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Domesticating Technology, orThe Domestic as a Site for Tech

Research

January 31, 2008COMS 472

How Has the Home Changed?

• There’s a shifting terrain of domesticity viaICTs & mobile technologies

• Because of technology, how haspublic/private become blurred?

• How has the changing nature of workcontributed to this change? (e.g. telework,contingent work, more work that you haveto do at home)

• In pop culture - how was the domesticbecome a site of interest - home renoshows, ‘Trading Spaces’ etc.

Focus on Materiality

• Privatized lifestyle of the domestichousehold has been privileged

• ‘Smart’ homes (Spigel)• Apolitical…?• Voyeuristic?• Conspicuous consumption?

Television and the Domestic

• Lynn Spigel’s Make Room forTelevision

• Negotiation of the television into thehome - both as a new material objectto fit into the aesthetic character ofthe home, and in managing childhood- bringing into the home new content-world events, entertainment, newmoral panics …

What are the various discourseson new ‘interactive’ tech’s

• Frequently technologicallydeterministic

• Often futuristic orientation• Remember, need to look at new tech’s

in light of old tech’s.• Who are the early adopters in the

home? Kids?

Fetishization of Technology

• How do communication technologies(personal, in the home) make astatement about self-image? Aboutcultural identity?

• Television - placement in the home;design of the television (wide-screen,home entertainment systems)…Mobilephone - personalization through face-plates, ring tone…

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How New Media is Managing theFamily

• Remote mothering (Rakow)• Logistical negotiation• Management of family timetables• Balance of work-family demands• Multi-screen homes, bedroom

cultures of tech• Smart homes - smart and ‘secure’• Domestic surveillance

How was the domestic marketed to theearly daytime TV audience

• Lynn Spigel and Inger Stole have writtenabout this

• The ‘patchwork history’ consists ofindustrial & institutional archives, popularwomen’s magazines, newspapers…

• Appeals to the white, middle-classhomemaker to influence domesticconsumption

• The gendered audience commodity(Meehan)

North America Post WWII

• Network shows and genres producedfor women - e.g., soaps

• Post WWII: Rosie the Riverter back inthe home, relative affluence in NorthAmerican society (GI Bill, suburbia)

• Television developed as private,commercialized industry

• See Prelinger Archives…for ads…

Homemakers, mothers &consumers…

• Media promoted women ashomemakers responsible formanaging family budget

• Ideal was family-orientedconsumption

• TV content focused on women- ex:comedies on women as shoppers

The Growth of DaytimeTelevision

• Emphasis on female topics: cooking,cleaning, shopping, sewing

• Creation of genres - e.g., ‘soaps’• Shopping programs with ‘femcee’s’• Content = consumption as home

entertainment

Progression?

• Home in 1950s - focus on cooking, beauty,homemaking, gardening, child-rearing,shopping

• Have we progressed? See Oprah(http://www.oprah.com/), OxygenNetworks (http://www.oxygen.com/) andLifetime (http://www.lifetimetv.com/),‘Celebrating women every day’

• Who is the target audience; what does thissay about race and class?

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Branding Strategies

• Home: seal of approval, dress line,promotion of gadgets…

• Lifetime’s show, ‘Kim and Aggie’sCleaning Tips,’ sponsored by Dawn(dishwashing soap, owned by Proctor& Gamble), Denise Austin’s ‘tone andsculpt you body with balls and bands’books and videos

Gender Roles Post WWII

• The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit -conformity and boredom

• The Rise of Playboy and Hugh Hefner (seeBarbara Ehrenreich’s The Hearts of Men:American Dreams and the Flight fromCommitment)

• Philip Wylie, Generation of Vipers, and hiscritique of ‘Momism’; seehttp://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/momism.html