Kirsty Best
Biographic Data
| ID | 154522 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kirsty Best |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kirsty |
| FAMILY NAME | Best |
| SIGNATURE | BEST K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Murdoch University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 35 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Virtual Space
Drawing on the results of a study examining the use of Second Life as a platform for social support by people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), the authors posit that virtual architecture needs to be designed to be inclusive to people with cognitive impairments. The ME/CFS Centre in Second Life allowed people who were socially isolated to forge social support systems across geographical distances. However, technolo…
The Necessity of Control for Computer and Internet Users With Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
In this article, the authors present results from an ongoing study of individuals with ME/CFS who are using the virtual reality site, Second Life, as a medium for social support networks. We expand on Norman, Hartson and Best's categories of affordances by proposing an additional four tiered framework for the categorization of types of communication breakdowns that occur in human–computer interactions. The four proposed categories are: human–comp…
Second life avatars as extensions of social and physical bodies in people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
In 2009, a virtual reality support centre in the virtual world Second Life was constructed for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome to determine whether a virtual reality setting could help alleviate the social isolation experienced by sufferers of this condition, despite the specific challenges technology presents to individuals with the illness. The results of the study suggest that the physiological effects experience…
Scaling digital walls
Users of mobile phones, computers and other digital media devices are increasingly confronted with what Lessig calls ‘architectural control’. This article presents results from a study which reveals that users adopt four tactics in negotiating architectural control: modifying use, modifying the technology, decreasing use and acceptance. Users consent in two ways: by internalizing control through incorporating architectural constraints into their …
The filtered encounter
Technologies are meant to enable us to contact more people, more often, and in this way “network” with others. Applied to dating, this would appear to be a good thing, as people would thereby benefit from having additional choice. However, the flip side of the coin is that because of the increased choice we get a case of too much information, too many choices, too many potential (and potentially unsatisfying) mates. We find in a qualitative study…
Living in the control society
Despite growing political and academic interest in increases in surveillance brought about by digital technology, users of these technologies themselves appear to remain relatively unconcerned with surveillance, accepting the trade-off of greater usability for decreased control. This article interrogates the contradiction between people’s professed opinions and their actual behaviours, and the contradiction between public and academic discourse a…
Invalid Command
Recent studies of information and communication technologies as diverse as mobile phones, video games and computers have revealed the centrality of control issues to users. But although researchers have highlighted the centrality of control as a concept in understanding user experiences of digital technology, studies have not sufficiently prioritized the experience. Findings about control have been mostly tangential. We contend that a salient and…
When Mobiles Go Media
This article argues that the reasons people adopt—or resist adopting—media capabilities on their mobile devices are largely concerned with their experience of control over technology. In particular, the ever-present, ready-to-hand nature of media on mobile devices plays a strong role in establishing and mediating these relationships of control. To substantiate this argument, I draw on findings from a qualitative research study undertaken of Canad…
Rethinking the Globalization Movement
How can we understand and evaluate the relationship between democracy and recent global protests in response to economic globalization? Criticisms of this type of activism understand democratic communication to be primarily a public process. I argue that instead, we need to develop a more fully cultural understanding of democracy and communication, one which would take into account important characteristics of contemporary democratic practice and…
Celebrity.com
The blowing of the Internet stock bubble was one of the great stories of the late twentieth century. As the millennium approached, we watched stock market prices for information and technology stocks consistently rise above those of blue chip, established corporations. By the first quarter of 2001, most Internet stocks showed losses of 80–100% of the prices they had reached in 2000. This paper argues that we are only scratching the surface of the…
Interfacing the Environment
The screen continues to be the primary generator of visual imagery in contemporary culture, including of the natural world. This paper examines the screen as visual interface in the construction and consumption of physical environments. Screens are increasingly incorporated in our daily habits and imbricated into our lives, especially as mediating technologies are embedded into the surfaces of our physical surroundings, shaping and molding our in…
Revisiting the Y2K Bug
The Y2K bug was a global media event of the twentieth century, only to fade from view after an anticlimactic change of millennium. This article argues that a reexamination of the text of the Y2K bug illuminates the contemporary cultural construction of value in information and networking technologies. Through the examination of a broad range of media reports and articles, this article illustrates how a hegemonic discourse is creating scales of va…
Beating them at their Own Game
This article interrogates the validity of claims that the open software movement provides a substantial alternative to intellectual property and a challenge to the encroaching commodification of digital space. The open software movement is participating in ongoing language wars of the new communication technologies; it is attempting to redefine the social and economic value of information and computer networking, and as such does present a challe…
The hacker's challenge
This paper examines the relationship between hacking and democracy. It suggests that hacking, as a culturally formed and informed practice, is involved in struggles over the signification and significance of democracy. In particular, hacking is associated with an ethics and practice of active access to information. However, after tracing historical and cultural shifts in practices, discourses and representations of hacking, the paper also suggest…
Hacking the Democratic Mainframe
As with many of the other 45 000 computer viruses operating across the globe, the Melissa virus constitutes a significant threat to organisational processes. There are two major readings of the Melissa virus's social and political implications - one rejecting its subversive intent, the other celebrating it. In either case, these readings reflect the inadequacy of current theorisations of the relationship between computer networked communication, …
Living in the control society
Despite growing political and academic interest in increases in surveillance brought about by digital technology, users of these technologies themselves appear to remain relatively unconcerned with surveillance, accepting the trade-off of greater usability for decreased control. This article interrogates the contradiction between people’s professed opinions and their actual behaviours, and the contradiction between public and academic discourse a…
Rethinking the Globalization Movement
How can we understand and evaluate the relationship between democracy and recent global protests in response to economic globalization? Criticisms of this type of activism understand democratic communication to be primarily a public process. I argue that instead, we need to develop a more fully cultural understanding of democracy and communication, one which would take into account important characteristics of contemporary democratic practice and…
Scaling digital walls
Users of mobile phones, computers and other digital media devices are increasingly confronted with what Lessig calls ‘architectural control’. This article presents results from a study which reveals that users adopt four tactics in negotiating architectural control: modifying use, modifying the technology, decreasing use and acceptance. Users consent in two ways: by internalizing control through incorporating architectural constraints into their …
The filtered encounter
Technologies are meant to enable us to contact more people, more often, and in this way “network” with others. Applied to dating, this would appear to be a good thing, as people would thereby benefit from having additional choice. However, the flip side of the coin is that because of the increased choice we get a case of too much information, too many choices, too many potential (and potentially unsatisfying) mates. We find in a qualitative study…
Second life avatars as extensions of social and physical bodies in people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
In 2009, a virtual reality support centre in the virtual world Second Life was constructed for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome to determine whether a virtual reality setting could help alleviate the social isolation experienced by sufferers of this condition, despite the specific challenges technology presents to individuals with the illness. The results of the study suggest that the physiological effects experience…
Revisiting the Y2K Bug
The Y2K bug was a global media event of the twentieth century, only to fade from view after an anticlimactic change of millennium. This article argues that a reexamination of the text of the Y2K bug illuminates the contemporary cultural construction of value in information and networking technologies. Through the examination of a broad range of media reports and articles, this article illustrates how a hegemonic discourse is creating scales of va…
Virtual Space
Drawing on the results of a study examining the use of Second Life as a platform for social support by people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), the authors posit that virtual architecture needs to be designed to be inclusive to people with cognitive impairments. The ME/CFS Centre in Second Life allowed people who were socially isolated to forge social support systems across geographical distances. However, technolo…
Hacking the Democratic Mainframe
As with many of the other 45 000 computer viruses operating across the globe, the Melissa virus constitutes a significant threat to organisational processes. There are two major readings of the Melissa virus's social and political implications - one rejecting its subversive intent, the other celebrating it. In either case, these readings reflect the inadequacy of current theorisations of the relationship between computer networked communication, …
Revisiting the Y2K Bug
The Y2K bug was a global media event of the twentieth century, only to fade from view after an anticlimactic change of millennium. This article argues that a reexamination of the text of the Y2K bug illuminates the contemporary cultural construction of value in information and networking technologies. Through the examination of a broad range of media reports and articles, this article illustrates how a hegemonic discourse is creating scales of va…
Beating them at their Own Game
This article interrogates the validity of claims that the open software movement provides a substantial alternative to intellectual property and a challenge to the encroaching commodification of digital space. The open software movement is participating in ongoing language wars of the new communication technologies; it is attempting to redefine the social and economic value of information and computer networking, and as such does present a challe…
The hacker's challenge
This paper examines the relationship between hacking and democracy. It suggests that hacking, as a culturally formed and informed practice, is involved in struggles over the signification and significance of democracy. In particular, hacking is associated with an ethics and practice of active access to information. However, after tracing historical and cultural shifts in practices, discourses and representations of hacking, the paper also suggest…
Interfacing the Environment
The screen continues to be the primary generator of visual imagery in contemporary culture, including of the natural world. This paper examines the screen as visual interface in the construction and consumption of physical environments. Screens are increasingly incorporated in our daily habits and imbricated into our lives, especially as mediating technologies are embedded into the surfaces of our physical surroundings, shaping and molding our in…
Rethinking the Globalization Movement
How can we understand and evaluate the relationship between democracy and recent global protests in response to economic globalization? Criticisms of this type of activism understand democratic communication to be primarily a public process. I argue that instead, we need to develop a more fully cultural understanding of democracy and communication, one which would take into account important characteristics of contemporary democratic practice and…
Celebrity.com
The blowing of the Internet stock bubble was one of the great stories of the late twentieth century. As the millennium approached, we watched stock market prices for information and technology stocks consistently rise above those of blue chip, established corporations. By the first quarter of 2001, most Internet stocks showed losses of 80–100% of the prices they had reached in 2000. This paper argues that we are only scratching the surface of the…
Invalid Command
Recent studies of information and communication technologies as diverse as mobile phones, video games and computers have revealed the centrality of control issues to users. But although researchers have highlighted the centrality of control as a concept in understanding user experiences of digital technology, studies have not sufficiently prioritized the experience. Findings about control have been mostly tangential. We contend that a salient and…
When Mobiles Go Media
This article argues that the reasons people adopt—or resist adopting—media capabilities on their mobile devices are largely concerned with their experience of control over technology. In particular, the ever-present, ready-to-hand nature of media on mobile devices plays a strong role in establishing and mediating these relationships of control. To substantiate this argument, I draw on findings from a qualitative research study undertaken of Canad…
Living in the control society
Despite growing political and academic interest in increases in surveillance brought about by digital technology, users of these technologies themselves appear to remain relatively unconcerned with surveillance, accepting the trade-off of greater usability for decreased control. This article interrogates the contradiction between people’s professed opinions and their actual behaviours, and the contradiction between public and academic discourse a…
Scaling digital walls
Users of mobile phones, computers and other digital media devices are increasingly confronted with what Lessig calls ‘architectural control’. This article presents results from a study which reveals that users adopt four tactics in negotiating architectural control: modifying use, modifying the technology, decreasing use and acceptance. Users consent in two ways: by internalizing control through incorporating architectural constraints into their …
The filtered encounter
Technologies are meant to enable us to contact more people, more often, and in this way “network” with others. Applied to dating, this would appear to be a good thing, as people would thereby benefit from having additional choice. However, the flip side of the coin is that because of the increased choice we get a case of too much information, too many choices, too many potential (and potentially unsatisfying) mates. We find in a qualitative study…
The Necessity of Control for Computer and Internet Users With Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
In this article, the authors present results from an ongoing study of individuals with ME/CFS who are using the virtual reality site, Second Life, as a medium for social support networks. We expand on Norman, Hartson and Best's categories of affordances by proposing an additional four tiered framework for the categorization of types of communication breakdowns that occur in human–computer interactions. The four proposed categories are: human–comp…
Second life avatars as extensions of social and physical bodies in people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
In 2009, a virtual reality support centre in the virtual world Second Life was constructed for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome to determine whether a virtual reality setting could help alleviate the social isolation experienced by sufferers of this condition, despite the specific challenges technology presents to individuals with the illness. The results of the study suggest that the physiological effects experience…
Virtual Space
Drawing on the results of a study examining the use of Second Life as a platform for social support by people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), the authors posit that virtual architecture needs to be designed to be inclusive to people with cognitive impairments. The ME/CFS Centre in Second Life allowed people who were socially isolated to forge social support systems across geographical distances. However, technolo…
Computer Science (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Human–computer interaction (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Digital Games and Media (5 works) · Epistemology (5 works)