Multi-Situated App Studies: Methods and Propositions

This article discusses methodological approaches to app studies, focusing on their embeddedness and situatedness within multiple infrastructural settings. Our approach involves close attention to the multivalent affordances of apps as software packages, particularly their capacity to enter into dive...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social media + society Vol. 5; no. 2
Main Authors: Dieter, Michael, Gerlitz, Carolin, Helmond, Anne, Tkacz, Nathaniel, van der Vlist, Fernando N., Weltevrede, Esther
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.06.2019
Sage Publications Ltd
SAGE Publishing
Subjects:
Embeddedness
Interfaces
Political systems
Social dynamics
Social systems
Software
mobile apps
app stores
situatedness
software studies
app studies
infrastructure
ISSN:2056-3051, 2056-3051
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article discusses methodological approaches to app studies, focusing on their embeddedness and situatedness within multiple infrastructural settings. Our approach involves close attention to the multivalent affordances of apps as software packages, particularly their capacity to enter into diverse groupings and relations depending on different infrastructural situations. The changing situations they evoke and participate in, accordingly, make apps visible and accountable in a variety of unique ways. Therefore, engaging with and even staging these situations allows for political-economic, social, and cultural dynamics associated with apps and their infrastructures to be investigated through a style of research we describe as multi-situated app studies. This article offers an overview of four different entry points of enquiry that are exemplary of this multi-situated approach, focusing on app stores, app interfaces, app packages, and app connections. We conclude with nine propositions that develop out of these studies as prompts for further research.
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ISSN:2056-3051
2056-3051
DOI:10.1177/2056305119846486