Digitalization of multisensory collective activity: The case of virtual wine tasting. (December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chandra Kruse, Leona; Drechsler, Katharina
• Is Part Of: Journal of information technology. Volume 37:Number 4(2022)
• Page Start: 341
• Page End: 358
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Subjects: Digital representation and mediation -- virtual wine tasting -- multisensory collective activity -- representation theory -- digitalization -- semiotics -- ethnography; Information technology -- Periodicals; Information storage and retrieval systems -- Periodicals; Information resources management -- Periodicals; 658.40380285
• DOI: 10.1177/02683962221096860
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0268-3962

Abstract

Wine tasting is a multisensory collective activity because it involves other senses in addition to sight and hearing. The importance of these multiple senses for wine tasting makes it more challenging to digitalize than other collective activities. We conducted an ethnography and used a semiotic analysis to explore the strategies to digitalize wine tasting sessions. In so doing, we examined how small artisanal winemakers and wine merchants in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland moved their wine tasting sessions online to compensate for their lost key revenue streams during the global Covid-19 crisis. Based on our analysis, we present a typology of virtual wine tasting and illustrate how the approach to digitalize wine tasting evolved from a reactive approach to a more proactive one. We also identify strategies to digitalize wine tasting and characterize its social space. We discuss some avenues to regard virtual wine tasting as something more than just a digital representation of in-person wine tasting session by highlighting the mediating role of an information system. Finally, we propose some implications for digitalizing other multisensory collective activities.