Systems for Listening in Private, Urban, and Institutional Environments

Опубликовано 17 августа 2016, 20:44

In this talk I'll discuss three projects I've done to understand how and why people listen to themselves and others using digital technologies. The first project-centered on a custom-built technology-enhanced toy called 'TellTale'-shows how young children can learn aspects of written literacy by composing oral stories with an interface that supports structured language play. The second project-using another custom-built technology called 'TexTales'-demonstrates how urban groups can come together to debate issues by collaboratively producing media (specifically, interactive, large-scale projections of images and SMS-created captions) in physical, public environments. The third project-my dissertation work-asks what model of 'press freedoms' encoded in the design and use of networked news technologies. I specifically question whether democracies are helped or hindered when the press's autonomy (traditionally defended with appeals to both individuals' rights to speak and publics' rights to hear) is supplanted by networked technologies and practices that change who (or what) can orient and inform publics. My aim is to show how studying systems like these-technologies and institutions designed to listen to individuals and publics-can reveal how and why modern technologies, networks, and institutions for public expression intersect.