Doctoral thesis: Digital worlds can become material

Is it possible that the things we see on our computer screens, yet cannot touch, are material? And if so, what does it mean for our everyday existence? These questions are at the centre of Richard Kedzior's doctoral thesis "How Digital Worlds Become Material".

According to Kedzior, it is common to hear that digital objects as well as digital spaces (e.g., online virtual worlds) are immaterial and therefore less real or authentic. Yet, consumers experience the "digital stuff" as both real and material by virtue of the significance it has for their everyday lives. To support his claim, Kedzior points to the amount of time and money spent by consumers while playing online games (e.g., World of Warcraft) and phenomena such as online gambling addiction. As Kedzior points out, "digital objects are anything but immaterial". They belong to a different kind of materiality - as he calls it, digital materiality.

In his thesis, Kedzior has investigated the meaning of digital materiality and how it affects consumers. His findings present five distinct processes which come into play when digital worlds become material in consumers' lives. Some of these processes entail rematerialisation (e.g., when consumers create physical equivalents of their digital possessions) and digitisation (e.g., when consumers bring their offline, physical reality to online worlds in the form of digital replicas).

As Kedzior also demonstrates, consumers can materialise digital entities by linking them to other digital entities. "If a consumer dedicates resources to creating her online identity, she will want to preserve it by having multiple, interconnected profiles in different digital outlets, be it social networking sites or online discussion forums", Kedzior explains.

Kedzior's findings benefit professionals working with digital media who often struggle with the inherent instability of digital materiality. The ideas discussed in this thesis are especially valuable for product managers as they highlight possibilities for expanding market offerings by complementing existing product lines with digital and physical components.

M.Sc. Richard Kedzior will defend his doctoral thesis in marketing "How Digital Worlds Become Material" on Thursday, 18 September 2014.

Time: 18 September 2014 at 12pm
Place: Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
Opponent: Dr. Mike Molesworth, University of Southampton, UK
Custos: Professor Christian Grönroos, Hanken School of Economics

For more information, please contact:
Richard Kedzior
richard.kedzior@gmail.com