[End] Users as Designers

The Internet in Everyday Life in Irish Households

Bibliographic Data

ID3008637
AuthorsDeirdre Hynes (0000-0001-8355-9341, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume16
Issue1
Pages18-29
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropology in Action (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0967-201X • E-ISSN: 1752-2285
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/aia.2009.160103
OpenAlexW2095119805
LanguageEN
Citations received6

This paper presents a study of Irish households, the internet and everyday life. Social studies of technology draw heavily from anthropology, not only in ethnographic methodologies but also in the ways in which such data can be understood and interpreted within the contexts of everyday life. To achieve this, the concept of the domestication of (media) technologies has been developed to describe and analyse the processes of technology's acceptance, rejection and use. Domestication is employed as a structural and analytical framework to achieve an empirical understanding of the domestic user. Based on a critical analysis from an anthropological perspective, the paper will revise the original domestication of the concept of technology. The notion of technological black boxes and I-methodology strategies are critiqued. This paper calls for users to be conceptualised as active agents in the overall design process and not as just end users who become active once the artefact has become commodified

Commodification · Domestication · Epistemology · Ethnography · Everyday life · Irish · Perspective (graphical · Process (computing · Sociology · The Internet · World Wide Web · Anthropology · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Technology Use by Older Adults · Ecology

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access