Shiva, Amir-Pouyan (2016) Understanding Users: The Extensions of Expectant Systems; In: 2016 Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings; p. 120–133. doi:10.1111/1559-8918.2016.01080
Abstract
This paper provides an ethnographic understanding of users in the Persian blogosphere through the framework of the carnivalesque. The repertoire of concepts provided by the carnivalesque draws attention to (1) the significance of the material, (2) the dynamic, transforming nature of things, and (3) the possibility of upsetting hierarchies. Drawing upon these insights, ethnographic evidence in this paper suggests that in the Persian blogosphere the material expression of thoughts at times precedes thoughts themselves. The same thoughts may then in turn be used by bloggers in transforming selves. The materiality of the tools bloggers use also contributes to self-fashioning in the Persian blogosphere as the formal properties of blogging services turn users into the instruments of their functionality. Blogs in this sense are expectant systems that demand specific intervention from users so they can function. As such, this paper in the tradition of the carnivalesque playfully turns McLuhan’s famous formulation of media as the “extension of man” on its head by arguing that users can likewise be understood as extensions of expectant systems.
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