User:Rita Graca/gradproject/text references
Dubrofsky, R.E., Magnet, S. (Eds.), 2015. Feminist surveillance studies. Duke University Press, Durham.
Afterword. "Blaming, shaming, and the feminization of social media"
In the beginning, the idea that online networks could be a place for performance promoted the possibility of avoiding physical discrimination and surveillance by imagining new identities for ourselves. However the majority of social media platforms today impose name verification and other forms of authentication. So, just like in the physical world, minorities continue to face online harassment, threats and overall control.
The alternative seemed to be to leave the surveilled platforms, but is exactly ‘the vulnerable populations who are the least able to “quit Facebook.”’ To fight back, users created blogs (e.g. Fat, Ugly or Slutty or Not in the Kitchen Anymore) that collect and display racist, sexist and homophobic comments that female and queer gamers have received. This polices online spaces with the user’s own rules.
(PDF) The Commodification of Everyday Life | Andreu Belsunces - Academia.edu [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.academia.edu/25422188/The_Commodification_of_Everyday_Life (accessed 10.8.19).
The graphical user interface became the framework to track and understand the user’s profile, the pivotal figure of the cultural ecosystem. Interfaces reduce user friction by providing a “usable, engaging, simple, and social” experience, which at the same time removes agency from the user. By delegating tasks we give more control to interfaces, and we start living in their logic. This happens when we engage with algorithms which quantify our online life, a lot of times through gamification strategies.
Hollanek, T., 2019. Non-user friendly: staging resistance with interpassive user experience design.
Hollanek explains how interfaces have been designed to be organic for the user, allowing intuitive and seamless operations. However, this immediacy of comfort also hides what goes on behind the interface. The author questions the manipulation that we may be under, disguised as personalisation to allow better performance.
To encourage resistance the article argues for alternative design practices such as cognitive glitching and interpassive interfaces. These are ways of exposing the power structures of platforms through glitches, imperfect features, disturbing or illogical processes.
Lialina, O., 2018. Once Again, The Doorknob. On Affordance, Forgiveness and Ambiguity in Human Computer and Human Robot Interaction [WWW Document]. URL http://contemporary-home-computing.org/affordance/ (accessed 9.17.19).
Lialina offers insight over articles, projects and people for and against the mainstream thought on User Experience Design.
The author reflects on Don Norman's idea that “the computer of the future should be invisible”, meaning that the user would focus on the task they want to do instead of focusing on the machine. Much like a door, you go through it to go somewhere else. But Lialina reminds us that computers are much more complex devices, and that closed or opened doors allow different degrees of agency.
This keynote also reflects on affordances, questioning if forgiveness is still a feature on contemporary interfaces and how this influences AI machines.
Williams, J., 2018. Stand Out of Our Light. Section I Distraction by Design
Williams explains how the technology industry fights for our attention with their tools, products, and platforms. There is a lot of information available to us, but this can weight on our attention span and self-regulation.
The author opposes to the idea of a neutral technology because all design holds intentions, goals, and values. Design has the power to shape society, managing identities, framing interests, molding habits. It is interesting how the author frames the threats of these problems as global, far from a first-world problem. The consequences of tech manipulation can be larger for underprivileged people who lack knowledge and willpower.
This book section evolves around persuasive design, but not as new or unique to digital technologies. However, with today’s technology, the users can be tightly controlled: page views, search queries, location, clicks, and so on. This provides huge feedback that boosts better strategies of manipulation. Some of these features we recognise in our daily lives browsing the web, it’s the infinite feed, the pull-to-refresh, the likes.
Kitchin, R., Dodge, M., 2011. Code/space: software and everyday life, Software studies. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. I Introduction
Instead of being pessimist and determinist about the controlling aspects of technology, or too positive about the benefits, the authors choose to see software as a generative force that makes things happen. This introduction explains how the interest for the authors is software itself and not the technologies working with it.
Software is found on diverse objects and systems but is not always perceptible or understandable. Indeed it can seem to operate through magic, an idea shared by several authors. This is often a problem when things cease to work but the system became too opaque to understand. In this way software studies try to open the “black box”, looking for its methods and routines.
It is explained the concepts of coded objects, coded infrastructures, coded processes and coded assemblages. Although different all these categories expose how software influences socio-economic routines and is embedded in everyday life. This universal presence is referred as “everyware” (Greenfied 2006). How software changes space and gives it new meanings is explored through examples such as the supermarket that relies on machines to register the products. This is an example of a code/space because it depends on software-driven technology.
An interesting part for my own research is the mention of alluring software and how people enjoy the logic of technology. This means people happily overlook the downsides because of the benefits software can provide.