Just a quick update to say I’ve joined the current group of NSF IGERT fellows at UIC starting a couple of weeks ago. The focus of our program is security and privacy, and I’m excited to be collaborating with scholars and graduate students from the computer science department here at UIC in thinking about these issues.

My own research agenda has made me consider the combative affordances of artifacts – how things can be used in unintended or forbidden ways, and the conflict between the goals of so called “end-users” and designers. What is the capacity for agency or autonomy when prescriptive use becomes normative?

Continue reading →

In order to approach the concepts discussed in my previous post (Thoughts on a negative turn), it is important to tease out some of the nuances in the term “use” which we tend to take for granted.

First off, when we talk about new technology and engagement (particularly in discussions over the digital divide), there is a tendency to view our status as participants in “all or nothing” terms. One either is a user, or one is a non-user. One is either connected to the internet and engaged with digital technology and networks, or one isn’t. Of course this is absurd. Over two million people still use AOL. Discussions over national broadband coverage, municipal fiber-optic networks, and varying strategies for improved infrastructure to overcome lag and latency make up the present conversation over broadband internet’s status as a potential core utility. The reliance of minority communities on mobile devices for internet access point to varying degrees of engagement on a scale like lumens. Certainly, the absence of light qualifies an environment for darkness. However, there is a great deal of difference between low candlepower  and high intensity halogen lights. Likewise, absolutely no connectivity would qualify an environment for non-users. However, just because one is able to connect doesn’t mean they won’t be frustrated with connection timeouts and slow service. Continue reading →

For a while now, we’ve heard people talk about connectivity and networks and participation in all sorts of terms: hope, paranoia, idealism and cynicism, from the promise they offer to the dangers we anticipate.

One thing that usually haunts these thoughts is the implicit assumption, and the foreboding progression of eventual total mediation. A bifurcation between the past, where we were not online, and a future where we all will be. Isn’t this what we mean when we talk about the digital divide? When we imagine bridging it, we see new media as a form of essential literacy – something that will become absolutely necessary to survive in the future. We must become connected to the internet, so that we can access news and information, so that we can efficiently and conveniently manage our lives (from our finances to our romantic endeavors), and so that we can stay abreast of conveniences which will make our routines more efficient (apps to help with shopping, transit, and work). To say nothing of our correspondence – how many telephone numbers do you remember right now? Do you rely on a computer to store them for you? If you lose that computer, are they saved remotely so that they can be easily restored? If not, do you have a social network where you can ask friends and family for the missing numbers? Continue reading →