You Can’t Smell Roses Online: Intruding Media and Reverse Domestication

There is an emerging range of self-help guides advising users on how to minimise their interaction with media. The aim is to create a lifestyle and identity that is less media-centred and more grounded in “real life”. This article discusses media self-help in the light of theories of media domestication, highlighting processes where the aim is to reduce the importance of, rather than to incorporate, media and communication technology into users’ lives. Based on a sample of 30 guides from the self-help site Wikihow dealing with how to handle television, games and social media respectively, the article discusses media self-help strategies in relation to key concepts of domestication theory: appropriation, objectification, incorporation and conversion. In conclusion, the article argues that strategies of withdrawal and resistance should receive more attention in media studies, and point to the concept of reverse domestication as one way of highlighting such strategies.