Hello everyone,
I am happy to announce that my submission to the 20th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing has been accepted for publication! This piece wouldn’t have been possible without the co-authorship and support from my advisor, Dr. Silvia Lindtner. The paper is titled “Constructing a Desiring User: Discourse, Rurality, and Design in Location-Based Social Networks” and is based off research I have been doing since 2014 on the use of location-based social networks by rural gay men in the Upper Midwest. The abstract is below and you can download and read (and cite :-P) a PDF of the paper at http://bit.ly/DesiringUser
Abstract:
A growing body of literature addresses the use of Grindr and SCRUFF, location-based networking applications for gay, bisexual, and queer men. This study builds on that work, asking whose sexuality is produced in the design and use of these applications. Drawing from ethnographic research and discourse analysis, we build on analytical frames from science and technology studies, feminist HCI, and sexuality studies, proposing what we call the desiring user: a user whose desires and sexuality are mediated through technological devices in particular ways. In doing so, we demonstrate how the discursive constructions of the user put forth by the creators of Grindr and SCRUFF clash with the lived reality of our rural interlocutors. We address emerging themes in CSCW and HCI related to the construction of sexual subjectivities and social computing in rural settings.
jean hardy 