Winner of the prestigious Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology 2024.

This book explores recreational uses of consumer drones from the lenses of media ecology, mobile communication, mobilities research, and science and technology studies. In this provocative ethnography, Julia M. Hildebrand discusses camera drones as mobile media for meaningful play. She thus widens perspectives onto the flying camera as foremost unmanned aircraft, spying tool, or dangerous toy towards a more comprehensive understanding of its potentials.

How should we situate drone practices in recreational spaces? What ways of seeing, moving, and being do hobby drones open up? Across chapters about drone geography, communication, mobility, visuality, and human-machine relations, Aerial Play introduces novel frameworks for drone affordances, such as communication on the fly, disembodied mobilities, auratic vertical play, and drone-mindedness.

In the mobile companionship with her own drone, Hildebrand contributes an innovative auto-technographic method for the self-reflective study of media and mobility. Ultimately, her grounded and aerial fieldwork illuminates new technological, mobile, visual, and social relations in everyday spaces.

Offers a unique interdisciplinary exploration of the spatial, mobile, visual, and relational dimensions of aerial play by drones. Focuses on consumer drone use to encourage a fresh understanding of contemporary and emerging playful human-technology interactions and new discussions in critical media studies, mobilities research, and science and technology studies. Timely investigation of value to academics, regulators and the general public, particularly as drones continue to proliferate in civilian settings, requiring new forms of imagining and conceiving social practices

Autorentext

Julia M. Hildebrand is Assistant Professor of Communication at Eckerd College. For her work on media, mobility, and drones, she has won multiple awards including the Harold A. Innis Award in the Field of Media Ecology.

Klappentext

Winner of the prestigious Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology 2024. This book explores recreational uses of consumer drones from the lenses of media ecology, mobile communication, mobilities research, and science and technology studies. In this provocative ethnography, Julia M. Hildebrand discusses camera drones as mobile media for meaningful play. She thus widens perspectives onto the flying camera as foremost unmanned aircraft, spying tool, or dangerous toy towards a more comprehensive understanding of its potentials. How should we situate drone practices in recreational spaces? What ways of seeing, moving, and being do hobby drones open up? Across chapters about drone geography, communication, mobility, visuality, and human-machine relations, Aerial Play introduces novel frameworks for drone affordances, such as communication on the fly, disembodied mobilities, auratic vertical play, and drone-mindedness. In the mobile companionship with her own drone, Hildebrand contributes an innovative auto-technographic method for the self-reflective study of media and mobility. Ultimately, her grounded and aerial fieldwork illuminates new technological, mobile, visual, and social relations in everyday spaces.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction: Powerful Play.- Chapter 2: Understanding (with) the Drone.- Chapter 3: Situating Hobby Drone Proctices.- Chapter 4: Communicating on the Fly.- Chapter 5: Moving and Not Moving up in the Air.- Chapter 6: Seeing like a Consumer Drone.- Chapter 7: Dancing with My Drone.- Chapter 8: Conclusion: Open Skies?.