The Best Dissertation Award for 2017 goes to Dr. Julia Beth Ticona for her work “Left to Our Own Devices: Navigating the Risks of Work & Love with Personal Technologies” (University of Virginia).
Dr. Ticona’s work studies our personal technologies with a particular focus on “the problems, anxieties, frustrations, and even joy these devices provoke.” Her perspective is informed by the understanding that while our experiences of the devices are personal they are also shaped by the “current economic and cultural moment in which these devices have had their spectacular rise.”
The committee was impressed with the range and diversity of the informants upon which the study was built. By looking at the everyday practices the work introduces the reader to metaphors such as braided intimacy vs skipping stone intimacies and describes the ways in which personal technologies can build and sustain intimacy.
The committee congratulates Dr. Ticona and looks forward to reading more of her future research.
AoIR is grateful for the hard work by this year’s Best Dissertation Award committee: Mathias Klang (chair), Jeremy Hunsinger, Daren Brabham, Jill Rettberg Walker and Tim Highfield..