ABSTRACT
In contemporary society, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been woven deeply into the fabric of people’s quotidian routines. Technology domestication theory, which emphasises the mutual construction of human and technology, provides an appropriate framework for understanding the adoption and use of ICTs in various everyday life contexts. As extensive as ICT domestication studies have been, a “content-context divide” remains conspicuous between the investigation of contents and/or routines of ICT consumption (e.g., devices and platforms used, whom to communicate with, and topics of communication) and the multidimensional contexts in which ICT domestication takes place (e.g., spatial constraints, temporal arrangements, and tacit social conventions). Specifically, previous domestication studies tend to privilege one aspect over the other or investigate them separately, without effectively analysing their mutual interactions in real-time. To understand and resolve this content-context conundrum, I carried out a literature review on methodological approaches of domestication studies to identify relative strengths and weaknesses of different research methods (e.g., interview, observation, diary, and survey), as well as methodological limitations of domestication research on the whole. The literature review uncovered that previous studies rely heavily on self-reported methods such as interviews and self-administered media diaries, which “strip” specific communication behaviours and/or contents of immediate contexts in which they are embedded. As an attempt to overcome methodological limitations and bridge the content-context divide, an innovative ethnographic approach of “content-context diary” cum participant observation was designed and applied in a case study of ICT domestication by Chinese “study mothers.” This approach maximises the merits of both self-reported methods and researcher-administered methods, effectively apprehending ICT domestication behaviours in tandem with their spatial, temporal, and socio-cultural milieus.
