facilitates the engagement of diaspora with homeland conflicts. But their views, reactions and concerns regarding diasporic media content also indicate their potential for deliberatively engaging with it.

PolySensorium Tells Your Fortune

PolySensorium Tells Your Fortune

Closeness at distance: new formats of authentic movement in runet

The article explores the transformation of authentic movement formats following the development of the Internet and social networks. The Internet offers a range of possibilities that challenge basic principles of authentic movement such as the mover and the witness physical co-presence, time and space limits. A hypothesis arises on possible digital divide while digital integration process attracts researchers’ attention.Using empirical data, different behavioural strategies in Internet are studied among Russian-speaking practitioners of authentic movement. Formats such a regular pair session conducted online and a solo movement session supported by a virtual group are given as examples. The authors focus on the qualitative aspect of human-technology relationships theorized in Don Idhe’s works on postphenomenology. Whether the Internet enlarges or reduces authentic movers’ bodily and sensory experience?How digital environment affects relationships in authentic movement, where security, trust and intimacy must to be crucial?

Are Shakespeare's plays always metatheatrical?

The ambiguity of the term derives in part from its text of origin, Lionel Abel's 1963 book of the same name. By his own admission, Abel's use of the term was loose and sometimes erratic (v). If we use the term in its broadest sense—to describe any theater that in some way draws attention to its own artifice—it becomes evident that early modern drama is always metatheatrical to some extent: these plays are designed never entirely to lose sight of the material realities of their performance, or of the physical co-presence of their audiences. If this is the case, how useful is the term metatheatre? Indeed, are Shakespeare's plays always metatheatrical? This article unpicks some of the conflicting notions of metatheatre suggested in Abel's book, and suggests a modified conceptual model based the work of Arthur Koestler. Arguing against the tendency to see early modern theatrical self-consciousness as a form of proto-Brechtian alienation, it uses Koestler's concept of bisociation to think about the delight produced by universes of discourse colliding, frames getting entangled, or contexts getting confused (40). It considers several examples from performance, especially moments from productions at the reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe, to argue that metatheatre functions as a kind of imaginative game. This game may be prompted by cues in the written text, but it is one that can be played only in performance. While Harry Newman's essay for this special issue argues that metatheatricality was available to early modern readers on the paper stage of printed playbooks (104), my essay posits a decidedly more theatrical definition of the term, contending that the agency of the actors plays a central role in determining the metatheatricality of particular moments stage.

Skype interview in qualitative research: an overview of reflections

The article presents an overview of the scientific publications, dedicated to the usage of Skype and programs alike for conducting qualitative research interview. The author describes some formal differences and similarities, as well as analyses some of content’s aspects. The researches on Skype interview are in general quite coherent and the conclusions made by their authors do not contradict each other.However, this may indicate as well that the usage of Skype in interviews has not been researched enough, especially regarding the fact, that the authors of such publications often do not specialize on methodology, and that the overall empirical experience of conducting Skype-interviews on average is very limited.Besides, the author of this review notices that her colleagues mention that Skype interviews take place not in the situations of physical co-presence, but in their comparisons they do not consider this fact as a difference worthy to be studied.

Now I See You, Now I Don’t: Screen Services, Short Stature, and the Fear of Being Seen

As psychoanalysts venture into the online world, they are confronted with both anxiety and opportunity. In this paper, I attempt to add to our collective thinking about the perils and potentials of introducing technologically mediated communication (e.g., Skype, FaceTime) into the treatment situation. I present the case of an 11-year-old boy of short stature, or Dwarfism, for whom screen relations–based sessions were used as an adjunct to face-to-face psychoanalytic psychotherapy. I argue that the introduction of screen relations provided the patient with a temporary respite from the narcissistic pain of being seen. Indeed, although I agree that relying on screen relations risks the possibility of relational disconnection between analyst and patient, it may also provide a means for the patient to begin to exert a degree of control over impinging reflected appraisals of himself via the analyst’s visual, auditory, and physical copresence without banishing them entirely. In the case I present, the introduction of screen relations presented the analytic dyad with an opportunity to work through important relational meanings attached to the patient’s experience of being small. Over time, the patient was able to risk new, increasingly intimate forms of engagement both inside and outside of the consulting room.

Ambivalent gender power in interstitial space: The case of transnational South Korean mothers

ABSTRACTThis article describes the maintenance of transnationally split families and the creation of new relationships in the new social space occupied by Korean mothers. During two years of ethnographic field-work in four cities in New York State in the US, I examined how family members communicated with each other in order to maintain long-distance relationships through physical co-presence and virtual communication via information and communication technologies (ICTs). Transnational actors used these selectively based on socioeconomic and cultural practices. In the case of the South Korean mothers, mutual (financial) surveillance and communication filtering were selected differently, depending on socioeconomic factors. Gendered power relations surrounding ICTs and transnationalism cannot be seen as unidirectional, but represent a rather complex and ambivalent picture. This study investigates women’s strategies for managing family affairs, mutual surveillance by spouses, communication filtering and accumulation of social capital in the interstices of a transnational social space.

Complementarity and substitution between physical and virtual travel for instrumental information sharing in remote rural regions: A social network approach

International development practitioners are highly optimistic that mobile phones can improve the lives of the inhabitants of remote rural areas in developing countries with an underdeveloped transportation infrastructure. However, the instrumental role of telecommunication is unclear in contexts where residents’ information-sharing networks are strongly geographically constrained by their limited mobility. Empirical research on the interactions between telecommunication and travel in rural areas of developing countries is lacking.This study analyses physical and virtual contact patterns within 1270 instrumental information-sharing relationships reported by the inhabitants of the Pulau Panggung and Sumber Rejo rural subdistricts of Indonesia. In 2013, we implemented an exogenous mobility intervention. In 2014, we administered a network survey in 16 randomly selected farming groups to map local residents’ egocentric and sociocentric physical and virtual travel networks.By comparing the observed networks with simulated random networks, analysing the relationship characteristics and their history, and performing a regression analysis with fixed effects, we examine the complementarity and substitution between telecommunication and travel in the creation and maintenance of social networks. By examining the effects of the exogenous intervention, we can explain the mechanisms underlying the uncovered associations.The results suggest path dependency between physical and virtual travel in remote rural areas. The implication for transportation policy is that physical mobility is a precondition for the creation of virtual information-sharing links. Instrumental communication relationships that do not socially require regular physical co-presence can be partially substituted by virtual travel only after virtual links have been created through physical mobility. Therefore, in contrast with general expectations, mobile telephony in remote rural regions is more practical if the transportation infrastructure is adequately developed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential contribution of the sociocentric network perspective to transportation research.

Re-chercher l’amour transnational

Cet article explore l’expérience vécue de la relation amoureuse transnationale chez des femmes canadiennes en couple avec un homme non-occidental. Les périodes de co-présence physique et de séparation géographique avec l’amoureux ont été contrastées. Il en émerge une polarisation entre l’être-en-couple ensemble, temps associé aux émotions positives, euphoriques ; et l’être-en-couple séparé, temps associé aux émotions négatives. Ainsi, pour ces femmes, une vie commune avec leur partenaire, sous un même toit, dans un même pays, devient l’objectif ultime de leur relation amoureuse transnationale. Cependant, vu les contraintes à la mobilité de leur conjoint, cette vie commune ne peut se réaliser qu’à travers le processus laborieux de « parrainage » de l’immigration de leur conjoint au Canada.

The benefits of distance and mediation: How people react to conflicts in video chat vs. FtF

Conflicts come as natural elements in human relationships and they are experienced in face-to-face as well as mediated interactions. Yet, it is unclear in which way and to which degree the modality of interaction influences the experience, the process, and the outcome of conflict communication. Comparing face-to-face and video chat encounters, the current experiment examined whether different communication modalities (video chat: mediated-distal vs. face-to-face: non-mediated-proximal) affect emotional arousal, partner evaluation, and communication satisfaction in conflict-laden interactions. Arousal was measured via self-report as well as physiological measures (interbeat interval, galvanic skin response). Results show that people who interacted via video chat reported less arousal than those who interacted face-to-face although there was no significant difference in physiological arousal measures. Also, those who interacted via video chat rated their partner and their conversation more positively. The findings suggest that, although some nonverbal signals were conveyed in both settings, the lack of mere physical co-presence in mediated encounters might be beneficial for conflict resolution.

A more reflective form of joint problem solving

This paper explores the emergence of joint problem solving in online environments where the participants work together but at different times and from different places. Collaborations of this sort have been referred to as loosely coupled collaborations. The focus is on venue which is the virtual substitute for physical copresence under these conditions. Venue is fundamentally a social construct. It functions to “localize” participation dynamics, communication and register, the creation and sharing of domain objects, and situation-dependent knowledge. Within venue, the reflective parts of joint problem solving become more prominent. Within venue, small teams of students align their views, coordinate their efforts, share their understanding and work, and jointly problem solve.

Irregular status, territorial confinement, and blocked transnationalism: legal constraints on circulation and remittances of Senegalese migrants in France, Italy, and Spain

This paper explores the link between legal status and transnational engagement through the lenses of territorial confinement and blocked transnationalism. We hypothesize that irregular legal status results both in direct territorial confinement—an inability to visit the homeland—and in indirect caging of remitting, an important non-mobile transnational activity. This caging is hypothesized to result from an attenuation of social ties associated with reduced physical co-presence with kin and other important individuals in the homeland. Using longitudinal data on Senegalese migrants in France, Italy, and Spain from the MAFE Project, we find that Senegalese migrants who lack of secure legal status are effectively confined to the destination territory, preventing them from making short visits to the homeland. The direct and indirect relationships between irregular status and remittances, though, vary by destination country: the hypothesized relationships are not evident for migrants in Spain, indicating the role played by other facets of the context of reception, such as policy tolerance and the characteristics of the co-ethnic community.

Classroom Habit(us) and Physical Co-presence in a Blended Learning Environment

In this exploratory case study we map the educational practice of teachers and students in a professional master of Interaction Design. Through a grounded analysis of the context we describe and reflect on: 1) the use of digital learning tools in a blended learning environment, 2) co-presence as an

El profesor como catalizador de energía emocional frente a la ambivalencia del nuevo entorno tecno-educativo

Resumen Este artículo pretende dos objetivos complementarios: por un lado, mostrar en el primer epígrafe las limitaciones constitutivas a los estudios teórico-empíricos que tratan de analizar los vínculos causales entre las tecnologías y la educación. Se intenta poner de manifiesto que tal empresa carece de un final feliz por sus propias limitaciones endógenas. Por otro lado, mostrar que, más allá de esos vínculos causales, hay una cuestión ineludible en el aspecto micro-educativo: la co-presencia física de profesores y alumnos para generar rituales con alta energía emocional. Para ello, se utiliza el modelo de cadenas de rituales de interacción de Randall Collins (2004) y el modelo de autoeficacia docente de Pajares y Bandura. Se quiere poner de manifiesto que el papel del profesor universitario, además de la transmisión de información y contenidos (que exige un profesor con un papel activo en la investigación), es el de ser catalizador y generador de energía emocional en el aula, que requiere la co-presencia física. Se concluye que dependiendo de los objetivos de los estudiantes a la hora de elegir sus estudios en cuestión, estos podrían virtualizarse completamente cuando sólo se busca la adquisición de contenidos, o deberán mantener la co-presencia física cuando los objetivos del estudiante rebasen lo puramente informativo, y busquen también la entrada en rituales de interacción en los que se transmitan emociones y energías que coadyuvan a la importancia de los contenidos intelectuales.

The Morality of Premarital Romances

This article explores how young women use social media to experience premarital romances in Mardin, a medium-sized town in southeast Turkey. It argues that love stories mediated by social media are integral to the enactment of a gendered moral self. The ethnographic data presented here indeed highlight how premarital romances and Muslim morality are not two contradictory and opposing ideals, but rather two constitutive aspects of the same mediated practices. Secrecy, lack of physical co-presence and the performance of a virtuous self in public and semi-public online spaces are common elements of the new romances. Yet social norms ruling the use of the online platforms to start and live premarital relationships are not shared by everybody, and different understandings of religion, morality and modernity have generated different and contrasting expectations. The article aims to contribute not only to the study of the effects of social media on interpersonal relations, but also to the understanding of how, in Muslim societies, moral norms are entangled with everyday practices mediated by digital media.