Convenient efficiency
A media genealogy of QR codes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12655845 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dang Nguyen (0000-0003-1280-3444, RMIT University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 5742-5762 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Media & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/14614448221141086 |
| OpenAlex | W4311247382 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 25 |
This article explains the widespread adoption of Quick Response (QR) codes from a media genealogy perspective. Understanding QR codes as more than the materiality of their machinic embodiments and rather as a method of systematically and repeatedly addressing emergent problems, I argue that the operative logic of QR code is that of convenient efficiency. Convenient efficiency captures three dynamics that drive QR codes’ ubiquity: the potentiality of spontaneous system synergies (system/distributed convenience coupled with streamlined efficiency); the autonomy of the subjects involved as part of this cybernetic system (personal convenience coupled with stacked efficiency); and the relative independence of the networks/assemblages that these practices constitute (convenient efficiency). That the convergence between convenience and efficiency as driving forces in contemporary technological culture has origins in the shop floor is consequential to the way motion, time and the body become disciplined—as well as the epistemological practices that cohere around these forces
Aesthetics · Art · Autonomy · Code (set theory · Convergence (economics · Economics · Epistemology · Materiality (auditing · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Sociology · Computer Science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Digital Media and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · QR Code Applications and Technologies · Artificial Intelligence · Theoretical Computer Science
The Mantra of Efficiency
The Costs of Connection
The Taming of Chance
The Senses of Touch
Media genealogy
From scientific management to homemaking
Making touch analog
Uniform multilingualism
Scientific Management and the Unions, 1900-1932
Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge
Discipline and Punish
The Factory as Laboratory
Coded Vanilla
Situated Knowledges
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |