IM962

Digital Intimacies

20/30 (CORE) CATS - (10/15 ECTS)

Optional module for all CIM taught PG students

TERM 2

Module Convenor - Dr Jiaxun Li

Module Overview

This module explores the reimagining of intimacy in the digital age, providing students with an in-depth understanding of the roles of digital media technologies in transforming the realm of intimacy, and the way people connect and disconnect in their personal lives. It examines how digital intimacies manifest in various contexts, the forms they can take today, and particularly focuses on how intimacy is experienced, perceived, governed, and transformed across individual and societal scales. The module combines innovative approaches from a range of disciplines including critical app studies, gender studies, digital media and communication studies, platform studies, game studies, and digital sociology. The module explores the history and development of digital intimacies, reviewing key concepts and debates on digital intimacies from early digital media moments to contemporary concerns such as identity construction, privacy management, monetised sociality, algorithmic intimacy, digital love and romance in gameplay, and the governance of platform intimacy.

Learning Outcomes

Digital media technologies raise a range of critical issues and questions that challenge traditional understandings of personal and intimate relationships. These challenges include the redefinition of boundaries between public and private life, the renegotiation and reconstruction of online identities, the commodification of personal connections, algorithm-driven social interactions and desires, and the power dynamics involved in governing online intimacy.

By the end of the unit, a student will:

• Have systematic knowledge of contemporary, advanced level debates relating to digital intimacies;
• Demonstrate familiarity with the main theoretical frameworks in the field of digital intimacies;
• Employ various methodological approaches to study complex digital intimacy issues in real world settings;
• Demonstrate the ability to work effectively both independently and collaboratively;
• Be able to apply advanced level analytical, writing and communication skills;
• Demonstrate advanced level research skills through searches, research design, data collection and analysis.

Assessment

For 20 CATS: 1000 word group report (40%) and 2500 word self-reflection essay (60%)

For 30 CATS: 1000 word group report (30%) and 3500 word self-reflection essay (70%)

Indicative Syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1 An Introduction to Digital Intimacy
Week 2 Impression Management and Identity Construction in Intimate Life
Week 3 Rethinking Privacy and Intimacy in a Digital Age
Week 4 Algorithmic Intimacy I: Digital Matchmakers and Erotic Engineering
Week 5 Algorithmic Intimacy II: Programmable Sociality and Automated Companionship
Week 6 Reading Week
Week 7 Romance and Intimacy in Digital Gameplay
Week 8 The Purchase of Digital Intimacy
Week 9 The Governance of Platform Intimacy
Week 10 Module Review and Assessment Session

Illustrative Bibliography

Attwood, F., Hakim, J., & Winch, A. (2017). Mediated intimacies: bodies, technologies and relationships. Journal of Gender Studies, 26(3), 249–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2017.1297888

Bandinelli, C. (2022). Dating apps: towards post-romantic love in digital societies. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 28(7), 905–919. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2022.2137157

Baym, N. (2010 – or see the 2015 second edition). Personal connections in the digital age. Cambridge, MA: Polity.

Brooks, R. (2021). Artificial intimacy: Virtual friends, digital lovers, and algorithmic matchmakers. Columbia University Press.

Chambers, D. (2017). Networked intimacy: Algorithmic friendship and scalable sociality. European Journal of Communication, 32(1), 26-36.
https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231166827

Chambers, D. (2013). Social media and personal relationships: Online intimacies and networked friendship. Springer.

Elliott, A. (2022). Algorithmic intimacy: The digital revolution in personal relationships. John Wiley & Sons.

Gardner, H., & Davis, K. (2013). The app generation: How today's youth navigate identity, intimacy, and imagination in a digital world. Yale University Press.

Giddens, A. (2013). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies. John Wiley & Sons.

Hill, S. (2024). Payment Services, the Deplatforming of Sex, and the Governance of Platform Intimacy. TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 48, 174-194.

Hobbs, M., Owen, S., & Gerber, L. (2017). Liquid love? Dating apps, sex, relationships and the digital transformation of intimacy. Journal of sociology, 53(2), 271-284. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783316662718

Jamieson, L. (2011). Intimacy as a concept: Explaining social change in the context of globalisation or another form of ethnocentricism?. Sociological research online, 16(4), 151-163. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.2497

Koch, R., & Miles, S. (2021). Inviting the stranger in: Intimacy, digital technology and new geographies of encounter. Progress in Human Geography, 45(6), 1379-1401. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913252096188

Kwok, I., & Wescott, A. B. (2020). Cyberintimacy: a scoping review of technology-mediated romance in the digital age. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 23(10), 657-666.

Liu, T. (2019). Video games as dating platforms: Exploring digital intimacies through a Chinese online dancing video game. Television & New Media, 20(1), 36-55. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417736614

Marwick, A.E. and boyd, d. (2014). Networked privacy: how teenagers negotiate context in social media. New Media and Society. 16(7): 1051-1067. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814543995

Miguel, C. (2018). Personal relationships and intimacy in the age of social media. Springer.

Murray, S., & Ankerson, M. S. (2017). Lez takes time: Designing lesbian contact in geosocial networking apps. In Queer Technologies (pp. 53-69). Routledge.

Şot, İ. (2022). Fostering intimacy on TikTok: a platform that ‘listens’ and ‘creates a safe space’. Media, Culture & Society, 44(8), 1490-1507. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221104709

Tiidenberg, K. (2021). Sex, power and platform governance. Porn Studies, 8(4), 381-393.

Wiehn, T. (2023). Algorithms and emerging forms of intimacy. In Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 117-127). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ye, Z., Dong, C., & Kavka, M. (2023). Navigating the economy of ambivalent intimacy: Gender and relational labour in China’s livestreaming industry. Feminist Media Studies, 23(7), 3384-3400.

Zelizer, V. A. (2000). The purchase of intimacy. Law & Social Inquiry, 25(3), 817-848.