Call for abstracts for themed issue on body weight and digital media

I am editing a themed issue for Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society on the topic of body weight and digital media. Fat Studies is the first academic journal that critically examines theory, research, practices, and programs related to body weight and appearance.

If you are interested in contributing to this themed issue, please send me an article title and an abstract of 200-250 words outlining what you would propose to cover by 29 February 2016. Final submissions should be no longer than 7,000 words, including the abstract, all notes and references. Please email to deborah.lupton@canberra.edu.au

In keeping with the journal’s emphasis on ‘body weight and society’, the themed issue will include contributions that address the following and related topics from a critical sociocultural perspective:

• representations of body weight and size in the digital news media (and also how readers may comment on news reports online)
• apps and wearable devices for weight control, physical fitness and energy expenditure
• selfies and body size
• the discussion and portrayal of such issues as weight loss, body size, fat activism, thinspo, fitspo, pro-ana, pro-mia and fat pornography and erotica in blogs, social media platforms and other websites
• big data and body weight

If your abstract is accepted, the following deadlines apply:

• Full papers by 31 May 2016
• Revised final versions by 30 August 2016

 

My new book: The Quantified Self

My new book The Quantified Self: A Sociology of Self-Tracking is due out with Polity Press this April. The publishers are offering a 20% discount for six months (from 18 January 2016 to 31 July 2016) if it is ordered via their website. Please use the code PY703 when you order to receive the discount.

Here is a PDF of the Introduction: Lupton 2016 Introduction to The Quantified Self.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1          ‘Know Thyself’: Self-tracking Practices and Technologies

2          ‘New Hybrid Beings’: Theoretical Perspectives

3          ‘An Optimal Human Being’: the Body and Self in Self-Tracking Cultures

4          ‘You are Your Data’: Personal Data Meanings, Practices and Materialisations

5          ‘Data’s Capacity for Betrayal’: Personal Data Politics

Conclusion

References

Index

 

 

My 2015 publications

Here are my publications that came out in 2015.

Book

• Lupton, D. (2015) Digital Sociology. London: Routledge.

Book chapters

• Lupton, D. (2015) Digital sociology. In Germov, J. and Poole, M. (eds), Public Sociology: An Introduction to Australian Society, 3^rd St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.
• Lupton, D. (2015) Donna Haraway: the digital cyborg assemblage and the new digital health technologies. In Collyer, F. (ed), The Palgrave Handbook of Social Theory in Health, Illness and Medicine. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Peer-reviewed journal articles

• Lupton, D. (2015) Quantified sex: a critical analysis of sexual and reproductive self-tracking apps. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17(4), 440—53.
• Lupton, D. (2015) Data assemblages, sentient schools and digitised HPE (response to Gard). Sport, Education and Society, 20(1), 122—32.
• Lupton, D. (2015) Health promotion in the digital era: a critical commentary. Health Promotion International, 30(1), 174—83.
• Lupton, D. (2015) The pedagogy of disgust: ethical, moral and political implications of using disgust in public health campaigns. Critical Public Health, 25(1), 4–14.
• Lupton, D. and Jutel, AM. (2015) ‘It’s like having a physician in your pocket!’ A critical analysis of self-diagnosis smartphone apps. Social Science & Medicine, 133, 128—135.
• Jutel, AM. and Lupton, D. (2015) Digitizing diagnosis: a review of smartphone and computer applications in the diagnostic process. Diagnosis, 2(2), online.
• Lupton, D. (2015) Fabricated data bodies: reflections on 3D printed digital body objects in medical and health domains. Social Theory & Health, 13(2), 99—115.
• Lupton, D. and Thomas, G.M. (2015) Playing pregnancy: the ludification and gamification of expectant motherhood in smartphone apps. M/C, 18(5) (online).
• Michael, M. and Lupton, D. (2015) Toward a manifesto for ‘a public understanding of big data’. Public Understanding of Science, online before print
• Thomas, G.M. and Lupton, D. (2015) Threats and thrills: pregnancy apps, risk and consumption. Health, Risk & Society, online before print

Report

• Lupton, D. and Pedersen, S. (2015) ‘What is Happening with Your Body and Your Baby’: Australian Women’s Use of Pregnancy and Parenting Apps. Available here.

Critical social research on self-tracking: a reading list

Self-tracking has recently become a new area of fascination for critical social researchers. A body of literature has now been established of research that has sought to investigate the social, cultural and political dimensions of self-tracking, nearly all of which has come out in the last few years. This literature complements an established literature in human-computer interaction research (HCI), first into lifelogging and then into self-tracking (or personal informatics/analytics, as HCI researchers often call it).

I am currently working on an article that is a comprehensive review of both literatures, in the attempt to outline what each can contribute to understanding self-tracking as an ethos and a practice, and its wider sociocultural implications. Here is a reading list of the work from critical social researchers that I am aware of. I will publish a similar list of interesting HCI research in a forthcoming post.

Albrechtslund, A, and P Lauritsen, (2013) Spaces of everyday surveillance: Unfolding an analytical concept of participation, Geoforum, 49: 310-16.

Allen, AL, (2008) Dredging up the past: Lifelogging, memory, and surveillance, The University of Chicago Law Review, 75 (1): 47-74.

Barta, K, and G Neff, (2015) Technologies for sharing: lessons from Quantified Self about the political economy of platforms, Information, Communication & Society, online first.

Bode, M, and DB Kristensen,  (2016) The digital doppelgänger within. In Assembling Consumption: Researching actors, networks and markets, edited by R. Canniford and D. Badje. London: Routledge, pp.

Bossewitch, J, and A Sinnreich, (2013) The end of forgetting: Strategic agency beyond the panopticon, New Media & Society, 15 (2): 224-42.

Copelton, D, (2010) Output that counts: pedometers, sociability and the contested terrain of older adult fitness walking, Sociology of Health & Illness, 32 (2): 304-18.

Crawford, K, J Lingel, and T Karppi, (2015) Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18 (4-5): 479-96.

Daly, A, (2015) The law and ethics of ‘self quantified’ health information: an Australian perspective, International Data Privacy Law, online first.

Dodge, M, and R Kitchin, (2007) ‘Outlines of a world coming into existence’: pervasive computing and the ethics of forgetting, Environment and Planning B: Planning & Design, 34 (3): 431-45.

Drew, DL, and JM Gore, (2014) Measuring up? The discursive construction of student subjectivities in the Global Children’s Challenge™, Sport, Education and Society, online first.

Fiore-Gartland, B, and G Neff, (2015) Communication, mediation, and the expectations of data: data valences across health and wellness communities, International Journal of Communication, 9: 1466-84.

Fox, NJ, (2015) Personal health technologies, micropolitics and resistance: a new materialist analysis, Health:, online first.

Gardner, P, and B Jenkins, (2015) Bodily intra-actions with biometric devices, Body & Society, online first.

Gerlitz, C, and C Lury, (2014) Social media and self-evaluating assemblages: on numbers, orderings and values, Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 15 (2): 174-88.

Gilmore, JN, (2015) Everywear: The quantified self and wearable fitness technologies, New Media & Society, online first.

Jethani, S, (2015) Mediating the body: Technology, politics and epistemologies of self, Communication, Politics & Culture, 47 (3): 34-43.

Klauser, FR, and A Albrechtslund, (2014) From self-tracking to smart urban infrastructures: towards an interdisciplinary research agenda on Big Data, Surveillance & Society, 12 (2): 273-86.

Lomborg, S, and K Frandsen, (2015) Self-tracking as communication, Information, Communication & Society: 1-13.

Lupton, D, (2012) M-health and health promotion: the digital cyborg and surveillance society, Social Theory & Health, 10 (3): 229-44.

Lupton, D, (2013a) The digitally engaged patient: self-monitoring and self-care in the digital health era, Social Theory & Health, 11 (3): 256-70.

Lupton, D, (2013b) Quantifying the body: monitoring and measuring health in the age of mHealth technologies, Critical Public Health, 23 (4): 393-403.

Lupton, D, (2013c) Understanding the human machine, IEEE Technology & Society Magazine, 32 (4): 25-30.

Lupton, D, (2014a) The commodification of patient opinion: the digital patient experience economy in the age of big data, Sociology of Health & Illness, 36 (6): 856-69.

Lupton, D, (2014b) Self-tracking cultures: towards a sociology of personal informatics. In Proceedings of the 26th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference (OzCHI ’14). Sydney: ACM Press.

Lupton, D. (2014c) Self-tracking modes: reflexive self-monitoring and data practices. Social Science Research Network,  http://ssrn.com/abstract=2483549  (accessed 27 August 2014).

Lupton, D. (2014d) You are your data: self-tracking practices and concepts of data. Social Science Research Network,  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2534211  (accessed 12 December 2015).

Lupton, D, (2015a) Data assemblages, sentient schools and digitised health and physical education (response to Gard), Sport, Education and Society, 20 (1): 122-32.

Lupton, D. (2015b) Lively data, social fitness and biovalue: the intersections of health self-tracking and social media. Social Science Research Network,  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2666324  (accessed 13 November 2015).

Lupton, D. (2015c) Personal data practices in the age of lively data. Social Science Research Network,  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2636709  (accessed 15 August 2015).

Lupton, D, (2015d) Quantified sex: a critical analysis of sexual and reproductive self-tracking using apps, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17 (4): 440-53.

Lupton, D, (2016a) The diverse domains of quantified selves: self-tracking modes and dataveillance, Economy and Society, in press.

Lupton, D, (2016b) The Quantified Self: A Sociology of Self-Tracking Cultures. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Lynch, R, and S Cohn, (2015) In the loop: Practices of self-monitoring from accounts by trial participants, Health:, online first.

Millington, B, (2015) ‘Quantify the Invisible’: notes toward a future of posture, Critical Public Health, online first.

Moore, P, and A Robinson, (2015) The quantified self: What counts in the neoliberal workplace, New Media & Society, online first.

Nafus, D, (2013) The data economy of biosensors. In Sensor Technologies:  Healthcare, Wellness and Environmental Applications, edited by M. McGrath and C. N. Scanaill: Springer.

Nafus, D, (2014) Stuck data, dead data, and disloyal data: the stops and starts in making numbers into social practices, Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 15 (2): 208-22.

Nafus, D, and J Sherman, (2014) This one does not go up to 11: the Quantified Self movement as an alternative big data practice, International Journal of Communication, 8: 1785-94.

Neff, G, and D Nafus, (2016) Self-Tracking. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Niva, M, (2015) Online weight-loss services and a calculative practice of slimming, Health:, online first.

Pantzar, M, and M Ruckenstein, (2015) The heart of everyday analytics: emotional, material and practical extensions in self-tracking market, Consumption Markets & Culture, 18 (1): 92-109.

Reigeluth, TB, (2014) Why data is not enough: digital traces as control of self and self-control, Surveillance & Society, 12 (2): 243-54.

Rettberg, JW, (2014) Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ruckenstein, M, (2014) Visualized and interacted life: personal analytics and engagements with data doubles, Societies, 4 (1): 68-84.

Ruckenstein, M,  (2015) Uncovering everyday rhythms and patterns: food tracking and new forms of visibility and temporality in health care. In Techno-Anthropology in Health Informatics, edited by L. Botin, C. Nohr and P. Bertelsen. Amsterdam: IOS Press, pp. 28-40.

Ruckenstein, M, and M Pantzar, (2015a) Beyond the Quantified Self: thematic exploration of a dataistic paradigm, New Media & Society, online first.

Ruckenstein, M, and M Pantzar, (2015b) Datafied life: techno-anthropology as a site for exploration and experimentation, Techne, 19 (2): 191-210.

Sellen, AJ, and S Whittaker, (2010) Beyond total capture: a constructive critique of lifelogging, Communications of the ACM, 53 (5): 70-77.

Smith, WR, (2015) Communication, sportsmanship, and negotiating ethical conduct on the digital playing field, Communication & Sport, earlyview online.

Stragier, J, T Evens, and P Mechant, (2015) Broadcast yourself: an exploratory study of sharing physical activity on social networking sites, Media International Australia, 155 (1): 120-29.

Thomas, GM, and D Lupton, (2015) Threats and thrills: pregnancy apps, risk and consumption, Health, Risk & Society, online first.

Till, C, (2014) Exercise as labour: Quantified Self and the transformation of exercise into labour, Societies, 4 (3): 446-62.

Van Den Eede, Y,  (2015) Tracing the tracker: a postphenomenological inquiry into self-tracking technologies. In Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human–Technology Relations, edited by R. Rosenberger and P.-P. Verbeek. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, pp. 143-58.

Whitson, J, (2013) Gaming the quantified self, Surveillance & Society, 11 (1/2): 163-76.

Wilkinson, J, C Roberts, and M Mort, (2015) Ovulation monitoring and reproductive heterosex: living the conceptive imperative?, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17 (4): 454-69.

Williamson, B, (2015) Algorithmic skin: health-tracking technologies, personal analytics and the biopedagogies of digitized health and physical education, Sport, Education and Society, 20 (1): 133-51.

Yang, Y, (2014) Saving the Quantified Self: How we come to know ourselves now, Boom: A Journal of California, 4 (4): 80-87.