Physical Products and Their Digital Representations: Social Media Interaction via School Bags

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 9 Sayı: 17, 291 - 303, 31.12.2024

Şerife Zeynep Özcan , Damla Tonuk

https://doi.org/10.55004/tykhe.1452409

Öz

This study explores the role of digital representations of products with respect to reproduction mechanisms of designed objects, including doings with objects – practices – and the user subjects. To understand these relationships, practice theory that explains objects, subjects and practices as co-constituted is instrumental. The study builds on the concept of digital habitus, an appropriation of Bourdieu’s habitus that includes digital technologies within the reproduction patterns of social practices and so designed objects. Focusing on school bags as physical objects and their digital representations on social media, data is collected by social media harvesting and interviewing 23 high school students. The ways in which designed objects, digital environments, and the user reproduce one another is analysed. It is found that in some cases digital representations are actively utilised to interfere with the real world and in some cases the effect of digital representations on the real world is rather obscure and passive. What catches attention is that these moments of interactions are not designed into these products, rather they are enacted as users live in the digital habitus. Hence, the study aims to provide insights to guide product designers in contemporary product ecosystem that includes digitalized circulation of meaning, by pointing out the ways in which digital representations circulate in the physical realm of our interaction with designed objects.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Digital Habitus, Digital Representations, School Bags, User Subject, Object-Subject

Fiziksel Ürünler ve Dijital Temsilleri: Sosyal Medyada Okul Çantaları ile Etkileşim

Öz

Bu çalışma tasarım nesnesi, kullanıcı özne ve sosyal pratiklerin türetilmesi bağlamında ürünlerin dijital temsillerinin rolünü araştırmaktadır. Tasarım nesnesi, kullanıcı özne ve sosyal pratiklerin oluşturduğu bir ekosistemde var olur. Dijital teknolojilerin yaşamın her alanında yaygınlaşmasıyla birlikte fiziksel ürünlerle etkileşimimiz, yani onları edinme, kullanma, anlamlandırma süreçlerimiz, fiziksel olmayan çevrimiçi dijital temsillerden geçmektedir. Tasarım nesnesinin ve dijital ortamların birbirlerini ve dolayısıyla kullanıcı süjeyi ve pratikleri yeniden ürettikleri anların incelenmesinde, Bourdieu’nun Habitus kavramının, Dijital Habitus olarak uyarlandığı, dijital pratikleri de sosyal üretime dahil eden kavramsallaştırması temel alınmıştır. Bu bağlamda günlük yaşam pratiklerinde fizikselliğiyle temel bir role sahip okul çantaları ve çantalar üzerine sosyal medya paylaşımlarına odaklanılmıştır ve dijital iletişimin içine doğmuş Z kuşağını temsil eden 23 lise öğrencisi ile mülakatlar gerçekleştirilmiştir. Kimi durumlarda kullanıcıların çevrimiçi ortamları aktif bir şekilde fiziki, ‘gerçek’ olan dünyalarını şekillendirmek için kullandıkları görülmüştür. Bazı durumlarda ise dijital ortamın nesnel dünyaya etkisi daha saklıdır ya da kullanıcılar aktif bir şekilde bunu aramadan gerçekleşir. Çarpıcı olan aslında bu etkileşimlerin ürün tasarımcıları tarafından öngörülmemiş olmasıdır, ancak dijital ile entegre yaşamlarda kendini göstermiştir. Fiziksel ürünler ve dijital temsillerin arasındaki ilişki, tasarım sürecinde ürün etkileşiminin farklı ve güncel bir boyutunu dahil etmek adına faydalı olacaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Dijital Habitus, Dijital Temsil, Nesnellik, Okul Çantası, Sosyal Medya, Süje

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