Dear colleagues,

Please see details below of a fully-funded PhD studentship based in the Media School, Bournemouth University, to research consumer transformations through Digital Virtual Consumption (DVC)

Cheers

Dan

Fully-funded PhD studentship

THE MEDIA SCHOOL, BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY

Applications are currently invited for a fully-funded PhD scholarship based in the Media School, Bournemouth University (UK).

Exploring consumer transformations through Digital Virtual Consumption (DVC)

This project seeks to better understand the transformative potential of digital virtual consumption (DVC), the consumption of digital goods and experiences available through the Internet, online multiplayer games, videogame consoles, smart phones and other electronic devices.
The progressive dematerialisation of consumer culture has made the digital domain a fertile site for consuming intangible, digital goods. For example, music, film and book collections are increasingly held in personal digital archives rather than CD, DVD or paper format. Sales of digital music now surpass that of CDs and Amazon sell more e-books than tangible books (Wired, 2011). Such collections may also be rented (via subscription) rather than owned outright. Online games offer opportunities to possess other digitally created artefacts - and this is our key interest here - including ‘magical’ items in games such as World of Warcraft (with 12m subscribers), and livestock and property in social networking games like Farmville and Cityville (played by 84m Facebook users). Both mundane and exotic items may also be shopped for and used in virtual worlds such as Secondlife or Habbo Hotel. Videogames offer the chance to own an even wider range of goods such as cars in Forza, or Gran Turismo, luxury consumer goods in The Sims, or science fiction weapons and vehicles in First Person Shooters (54.3% of UK consumers own a videogame console, Mintel, 2010). What such goods have in common is an ambiguous status, for example, as concrete, but not material in the usual sense; as possessed with a sense of ownership, but not always paid for or even legally owned in the way material possessions may be; and as ‘useful’ within the context of the software, but often serving no function outside the game (a digital virtual car cannot drive you to work; digital virtual clothes cannot keep you warm, etc). Individuals attend to these Digital Virtual goods in new ways and take from them new experiences. New consumer practices are being formed. In this study we want to explore everyday experiences with such commodities to produce new theories of Digital Virtual Consumption that highlight the specific consumer cultures that are emerging, including new experiences of ownership, new experimentation with subject positions, and new ways to actualise aspects of the imagination. Literature to date has been understandably anchored on the materiality of consumer goods hence there is much scope here for conceptual innovation. Similarly, there is a growing appetite in both academic and practitioner circles to understand consumers’ experiences in valuing, using, and transforming digital virtual goods.

The student undertaking this project will achieve this through established methods of interpretative consumer research including phenomenological interviews and netnographies of player communities. The purpose and value of such methods is to capture and document the range of new experiences available to individuals through narratives provided by participants about how DVC fits into their everyday lives and provides them with meaning. This data would be used to theorise emerging consumer cultures.

FULL PROJECT DESCRIPTION
http://media.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/documents/Molesworth-v2.pdf

PhD Supervisor: Dr Mike Molesworth
Co-Supervisors: Dr Janice Denegri-Knott and Dr Becky Jenkins

CLOSING DATE
Deadline for applications is 31 July 2011.

HOW TO APPLY
Details on how to apply:
http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/studentships/how_to_apply.html

If you wish to discuss this opportunity further, please get in touch with Mike Molesworth [log in to unmask]

Further details about the Bournemouth University studentships:
http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/studentships/phd_studentships.html




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