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This book explores the issue of (un)explainable technology. As we face technologies, mostly autonomous, machine-learned algorithms (AI) that elude a seamless explanation on how they work (“black boxes”), several issues both from an epistemological as well as ethical perspectives emerge. It is thus not surprising that there are plenty of technological attempts in illuminating the black box as well as philosophical efforts in conceptualizing and re- assessing our concepts of an explanation and understanding, as well emerging ethical questions on how to deal with this unexplainable technology. This book thus offers a succinct and comprehensive, opinionated but fair view on the emerging ethical debate on explainability of AI and its relevance for using AI for different more or less sensitive decision-making procedures. As a short book, the goal is to introduce the reader to the issues at hand while also offering normative arguments from different sides that motivate, complicate, and resolve these issues.

This unique book is a major contribution to the literature on persuasion in communication, and on doctor-patient communication, in particular. Written by a physician-scientist with deep experience on the topic, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of what makes an argument in medicine persuasive, outlining the characteristics of an argument that causes people to accept that the conclusion(s) of an argument are true. Although the book focuses on medical arguments in particular, the general approach offered by the author is appropriate for any informal argument. The central emphasis is that although sound logical construction and true premises are required to establish the logical truth of a conclusion, this is insufficient for persuasion to occur. Although formal logic can exist independent of human reception, real-world arguments must have both an arguer (the individual constructing the argument) and an audience (individuals listening and evaluating the argument).Whether the audience is capable of changing their world view is as important as the logical construction of the argument, maintains the author. To illustrate all points, a plethora of examples in medical research and in diagnosis and treatment decisions are presented. Medical Persuasion: Understanding the Impact on Medical Argumentation is a unique contribution to the clinical literature and will be of immense interest to medical practitioners, researchers, and philosophers as a way of gaining insights into constructing arguments for their peers and patients. In addition, medical trainees will gain important insights in the production of medical knowledge and medical practices, and even students in the social sciences and humanities will find the work valuable as a conduit to gaining insight into the reception of an argument.

Die mit der Ausbreitung digitaler Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien verbundenen gesellschaftlichen Transformationen haben nicht nur Auswirkungen auf die Adressat•innen, Professionellen und Organisationen der Sozialen Arbeit, sondern gleichfalls auf die disziplinäre Soziale Arbeit, indem neue soziale Phänomene, Forschungsfragen und neue forschungsmethodische Ansätze entstehen. Darüber hinaus beschleunigt die Digitalisierung die Quantität an Publikationen und die wissenschaftliche Wissensproduktion in der Disziplin ist kaum noch zu überblicken. Zu welchen Themen in Deutschland geforscht oder publiziert wird und wie viel, ist kaum auszumachen. So ist eine Forschung über Forschung, die das Ausmaß und das Volumen der Themen in der Sozialen Arbeit zu bestimmen versucht, notwendig. Die vorliegende Studie zeigt auf, wie mit Hilfe von Methoden der Bibliometrie und Computerlinguistik stark frequentierte Themen der Sozialen Arbeit auf Grundlage von Abstracts und Rezensionen ermittelt werden können. Darüber hinaus wird auf der Sozialdimension der Disziplin das wissenschaftliche Kooperationsverhalten in Form von Co-Autor•innenschaften untersucht.

Ansätze einer kritischen Neubewertung gesellschaftlicher (Kommunikations-)Phänomene in Raum und Zeit werden jüngst in der semi-autonomen Brückendisziplin „Geomedia“ bzw. „Geomedia Studies“ vereint, die sich an der Schnittstelle zwischen Medien-, Kommunikationswissenschaft und Geographie etabliert hat. Daran anknüpfend wird Geomediatisierung als die zunehmende Durchdringung der Gesellschaft mit Geomedientechnologien und deren wahrgenommener Unerlässlichkeit in einer Vielzahl von Alltagszusammenhängen als dialektischer Prozess verstanden, dessen detaillierte Ausformung dem Kräfteverhältnis und den Aushandlungsprozessen mehr oder weniger einflussreicher (sozialer) Interessensgruppen obliegt. Machtverhältnisse manifestieren sich dabei sowohl in den Potentialen bzw. Schranken für individuelle Nutzer•innen, in den Strukturen der Gesellschafts- und (kapitalistischen) Wirtschaftsordnung und letztlich in Prozessen der sozialen und räumlichen (Re-)Produktion.In diesem Buch werdenauf jeweils unterschiedlichen Abstraktions- und Analysestufen Geomedientechnologien als sozio-technologische Phänomene kritisch erschlossen und im Hinblick auf Manifestationen von Macht überprüft.

This book shows how many previously contingent social processes have gradually been re-organised and transformed into entangled processes of ‘discontinuance'and ‘continuance'through the implementation of digital logic. Together with the necessary co-evolution of our collective digital literacy, this persistent process of transformation throughout modernity is theorised here as one of ‘social digitalisation.'Social digitalisation highlights the ways in which material digital technology, like preceding material technologies, has been fitted into the longer term trajectory of digital transformation. This new social theory thus reverses prevailing accounts of the ‘digital revolution'that focus exclusively on changes allegedly caused by material digital technology in recent decades. The book also demonstrates the fruitfulness of applying the theory of social digitalisation as a holistic approach in researching the wide-ranging consequences of contemporary digitalisation, including its contrasting effects on different social groups. It will be useful to students and researchers of sociology, communications, media and history, but also for general readers interested in understanding the overall complexity of digitalisation and how digital transformation has come to dominate the ways we live today.

Fakt ist: Computerspielwelten faszinieren und fesseln zahllose Spieler•innen – doch das ‚wie‘ und ‚warum‘ ist medienwissenschaftlich kaum geklärt: wie können aus abstrakten Zeichen und Polygonstrukturen mental reale Orte der Erfahrung werden, die Spieler•innen immer wieder in ihren Bann ziehen? Diese Arbeit verbindet innovativ Ansätze aus Phänomenologie, Neuropsychologie, Semiotik, Rezeptionstheorie und kognitiver Narratologie und erfasst jede der zahlreichen Vermittlungsebenen digitaler Welterfahrung mit ihren jeweiligen Stärken und Eigenheiten: von unterbewusster psychomotorischer Sinnesinvolvierung, die auch das leibliche Lernen im Alltag prägt, über komplexe symbolische Zeichensysteme in Form von Text, Musik, statischem & dynamischem Bild bis hin zu paratextuellen kulturellen Einflüssen. Dieses Modell erlaubt auch eine neue Perspektive auf die einzigartigen Synergieeffekte dieses Zusammenwirkens: Computerspielwelten können Rezipient•innen strategisch die Erfahrung von Selbstwirksamkeit erlauben (oder verweigern) und so zu Orten aktiver Sinnschaffung werden, in denen Spieler•innen nicht nur dynamische, komplexe und fremdartige Welten, sondern auch ihre eigene Subjektivität und Handlungsmacht erforschen können.

Celebrity and Mediated Social Connections is a critical examination of the multiple realities of the mediated culture we traverse, extending from our imaginary inner worlds to the imagined communities of digital media. Chapters explore the dialogic at work when we connect with celebrities and internalize aspects of their personas due to the various social roles they serve within our everyday lives. What might begin as strong identification and internalization within our imaginary worlds, in this digital age, sometimes seeps out as we connect to celebrities, their fans, friends and followers in ways that were not formerly possible. The book contains topics that range from the degradation of micro-celebrities, the role of celebrities in promoting prescription drugs and their role in contemporary social movements. The common thread that runs through the book presents a mediated world that paradoxically allows if not encourages people to daydream, engage in stream of consciousness thinking and fantasize about celebrities, all while concurrently compelling us to engage in a digitally based objective world. The possibility of interaction on and through digital media intensifies the emotional connection between celebrity and fan. The more personal details one gives up, the closer we feel we become—digital intimacy based on the excessive self. Digital media entice us to engage and remain tethered to technology, staying continuously connected so as not to miss the latest post or meme. To suggest we should build a proverbial wall between the two—imaginary and objective worlds—runs counter to the reality of an always on, always connected culture in which we presently live.

This book represents a major milestone in the endeavour to understand how communication is impacting on the fashion industry and on societal fashion-related practices and values in the digital age. It presents the proceedings of FACTUM 19, the first in a series of fashion communication conferences that highlights important theoretical and empirical work in the field. Beyond documenting the latest scientific insights, the book is intended to foster the sharing of methodological approaches, expand the dialogue between communications'studies and fashion-related disciplines, help establish an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars, and offer encouragement and fresh ideas to junior researchers. It is of high value to academics and students in the fields of fashion communication, fashion marketing, visual studies in fashion, digital transformation of the fashion industry, and the cultural heritage dimension of fashion. In addition, it is a key resource for professionals seeking sound research on fashion communication and marketing.

Unexpected ways that individuals adapt technology to reclaim what matters to them, from working through conflict with smart lights to celebrating gender transition with selfies.We have been warned about the psychological perils of technology: distraction, difficulty empathizing, and loss of the ability (or desire) to carry on a conversation. But our devices and data are woven into our lives. We can't simply reject them. Instead, Margaret Morris argues, we need to adapt technology creatively to our needs and values. In Left to Our Own Devices, Morris offers examples of individuals applying technologies in unexpected ways—uses that go beyond those intended by developers and designers. Morris examines these kinds of personalized life hacks, chronicling the ways that people have adapted technology to strengthen social connection, enhance well-being, and affirm identity. Morris, a clinical psychologist and app creator, shows how people really use technology, drawing on interviews she has conducted as well as computer science and psychology research. She describes how a couple used smart lights to work through conflict; how a woman persuaded herself to eat healthier foods when her photographs of salads garnered “likes” on social media; how a trans woman celebrated her transition with selfies; and how, through augmented reality, a woman changed the way she saw her cancer and herself. These and the many other “off-label” adaptations described by Morris cast technology not just as a temptation that we struggle to resist but as a potential ally as we try to take care of ourselves and others. The stories Morris tells invite us to be more intentional and creative when left to our own devices.

This volume introduces the reader to the wide range of methods that digital humanities employ, and offers a practical guide to the study, interpretation, and presentation of cultural material and practices. In this instance, the editors consider digital humanities to include both the use of computing to understand cultural material in new ways, and the application of theories and methods from the humanities to interpret new technologies. Each chapter provides a step-by-step guide to cutting-edge methodologies so that students can make informed decisions about the methods they use, consider ethical practices, follow practical procedures, and present their work effectively. Readers will develop practical and reflexive understandings of the software and digital devices that they study and use for research, and the book will help new researchers collaborate and contribute to their scholarly communities, and to public discourse. As contemporary humanities work becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, and increasingly permeated by and with digital technologies, this volume helps new researchers navigate an evolving academic environment. Humanities and social sciences students will find this textbook an invaluable resource for assessing and creating digital projects.

Menschen, die auf Displays starren. - Das Smartphone ist binnen kürzester Zeit zu einem unentbehrlichen Medium des Selbst- und Weltbezugs für viele Menschen geworden. Alltägliche Szenen des nicht-bewussten, weitgehend habitualisierten Gebrauchs künden hiervon. Timo Kaerlein unternimmt die Beschreibung, Historisierung und Kritik dieses Komplexes nahkörperlicher Computernutzung, der seit ca. Mitte der 2000er Jahre mit der ubiquitären Verbreitung des Smartphones aufkam. Die medienanthropologische Perspektive beleuchtet neue Aspekte des vermeintlich vertrauten Objekts - darunter etwa die häufig der Sichtbarkeit entzogenen Kontrollinfrastrukturen dieser personalisierten Überwachungstechnologie.

“Irresistible is a fascinating and much needed exploration of one of the most troubling phenomena of modern times.” —Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times bestsellers David and Goliath and Outliers“One of the most mesmerizing and important books I've read in quite some time. Alter brilliantly illuminates the new obsessions that are controlling our lives and offers the tools we need to rescue our businesses, our families, and our sanity.” —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and TakeWelcome to the age of behavioral addiction—an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans. In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today's products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist. By reverse engineering behavioral addiction, Alter explains how we can harness addictive products for the good—to improve how we communicate with each other, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play—and how we can mitigate their most damaging effects on our well-being, and the health and happiness of our children.Adam Alter's previous book, Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave is available in paperback from Penguin.

A call to action to include marginalized, non-western communities in the continuously expanding digital revolutionIn the digital age, technology has shrunk the physical world into a “global village,” where we all seem to be connected as an online community as information travels to the farthest reaches of the planet with the click of a mouse. Yet while we think of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as open and accessible to all, in reality, these are commercial entities developed primarily by and for the Western world. Considering how new technologies increasingly shape labor, economics, and politics, these tools often reinforce the inequalities of globalization, rarely reflecting the perspectives of those at the bottom of the digital divide. This book asks us to re-consider ‘whose global village'we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to re-imagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspective of diverse cultures. Such collaborations can pave the way for a people-first approach toward designing and working with new technology worldwide. Whose Global Village seeks to inspire professionals, activists, and scholars alike to think about technology in a way that embraces the realities of communities too often relegated to the margins. We can then start to visualize a world where technologies serve diverse communities rather than just the Western consumer.

The figure of the'other'is fundamental to the concept of communication. Online or offline, communication, which is commonly defined as the act of sending or imparting information to others, is only possible in the face of others. In fact, the reason we communicate is to interact with others—to talk to another, to share our thoughts and insights with them, or to respond to their needs and requests. No matter how it is structured or conceptualized, communication is involved with addressing the other and dealing with the ontological, epistemological, and ethical questions of otherness or alterity. But who or what can be other? Who or what can be the subject of communication? Is the other always and only another human? Or can the other in these communicative interactions be otherwise? This book is about others (and other kinds of others). It concerns the current position and status of the other in the face of technological innovations that can, in one way or another distort, mask, or even deface the other. Ten innovative essays, written by an international team of experts, individually and in collaboration with each other, seek to diagnose the current situation with otherness, devise innovative solutions to the questions of alterity, and provide insight for students, teachers and researchers trying to make sense of the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century.

This book brings together formally disparate literatures and debates on disability and technology in a way that captures the complex interplay between the two. Drawing on disability studies, technology studies and clinical studies, the book argues that interdisciplinary insights together provide a more nuanced and less stylized picture of the benefits and barriers in disability and technology.Drawing on a breadth of empirical studies from across the globe, a picture emerges of the complex and multi-directional interplay of technology and disability. Technology is neither inherently enabling or disabling but fundamentally shaped by the social dynamics that shape their design, use and impact.

Lori Emerson examines how interfaces—from today's multitouch devices to yesterday's desktops, from typewriters to Emily Dickinson's self-bound fascicle volumes—mediate between writer and text as well as between writer and reader. Following the threads of experimental writing from the present into the past, she shows how writers have long tested and transgressed technological boundaries.Reading the means of production as well as the creative works they produce, Emerson demonstrates that technologies are more than mere tools and that the interface is not a neutral border between writer and machine but is in fact a collaborative creative space. Reading Writing Interfaces begins with digital literature's defiance of the alleged invisibility of ubiquitous computing and multitouch in the early twenty-first century and then looks back at the ideology of the user-friendly graphical user interface that emerged along with the Apple Macintosh computer of the 1980s. She considers poetic experiments with and against the strictures of the typewriter in the 1960s and 1970s and takes a fresh look at Emily Dickinson's self-printing projects as a challenge to the coherence of the book.Through archival research, Emerson offers examples of how literary engagements with screen-based and print-based technologies have transformed reading and writing. She reveals the ways in which writers—from Emily Dickinson to Jason Nelson and Judd Morrissey—work with and against media interfaces to undermine the assumed transparency of conventional literary practice.

Since the 1960s, a significant effort has been underway to program computers to “see” the human face&#8212to develop automated systems for identifying faces and distinguishing them from one another—commonly known as Facial Recognition Technology. While computer scientists are developing FRT in order to design more intelligent and interactive machines, businesses and states agencies view the technology as uniquely suited for “smart” surveillance—systems that automate the labor of monitoring in order to increase their efficacy and spread their reach.Tracking this technological pursuit, Our Biometric Future identifies FRT as a prime example of the failed technocratic approach to governance, where new technologies are pursued as shortsighted solutions to complex social problems. Culling news stories, press releases, policy statements, PR kits and other materials, Kelly Gates provides evidence that, instead of providing more security for more people, the pursuit of FRT is being driven by the priorities of corporations, law enforcement and state security agencies, all convinced of the technology's necessity and unhindered by its complicated and potentially destructive social consequences. By focusing on the politics of developing and deploying these technologies, Our Biometric Future argues not for the inevitability of a particular technological future, but for its profound contingency and contestability.

The renowned cultural theorist and media designer Anne Balsamo maintains that technology and culture are inseparable; those who engage in technological innovation are designing the cultures of the future. Designing Culture is a call for taking culture seriously in the design and development of innovative technologies. Balsamo contends that the wellspring of technological innovation is the technological imagination, a quality of mind that enables people to think with technology, to transform what is known into what is possible. She describes the technological imagination at work in several multimedia collaborations in which she was involved as a designer or developer. One of these entailed the creation of an interactive documentary for the NGO Forum held in conjunction with the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. (That documentary is included as a DVD in Designing Culture.) Balsamo also recounts the development of the interactive museum exhibit XFR: Experiments in the Future of Reading, created by the group RED (Research in Experimental Documents) at Xerox PARC. She speculates on what it would mean to cultivate imaginations as ingenious in creating new democratic cultural possibilities as they are in creating new kinds of technologies and digital media. Designing Culture is a manifesto for transforming educational programs and developing learning strategies adequate to the task of inspiring culturally attuned technological imaginations.

An examination of ethical challenges that technology presents to the allegedly sacrosanct idea of the human and a proposal for a new ethics of life rooted in the philosophy of alterity.Bioethical dilemmas—including those over genetic screening, compulsory vaccination, and abortion—have been the subject of ongoing debates in the media, among the public, and in professional and academic communities. But the paramount bioethical issue in an age of digital technology and new media, Joanna Zylinska argues, is the transformation of the very notion of life. In this provocative book, Zylinska examines many of the ethical challenges that technology poses to the allegedly sacrosanct idea of the human. In doing so, she goes beyond the traditional understanding of bioethics as a matter for moral philosophy and medicine to propose a new “ethics of life” rooted in the relationship between the human and the nonhuman (both animals and machines) that new technology prompts us to develop. After a detailed discussion of the classical theoretical perspectives on bioethics, Zylinska describes three cases of “bioethics in action,” through which the concepts of “the human,” “animal,” and “life” are being redefined: the reconfiguration of bodily identity by plastic surgery in a TV makeover show; the reduction of the body to two-dimensional genetic code; and the use of biological material in such examples of “bioart” as Eduardo Kac's infamous fluorescent green bunny. Zylinska addresses ethics from the interdisciplinary perspective of media and cultural studies, drawing on the writings of thinkers from Agamben and Foucault to Haraway and Hayles. Taking theoretical inspiration in particular from the philosophy of alterity as developed by Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and Bernard Stiegler, Zylinska makes the case for a new nonsystemic, nonhierarchical bioethics that encompasses the kinship of humans, animals, and machines.

A new philosophy of movement that explores the active relation between sensation and thought through the prisms of dance, cinema, art, and new media.With Relationscapes, Erin Manning offers a new philosophy of movement challenging the idea that movement is simple displacement in space, knowable only in terms of the actual. Exploring the relation between sensation and thought through the prisms of dance, cinema, art, and new media, Manning argues for the intensity of movement. From this idea of intensity—the incipiency at the heart of movement—Manning develops the concept of preacceleration, which makes palpable how movement creates relational intervals out of which displacements take form.Discussing her theory of incipient movement in terms of dance and relational movement, Manning describes choreographic practices that work to develop with a body in movement rather than simply stabilizing that body into patterns of displacement. She examines the movement-images of Leni Riefenstahl, Étienne-Jules Marey, and Norman McLaren (drawing on Bergson's idea of duration), and explores the dot-paintings of contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists. Turning to language, Manning proposes a theory of prearticulation claiming that language's affective force depends on a concept of thought in motion.Relationscapes takes a “Whiteheadian perspective,” recognizing Whitehead's importance and his influence on process philosophers of the late twentieth century—Deleuze and Guattari in particular. It will be of special interest to scholars in new media, philosophy, dance studies, film theory, and art history.

“The amount of knowledge and talent dispersed among the human race has always outstripped our capacity to harness it. Crowdsourcing ­corrects that—but in doing so, it also unleashes the forces of creative destruction.” —From CrowdsourcingFirst identified by journalist Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired article, “crowdsourcing” describes the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialized few. Howe reveals that the crowd is more than wise—it's talented, creative, and stunningly productive. Crowdsourcing activates the transformative power of today's technology, liberating the latent potential within us all. It's a perfect meritocracy, where age, gender, race, education, and job history no longer matter; the quality of work is all that counts; and every field is open to people of every imaginable background. If you can perform the service, design the product, or solve the problem, you've got the job.But crowdsourcing has also triggered a dramatic shift in the way work is organized, talent is employed, research is conducted, and products are made and marketed. As the crowd comes to supplant traditional forms of labor, pain and disruption are inevitable. Jeff Howe delves into both the positive and negative consequences of this intriguing phenomenon. Through extensive reporting from the front lines of this revolution, he employs a brilliant array of stories to look at the economic, cultural, business, and political implications of crowdsourcing. How were a bunch of part-time dabblers in finance able to help an investment company consistently beat the market? Why does Procter & Gamble repeatedly call on enthusiastic amateurs to solve scientific and technical challenges? How can companies as diverse as iStockphoto and Threadless employ just a handful of people, yet generate millions of dollars in revenue every year? The answers lie within these pages. The blueprint for crowdsourcing originated from a handful of computer programmers who showed that a community of like-minded peers could create better products than a corporate behemoth like Microsoft. Jeff Howe tracks the amazing migration of this new model of production, showing the potential of the Internet to create human networks that can divvy up and make quick work of otherwise overwhelming tasks. One of the most intriguing ideas of Crowdsourcing is that the knowledge to solve intractable problems—a cure for cancer, for instance—may already exist within the warp and weave of this infinite and, as yet, largely untapped resource. But first, Howe proposes, we need to banish preconceived notions of how such problems are solved. The very concept of crowdsourcing stands at odds with centuries of practice. Yet, for the digital natives soon to enter the workforce, the technologies and principles behind crowdsourcing are perfectly intuitive. This generation collaborates, shares, remixes, and creates with a fluency and ease the rest of us can hardly understand. Crowdsourcing, just now starting to emerge, will in a short time simply be the way things are done.

Times of the Technoculture explores the social and cultural impact of new technologies, tracing the origins of the information society from the coming of the machine with the industrial revolution to the development of mass production techniques in the early twentieth century.The authors look at how the military has controlled the development of the information society, and consider the centrality of education in government attempts to create a knowledge society. Engaging in contemporary debates surrounding the internet, Robins and Webster question whether it can really offer us a new world of virtual communities, and suggest more radical alternatives to the corporate agenda of contemporary technologies.