[csaa-forum] New Article: Digital infrastructure, ultra-fast broadband, and citizenship in the Gigatown competition in the South Island, Aotearoa New Zealand

[Randell-Moon, Holly]

Dear CSAA Colleagues,


Some of you may be interested in my new journal article from Continuum:


Digital infrastructure, ultra-fast broadband, and citizenship in the Gigatown competition in the South Island, Aotearoa New Zealand<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10304312.2024.2325105>



Gigatown (2013–2014) was a joint initiative between the telecommunications company Chorus and the New Zealand government to award a town ‘The fastest internet in the Southern Hemisphere’ through a social media competition. Gigatown involved the production, by participating towns, of social media content that demonstrated the economic and other benefits of ultra-fast broadband and gigabit connectivity. This paper argues that the competition’s logics are biopolitical in the valorization of citizenship as tied to social media and information and communications technologies (ICT) proficiency. Focusing on the South Island city of Dunedin, and drawing on the conceptual framework of somatechnics for understanding the embodied relationship between governance and technology, I show how the competition somatechnically positions residents as consumer-citizens whose social media proficiency and digital labour facilitate their participation in policy planning and development. In order to meet infrastructural planning priorities for the penetration of ultra-fast broadband into business and consumer domains, the competition incited and relied on residents’ civic love and volunteer labour for their city’s future. Such labour is ‘spaced-off’ as de-materialized and de-territorialized, construed as something done for fun in spare time, which left some participants experiencing burnout in their somatechnical embodiment of active digital citizenship.



Kind regards,

Holly.



[Charles Sturt]<https://www.csu.edu.au>

________________________________

LEGAL NOTICE

This email (including correspondence comprising an email chain and any attachment) is confidential and is intended for the use of the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must not copy, distribute, take any action in reliance on it or disclose it to anyone.
Any confidentiality is not waived or lost by reason of mistaken delivery. Any email should be checked for viruses and defects before opening. Charles Sturt University does not accept liability for viruses or any consequence which arise as a result of this email transmission. Email communications with Charles Sturt University may be subject to automated email filtering, which could result in the delay or deletion of a legitimate email before it is read at Charles Sturt University. The views expressed in this email are not necessarily those of Charles Sturt University.

Charles Sturt University in Australia<https://www.csu.edu.au> The Grange Chancellery, Panorama Avenue, Bathurst NSW Australia 2795 (ABN: 83 878 708 551). Charles Sturt University - TEQSA Provider Identification: PRV12018 (Australian University). CRICOS Provider: 00005F.

Consider the environment before printing this email.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20240424/dfc377ac/attachment.htm>