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Experience in the Customized Online Media Environment

Fri, May 22, 10:30 to 11:45, Caribe Hilton, Tropical B

Abstract

Online display advertisements are often uniquely generated through a technical process that collects and combines demographic, psychographic, and additional behavioral information to determine who sees which ad when. While some internet users are aware of this practice, if only vaguely or conceptually, the complexity of this dynamic, multipart, sociotechnical system makes it largely unapproachable for most. As a result, the customized online advertising message itself has come to represent a site of cognitive struggle due in large part to processes the produce and reproduce information asymmetries, contributing to a broader inability to fully know the world in which we live. This study inquires in this recent media phenomenon by analyzing the experiences of single, arguably ordinary, individual. By reassembling one individual’s interpretations of his experiences using the internet, and specifically those related to personalized, tailored, or customized online media, this study located multiple themes. These are identified as: Awareness, Incessancy, Reluctant Utility, Active Avoidance, and Channel Lock. Implications for experiencing the world through today’s personalized media environment are discussed.

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