Affiliation:
1. University of Haifa, Israel
Abstract
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.
Funder
Israel Science Foundation
Subject
Sociology and Political Science,Communication
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