Aerial Play: Drone Medium, Mobility, Communication, and Culture (Geographies of Media)

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. Series Editors’ Preface THE SKY AIN’T THE LIMIT Works Cited Acknowledgments Praise for Aerial Play Contents About the Author List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction: Powerful Play Consumer Drone Origins and Developments Discourses About Drones Approaches for the Aerial Medium (H)Overview of the Book References 2 Understanding (with) the Drone Introduction Theory: Hybrid Research/er Drone-Logs Auto-Affective Mobilities Conclusion References 3 Situating Hobby Drone Practices Introduction Theory: Media and Mobilities In Situ Drone Ecologies and Mobile Agencies Temporal Factors Spatial Factors Mobile Factors Social Factors Drone Geomedia and Cybermobilities Conclusion References 4 Communicating on the Fly Introduction Theory: Mobile Media and Space Drone Spatialities: Physical, Networked, Social Mediating Physical Space Mediating Networked Space Mediating Social Space Conclusion References 5 Moving and Not Moving Up in the Air Introduction Theory: Embodied Performances and Media Extensions Drone (Im)mobilities: Body, Drone, Space Remediated Mobilities Corporeal Mobilities Imaginative Mobilities Dis/Embodied Mobilities Conclusion References 6 Seeing like a Consumer Drone Introduction Theory: The Aerial Gaze Drone Visualities: Auratic Vertical Play What Consumer Drones See: Auratic Views How Consumer Drones See: Vertical Play Map-Reading and Way-Finding Techniques of Surveillance/Techniques of Vision and Visualization Virtual Play/Vertical Play How Consumers Start to See: Remote Drone-Mindedness Conclusion References 7 Dancing with My Drone Introduction Theory: Human-Medium Relationships Drone Relationalities: Mobile Companionship Addressing the Drone: Affective Relationships with a Relational Artifact Describing the Drone: My Friend, Co-writer, and Witness Inter/Intra-Acting with the Drone: Dancing with My Drone User-Drone Interactions User-Drone Intra-Actions Conclusion References 8 Conclusion: Open Skies? Laws of Hobby Drone Media Enhancement Obsolescence Retrieval Reversal Avenues for Future Research Right to Fly Remotely References Index "In a short amount of time, drones have become a ubiquitous technology. And while scholarly attention has been focused on commercial and military contexts, the recreational drone has been relatively overlooked. That is, until Aerial Play: Drone Medium, Mobility, Communication and Culture. Aerial Play addresses some of the complex debates around quotidian surveillance and mundane mobilities and how these practices recalibrate how we understand media ecology, mobile communication, mobilities research, and science and technology studies. Traversing themes such as drone geography, communication, mobility and new visualities, Aerial Play explores how drones can help us reinvent our digital methods. Hildebrand's playful and yet robust approach to drones encourages us to rethink the paradigm between media and mobility."--Larissa Hjorth, RMIT University, Australia "In Aerial Play, Julia M. Hildebrand provides a serious, scholarly, and accessible study of a highly significant new medium that is altering the world that we live in, and the way that we view ourselves. Drones are not simply toys, they are our future, and this book offers us essential aid in understanding this important aspect of our evolving media environment. Drawing on the powerful tools made available via the media ecology intellectual tradition, combined with a multidisciplinary methodology, Hildebrand delivers an analysis that is both rigorous and readable, and above all insightful and provocative. Read it, and you will never look up at the sky in the same way again!" -Lance Strate, Fordham University, USA "Dr. Hildebrand offers no-nonsense and straightforward insights into one of the growing niches of drone practices: flying for fun! Written at the crossroads of mobilities and media studies, Aerial Play is a must-read for students, researchers within media, mobilities, geography, and technology studies. Recreational drone flyers may indeed also find it useful." -Ole B. Jensen, Aalborg University, Denmark.-- Provided by publisher "In a short amount of time, drones have become a ubiquitous technology. And while scholarly attention has been focused on commercial and military contexts, the recreational drone has been relatively overlooked. That is, until Aerial Play: Drone Medium, Mobility, Communication and Culture. Aerial Play addresses some of the complex debates around quotidian surveillance and mundane mobilities and how these practices recalibrate how we understand media ecology, mobile communication, mobilities research, and science and technology studies. Traversing themes such as drone geography, communication, mobility and new visualities, Aerial Play explores how drones can help us reinvent our digital methods. Hildebrand's playful and yet robust approach to drones encourages us to rethink the paradigm between media and mobility." --Larissa Hjorth, RMIT University, Australia "In Aerial Play, Julia M. Hildebrand provides a serious, scholarly, and accessible study of a highly significant new medium that is altering the world that we live in, and the way that we view ourselves. Drones are not simply toys, they are our future, and this book offers us essential aid in understanding this important aspect of our evolving media environment. Drawing on the powerful tools made available via the media ecology intellectual tradition, combined with a multidisciplinary methodology, Hildebrand delivers an analysis that is both rigorous and readable, and above all insightful and provocative. Read it, and you will never look up at the sky in the same way again!" --Lance Strate, Fordham University, USA "Dr. Hildebrand offers no-nonsense and straightforward insights into one of the growing niches of drone practices: flying for fun! Written at the crossroads of mobilities and media studies, Aerial Play is a must-read for students, researchers within media, mobilities, geography, and technology studies. Recreational drone flyers may indeed also find it useful." --Ole B. Jensen, Aalborg University, Denmark