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Pioneer Communities: The Quantified Self and Maker Movement as Collective Actors of Deep Mediatization

Subject Area Communication Sciences
Empirical Social Research
Term from 2017 to 2023
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 394861196
 
Final Report Year 2024

Final Report Abstract

This project aimed to investigate the Maker and Quantified Self movements in Germany and the UK and their contribution to progressive deep mediatization. The project reconstructed the online networking of both pioneer communities and revealed the extent to which they are curated by an organizational elite from the San Francisco Bay Area. This establishes a framing discourse closely tied to the “Californian Ideology”. Both communities exhibit different models of curation, one through franchising (Maker), and the other through a legally unenforced trademark (Quantified Self). The primary means of curation include events (conferences, fairs), publications (online, print), and the establishment of local groups and spaces. Through these avenues, a self-reflexive discourse is created, providing a framework for the identification as a “movement” and legitimizing its existence. However, the practice in the local groups and spaces are primarily defined by the projects of their members. In contrast to the lofty ideals promoted by organizations, these projects tend to focus on their own “tinkering” (Makerspace) and “personality development” (Quantified Self). When the projects scale up to a larger (economic) level, they are primarily aimed at personal independence and community engagement. This creates a significant disparity with the “ideology” of the pioneer communities: the reinvention of the economy (Maker) and personal development (Quantified Self). This was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, where there emerged expectations that the Makers were an “alternative” avenue for the development of medical devices. In reality, the mass production of protective shields was hardly feasible using the resources available to Makerspaces, which were primarily geared towards prototyping and individual production. The influence of the two pioneer communities on deep mediatization thus takes place in a mediated way, namely via the imaginaries of social change associated with them: in Germany and the UK, the Maker movement tends to be portrayed as “utopian”, focusing on innovation, learning, and sharing, while the Quantified Self movement tends to be depicted as “dystopian”, with an emphasis placed on self-optimization and surveillance. In both cases, technologies are assumed to be highly effective, thus reproducing patterns of Californian Ideology. Within the two communities under examination, a discernible life cycle unfolds, characterized by three distinct phases: the formative phase, marked by the establishment of a 'proclaiming' constitution in the San Francisco Bay Area; the peak, featuring widespread transnational media coverage and the proliferation of local groups and spaces; and the dispersal phase, characterized by the assimilation (Veralltäglichung) of the pioneering ethos.

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