Exploring the relationship between social network sites and the consumption of cultural goods through the lens of affordances

This thesis presents research theorising the use of social network sites (SNS) for the consumption of cultural goods. SNS are Internet-based applications that enable people to connect, interact, discover, and share user-generated content. They have transformed communication practices and are facilitating users to present their identity online through the disclosure of information on a profile. SNS are especially effective for propagating content far and wide within a network of connections. Cultural goods constitute hedonic experiential goods with cultural, artistic, and entertainment value, such as music, books, films, and fashion. Their consumption is culturally dependant and they have unique characteristics that distinguish them from utilitarian products. The way in which users express their identity on SNS is through the sharing of cultural interests and tastes. This makes cultural good consumption vulnerable to the exchange of content and ideas that occurs across an expansive network of connections within these social systems. This study proposes the lens of affordances to theorise the use of social network sites for the consumption of cultural goods. Qualitative case study research using two phases of data collection is proposed in the application of affordances to the research topic. The interaction between task, technology, and user characteristics is investigated by examining each characteristic in detail, before investigating the actual interaction between the user and the artifact for a particular purpose. The study contributes to knowledge by (i) improving our understanding of the affordances of social network sites for the consumption of cultural goods, (ii) demonstrating the role of task, technology and user characteristics in mediating user behaviour for user-artifact interactions, (iii) explaining the technical features and user activities important to the process of consuming cultural goods using social network sites, and (iv) theorising the consumption of cultural goods using SNS by presenting a theoretical research model which identifies empirical indicators of model constructs and maps out affordance dependencies and hierarchies. The study also provides a systematic research process for applying the concept of affordances to the study of system use.

Contemporary pilgrimage in Ireland: a cultural geographic perspective

Using the lenses of contemporary cultural geography, this research develops an understanding of pilgrimage as a relational and reciprocal process that co-produces self and world. Drawing on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, I argue that through the performances and experiences of contemporary pilgrimage in Ireland, participants and locations emerge as pilgrims and pilgrimage places. This approach unites different strands of cultural geography, including the mobilities field, more-than representational concerns, discussions of embodiment and practice, emotional and affective geographies, and religious and spiritual geographies. I explore how pilgrimage is an active process in which self and world, belief and practice, and the numinous and material entwine and merge. An autoethnographic methodology is enacted as an embodied, intersubjective, and reflexive research approach that incorporates the motivations, experiences, and beliefs of research participants, alongside my own descriptions and reflections. The methodology is focused on encountering and documenting pilgrimage practices as they occur in place and relating these embodied spatial practices to the accounts of pilgrims. The insights generated by engagements with research participants and through my own pilgrimages, offer new appreciations of the enduring appeal of pilgrimage in Ireland as a religious-spiritual and cultural activity that allows people to express personal intentions, to develop their faith, and to seek numinous encounters. Through the pilgrimages at Lough Derg, Croagh Patrick, and three holy wells, I produce a layered account of the empirical circumstances of the practices. The presentation of these places and events is enhanced by the use of evocative images and audiovisual recordings. By centring my study on the practices and experiences of different pilgrimages in present-day Ireland, and critically deploying strands of cultural geography and pilgrimage studies, this research produces new qualitative understandings of pilgrimage and contributes to discussions concerned with the relationships between self and world.

Remembrance of the ancestors in contemporary paganism: Lineage, identity, and cultural belonging in the Irish context

This article explores some of the ways of remembering and honouring the ancestors in contemporary Pagan religious traditions, with a focus on the Irish context. An overview is provided of how the "ancestors" are conceptualised within Paganism, as well as where they are believed to be located in the afterlife or Otherworld. Veneration of ancestral peoples is a significant part of many Pagan rituals. Some methods of honouring the dead, and contacting the dead, through ritual practices are described. Remembering and honouring the dead, whether distant forebears or more recent relatives, is particularly important during the Pagan celebration of the festival of Samhain, feast of the dead, on October 31. Issues around ancestors, lineages and ethnicity are significant in many Pagan traditions, and attention is paid to these factors in terms of the Irish Pagan community's sense of cultural belonging as well as their sense of place in a physical respect in relation to the landscape, proximity of sacred sites, and other features of their geographical location.

Canon Ulick Bourke: cultural nationalism, popular politics and the Knock apparition

Accounts of the Knock Apparition, academic and devotional, always start by relating that the Virgin Mary, St Joseph, and St John the Evangelist appeared to fifteen people on a rainy Thursday evening at the south gable of Knock chapel, Co. Mayo, on 21 August 1879. They usually mention that the Land War was in progress. Despite the fact Knock supposedly receives one and a half million visitors a year, until three decades ago no scholar had examined accounts of the apparition. Recent work has sought to define the Knock Apparition in light of the Land War, the ‘devotional revolution’, which took place in Irish Catholicism in the quarter century prior to the apparition, and the influence of the parish priest, Archdeacon Bartholomew Cavanagh. This thesis acknowledges these factors, but contends that the single greatest force in shaping accounts of the apparition was Canon Ulick Joseph Bourke, one of the three priests on the commission of investigation into Knock. Furthermore, this thesis proves that Bourke’s role as a central figure in influencing the later Gaelic revival has been overlooked by scholars of cultural nationalism. By examining Bourke’s cultural nationalism and views on antiquity and language, as well as his politics and reaction to the Land War, this thesis argues that Bourke sought to create an orthodox version of the apparition which could be reconciled to his views on Irish Catholic identity, while serving as a bulwark against threats to the temporal power of the clergy. In addition to influencing accounts of the apparition through his role in interviewing the witnesses and recording their testimony, Bourke further shaped the narrative of the apparition by controlling its dissemination, to the extent that all accounts of Knock are based on a text largely created by him.