策展方面的外文文献翻译中英文2019-2020
英文
The online forum as a digital space of curation
Johan Jansson
Abstract
This paper focus on the concept of curation that emphasizes intermediary processes sorting and filtering the information overload that characterize contemporary digitalized society. The paper has two overall aims. The first aim is theoretical and the ambition is to identify practices and processes distinctive to curation in digital spaces. From this literature the paper argues that contemporary digital curation is characterized by (a) digitally produced and mediated processes, (b) de-professionalization, (c) a combination of productive and consumptive modes, (d) space as a ‘quality stamp’, and (e) an increasingly underlying and/or everyday practice. The second aim is empirical and, through a case study of an online forum dedicated to hi-fi and high-end audio equipment, the ambition is to identify curatorial practices and processes taking place at the forum and to understand how the online forum functions as a
curatorial space. More specifically, in the analysis of the empirical material three themes are highlighted. First, personal consumer experiences are expressed through narrated purchases in which the constant pursuit of the ‘perfect audio reproduction system’is materialized as these narratives involve with the explanations and motivations behind personal reflections and experiences of purchase decisions. Second, the online forum has clear power structures. Third, the online forum deals with geographical dimensions in several ways, e.g. by functioning as a space for legitimization where the lack of distance and the use of (partially) anonymous profiles generate both advantageous and disadvantageous dimensions.
Keywords：Curation，Intermediation，Consumption，Value creation，Online forums，arrated purchase
1. Introduction
Intermediation constitutes important processes in culture and economy, and intermediary actors such as gatekeepers and taste-makers, are said to perform crucial
roles in-between producers and consumers. Through digitization, access to products and related information have increased significantly, and while consumers need help to filter ‘information overload’,
intermediaries are recognized as having increasingl y vital positions in these value creating processes (Glückler and Sanchez-Hernandez, 2014, Turkle, 2015). Consequently, the role of intermediation is changing as well as the spaces where these powers are executed.
sort of中文翻译To help nuance our understanding of the role of intermediaries in a digitized economy and bridge the gap in the literature on intermediaries, research (and industry) has turned to the traditional concept of curation. In this literature, curators are said to actively, critically and strategically sort, evaluate and ascribe economic, symbolic and cultural value to products in both physical and temporal spaces, and increasingly in virtual spaces (Balzer, 2014;Jansson and Hracs, 2018). ”Curation is a key mechanism of sociality in a digital era. With an abundance of information, sifting, sorting, selecting, hiding, and standing out become laborious tasks” (Davis, 2017: 770).
This study highlights an understudied form of curatorial space and related processes; online forums. In this context, online forums are platforms for information dissemination, knowledge building, discussion, evaluation and interpretation of various types of products and thus an important source for numerous consumers to make (more informed!?) purchases (Joosse and Hracs, 2015). Online forums provide spaces with specific discourses and hierarchies, and similar to traditional and physical intermediaries, the knowledge, information, feelings and prejudices that exists in at the online forum forms a microcos
m that in various ways influences interpretations and ultimately the choices made by consumers (Jansson and Hracs, 2018).
The paper has two overall aims. The first aim is theoretical and the ambition is to, from a review of existing literature on curation, identify practices and processes distinctive to curation in digital spaces. From this literature the paper argues that contemporary digital curation is characterized by (a) digitally produced and mediated processes, (b) de-professionalization, (c) a combination of both productive and c onsumptive modes, (d) space as a ‘quality stamp’, and (e) an increasingly underlying and/or everyday practice.
The second aim is empirical and, through a case study of an online forum dedicated to hi-fi and high-end audio equipment, the ambition is to identify curatorial practices and processes taking place at the forum and to understand how the online forum functions as a curatorial space. In general, this paper shows how the online forum shape understandings of consumer products and how values are negotiated in online contexts. The curatorial processes and practices taking place in the online forum constitute crucial parts in value-creating processes, and not only economic value related to the products discussed at the forum, but also social and cultural values that relate to specific products as well as communities. More specifically, in the analysis of the empirical material three themes are highli
ghted. First, the practice of personal consumer experiences or narrated purchases is identified as characteristic to the curatorial processes taking place in the online forum. In the narrated purchase, the constant pursuit of the ‘perfect audio reproduction system’ is materialized as these narratives involve with the explanations and motivations behind personal reflections and experiences of purchase decisions. Second, the digital forum has clear power structures, though they can be more difficult to detect than in the context of traditional intermediates. Although the online forum is open to everyone, it has    a clear hierarchical structure, partly through how much and how often individual profiles/signatures comment, and what response their comments generate. The status received is legitimized both by visibility online and offline as well as the degree of initiated knowledge in the field. Third, the online forum deals with geographical dimensions in several ways, partly by functioning as a space for legitimization where the lack of distance and the use of (partially) anonymous profiles generate both advantageous and disadvantageous dimensions. The forum also serve as an important link between virtual and (still very important for the industry) physical spaces and thus function as a supplement to traditional physical spaces as it allows contacts between buyers and sellers in a way that traditional intermediates previously have not been able to present. Thus, possibilities to also mediate physical experiences crucial in establishing insights and opinions in an industry characterized both by measureable and non-measurable dimensions are created.
2. From (cultural) intermediation to curation
The role of cultural intermediaries has been a subject of studies in a range of disciplines (Bourdieu, 1984, Negus, 2002, Maguire, 2014). Cultural intermediaries circulate and ascribe meaning, between moments of production and consumption (Woo, 2012, Powers, 2015), but also that they are responsible for “bringing a range of cultural things to market: goods, images, taste, and aesthetics” (Entwistle, 2009:15). Intermediaries construct “repertoires of cultural legitimacy” (Maguire, 2014: 21) through the professional status of the intermediary (Bourdieu, 1984). Cultural intermediation has become an umbrella term for a number of different types of intermediary functions, actors and processes such as brokers, gatekeeping, taste-making, selectors, match-making, co-producers or co-promoters (Negus, 2002, Foster et al., 2011). These functions are executed not least in relation to cultural products which values rests on their symbolic, aesthetic or semiotic characteristics (Power and Scott, 2004) and as such, cultural intermediaries are vital to manage the omnipresent uncertainty in the cultural industries (Caves, 2000, Foster et al., 2011). Consequently, intermediaries become important authorities, and part of the literature stress the political-economy aspects of power relations in cultural intermediation, and thus its potential for structuring and restructuring industrial and policy relevant dimensions (Jakob and van Heur, 2015), or more specifically as key actors in the processes o
f both the 'culturalization of economy' and the 'economization of culture' (O’Connor, 2015). In addition, while Bourdieu (1984) emphasized the role of the professional intermediary actor, much of the later literature focus on the intermediary process (Maguire, 2014, Davis, 2017), relating the idea of ‘product as process’ (Callon et al., 2002) as well as local and global value chains and ‘value making ecologies’ (White, 2002).
Connected to increasing digitalization, the roles and importance of intermediaries change; more efficient production methods combined with the inherent logics of capitalism assuming ‘unlimited’ product alternatives which imply (with the exception of the continued digital divide) that consumers have increasing access to available products in the marketplace. Related to this, consumers increasingly facing situations
that demands conscious or unconscious choices (Delaroccas et al., 2016) and, ‘unlimited’ access to information on available options results in increasing need of intermediaries in selecting, filtering and contextualizing these goods and services (Lange and Bürkner, 2013; Jansson and Hracs, 2018).
However, the exact nature of the positions that intermediaries hold within value chains and networks, and the functions they perform remain ambiguous (Foster et al., 2011) and there is a need to further str
atify and differentiate actors involved in intermediation (Nixon and du Gay, 2002; Jansson and Hracs, 2018).
One potential subfield of intermediation is the concept of curation (Balzer, 2014, Hendricks, 2015, Joosse and Hracs, 2015 Hracs and Jansson, 2017; Jansson and Hracs, 2018). So far, curation has been used to describe a range of activities, functions and processes in industry, politics and a growing academic literature (Balzer, 2014;Jansson and Hracs, 2018), and there is an emergent need to better understand what curation is, what curators do and how curation-related processes are shaped by specific contexts including location, scale and industry, and what distinguish curation from traditional (cultural) intermediation Hracs and Jansson (2017).
In their literature review on curation, Jansson and Hracs (2018) find more than 80 concepts relating to curatorial processes that they distil into a set of actions and operationalized outcomes.
The ultimate outcome of these processes is the creation of various values (cultural, social and economic), or as Balzer (2014:32) puts it: “The curator is someone who insists on value, and who makes it, whether or no t it actually exists”. Beyond mere buying advice, these ‘curators’ offer valuable knowledge about how to evaluate, interpret, translate, understand and use specific products (Shultz, 2
015; Hracs and Jansson, 2017; Jansson and Hracs, 2018). Bhaskar (2016)emphasize that curators cut down complexity by overcoming ‘information overload’ (Glückler and Sanchez-Hernandez, 2014).
Not surprisingly, most research on curation and curators has been conducted in art and art market studies (Balzer, 2014). More recently, however, the concept of curation has expanded into a number of different industries such as music (Atton,

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