“But we still try”: affective labor in the corporate mommy blog

Cummings, Kelsey

doi:10.1080/14680777.2017.1382548

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This affective conflict manifests bodily as a feeling in her chest, as the grinding of her teeth and a pressure felt in her head, 'or then if it's absolutely like, oh no bloody fucking hell, what now, then I do get like a hot feeling in my head' (laughs for a long time). The labour of manipulating, predicting and suppressing affect has been associated with mommy blogs aiming to sell sponsored products (Cummings, 2019). In the exchanges described by our study participants, affective labour comes across as the casual and perpetual maintenance of quotidian sociability that both exhausts and affords joy when exchanges manage to take a desired turn.…”

Section: Tacticsmentioning

confidence: 92%

‘I feel the irritation and frustration all over the body’ Affective ambiguities in networked parenting culture

Lehto

Paasonen

2021

International Journal of Cultural Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article investigates the affective power of social media by analysing everyday encounters with parenting content among mothers. Drawing on data composed of diaries of social media use and follow-up interviews with six women, we ask how our study participants make sense of their experiences of parenting content and the affective intensities connected to it. Despite the negativity involved in reading and participating in parenting discussions, the participants find themselves wanting to maintain the very connections that irritate them, or even evoke a sense of failure, as these also yield pleasure, joy and recognition. We suggest that the ambiguities addressed in our research data speak of something broader than the specific experiences of the women in question. We argue that they point to the necessity of focusing on, and working through affective ambiguity in social media research in order to gain fuller understanding the complex appeal of platforms and exchanges.

show abstract

Section: Tacticsmentioning

confidence: 92%

‘I feel the irritation and frustration all over the body’ Affective ambiguities in networked parenting culture

Lehto

Paasonen

2021

International Journal of Cultural Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Using the methodology of CTDA invites critique of both the message of Stitching the Curve-the visualization of pandemic data-but also the technologies that act as platforms for that data, which includes the scarf itself and the writing focused on the project. In looking at the role of blogging in communicating about the project, for instance, we see Stitching the Curve further removing data visualization from a rhetoric of distance and neutrality and toward a rhetoric of care and affect, as blogging is a space often associated with affective labor (Cummings 2019).…”

Section: Making the Invisible Visiblementioning

confidence: 99%

Stitching the Curve: Pandemic Craft and Feminist Data Visualization

Moreshead

Rouse

Salter

2021

SPIR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Feminist scholars are increasingly drawing attention to the ways “big data” and data representations reinscribe gender and racial inequality, an issue made even more pressing by the role data has taken in our daily lives since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Stitching the Curve," a knitted pandemic data visualization project by librarians at the University of Alberta, offers an intersection between digital activism and craftivism, enabling a material, feminist response to an erasure and minimization of collective loss. We examine the media coverage around the project, which includes the online blogs of the project’s participants. Using critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA) as a guiding methodology, we consider simultaneously the feminist, activist framing and the influence of material and digital platforms on the cultural influence of the work (Brock 2018). Blogging and knitting are frequently associated with craft and writing as an expression of the domestic and personal, relegated to a feminine and, consequently, minimized space of care and labor. Through a critical technocultural discourse analysis of Stitching the Curve, we understand how the project makes a powerful statement in representing not only the oft-dismissed human cost of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also uses mediums of representation that challenge patriarchal “big data” collection and representational practices. Stitching the Curve makes data visualization a rhetoric of care.

show abstract

“She’s the communication expert”: digital labor and the implications of datafied relational communication

Lai

2021

Feminist Media Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“But we still try”: affective labor in the corporate mommy blog

Cited by 5 publications

References 34 publications

‘I feel the irritation and frustration all over the body’ Affective ambiguities in networked parenting culture

‘I feel the irritation and frustration all over the body’ Affective ambiguities in networked parenting culture

Stitching the Curve: Pandemic Craft and Feminist Data Visualization

“She’s the communication expert”: digital labor and the implications of datafied relational communication

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About