Digital Asymmetries in Transnational Communication: Expectation, Autonomy and Gender Positioning in the Household
研究中国在新加坡的陪读母亲在跨国家庭沟通中面临的多维数字不对称，发现期望和自主性不对称使她们处于不利地位，揭示了性别和地理因素对ICT使用的影响。
Abstract In contemporary society, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are widely cherished for helping transnational households preserve a coherent sense of familyhood despite geographical separation. Despite ICTs having positive benefits for the maintenance of long-distance intimacies, digital asymmetries characterized by gaps in routines, emotional experiences, and outcomes of ICT use can also emerge between family members of different structural, social, and geographical conditions. Drawing on an innovative “content–context diary”-cum-participant observation, this article investigates the multi-dimensional digital asymmetries emerging from the transnational communication of Chinese “study mothers” in Singapore. Using the data visualization and analysis tool “ecomap,” the findings uncover that study mothers were largely beleaguered by expectation asymmetry and autonomy asymmetry, arising from different expectations to and control over daily transnational communication with their family members. The study mothers were disadvantaged by their relatively isolated life situations in the host society and accentuated gender hierarchies in the household.