Being-in-touch
The (im)possibilities of communicative and tactile connection in online experiences
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6443637 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lara J Mertens (0009-0009-6370-5378, University of Haifa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 1795-1810 |
| Publication date | 2023-10-16 |
| 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 | 10.1177/14614448231203309 |
| OpenAlex | W4387668304 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 39 |
Amid social distancing and the sole reliance on communication technologies to “keep in touch” precipitated by COVID-19, touch, both communicatively and tactically, emerged in complex ways. This study examines Airbnb Online Experiences as a new media offering possibilities for people to be “in touch” with others around the world through short-lived interactive activities on Zoom. While new media technologies traditionally expand the potential for sustained connection and increasingly replicate elements of “in-person” communication, this emerging digital phenomenon, although enabling wider communicative reach and enhanced somatic experience, exists in fleeting, physically distanced connections. Through ethnography, the article examines how participants navigate circumstances of touch in online experiences, both by ways of communicative contact and physical proximity. The term being-in-touch is proposed, inspired by works on touch from relational ontological perspectives, to capture the multiple meanings and many ways of being in touch, exploring the relational nature and (im)possibilities of connection
Aesthetics · Art · Connection (principal bundle · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Digital media · Distancing · Epistemology · Ethnography · Internet privacy · New media · Phenomenon · Social media · Sociology · World Wide Web · Communication · Computer Science · Digital Media and Philosophy · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
The Culture of Connectivity
Internet Society
The Deepest Sense
The Senses of Touch
Practice, Interpretation, and Meaning in Today’s Digital Media Ecosystem
Handbook of New Media
Touching Matters
Connectionwork
On haptic media and the possibilities of a more inclusive interactivity
Connected presence' in distributed family life
Mobile media, domestic play and haptic ethnography
How do I hold this thing? Controlling reconstructed Q*berts
Semefulness
Home on the move
The limits and boundaries of digital disconnection
Archaeologies of Touch
Human-Machine Reconfigurations
Media Worlds
Media anthropology for the digital age
Haptic media studies
The Infrastructure of Experience and the Experience of Infrastructure
Enacting intimacy and sociality at a distance in the Covid-19 crisis
On Touching-the Inhuman That Therefore I Am
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women
The Anthropology of Online Communities
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |