Social Shifts (Asynchronous Session)
Foreign Influence and Domestic Discrimination: A Call for Balance to Protect Individuals, Institutions, and Innovation View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bryant Walker Smith
This paper analyzes the issue of “foreign influence” in technology and innovation from multiple descriptive, legal, and normative perspectives. Our motivation—and the paper’s central theme—is the tension between, on one hand, preventing improper foreign infiltration of scientific research and development and, on the other hand, preventing invidious domestic discrimination against individuals and groups. Descriptively, we bring taxonomical rigor to foreign influence as a concept that deserves more nuance than it often receives. First, we describe a public/private spectrum that ranges from espionage by foreign governmental actors to theft by foreign nongovernmental actors. Second, we categorize the many domestic activities that could potentially constitute foreign influence. Third, we classify the ways in which domestic researchers allegedly facilitate foreign influence. Legally, we critically analyze the range of mechanisms designed to check this influence. Normatively, we discuss how to manage the risks of these efforts. Policing foreign influence in innovation raises at least four issues. First, it entails legal determinations of foreignness. Second, it invites policies, procedures, and informal practices that may cross these legal lines, particularly given the troubling-yet-common treatment of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners” in the United States. Third, it risks disparate impacts that, even if legally justified by business necessity, nonetheless cause serious harm. Finally, it imposes substantial burdens that can impede or even deter scientific research and development. We present specific case studies, share multiple perspectives, and propose a path forward that better accounts for the critical interests at stake.
Habits and Perceived Boundary Control in Everyday Working Life : Telework in the Era of COVID-19 among Swedish Municipality Workers View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Calle Rosengren
Every day we perform several recurring activities with little or no guidance from conscious intention. These daily and repetitive actions are often referred to as habits. The situation with Covid-19 has had a dramatic impact on how we go about our daily lives and how we interact with other persons at home or at work. In relation to working life one specific aspect was that many office workers were forced to telework to uphold social distancing. Our study encompasses white collar workers and managers (n = 48) in two municipalities in Sweden, mandated to work from home (WFH) to the extent possible during the pandemic. Using Photo Elicitation Interviews (PEI), letting interviewees present photographs they felt meaningfully represent their experience working from home, our aim was to further our understanding of what happens with daily habits when work is performed remotely using digital technology. Specifically, we focused on what role daily habits played in establishing boundaries between work and private life. Results indicate that habits from the workplace were sometimes hard to uphold when working in the domestic area. For example, to take brakes on a regular basis. But also, a wide variety of new daily habits such as for example taking a morning walk to mimic the commute to the office and thus in a sense “going to work”. And conversely at the end of the working day stowing the work-related technology away and go out into the garden and thus “leaving work”.
Perspectives on the Utilization of Smart Home Technology among Community-dwelling Older Adults: Implications for Emergency Preparedness View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Travis Michael Gagen Dr.
A public health emergency may increase the reliance on smart home technologies (SHT) to bridge health care and psychosocial support among community-dwelling older adults (CDOA). CDOA in particular are adversely impacted by ‘shelter-in-place’ and ‘social distancing’ orders due to limited social networks and preexisting characteristics associated with perceived barriers to SHT utilization. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview method, a study sample (n=35) ranging in age from 65- 99 years was interviewed to investigate the perspectives on utilizing SHT. Three main themes emerged as: perceived barriers; facilitators; and preferences for SHT. Study findings suggest that SHT can mitigate adverse health effects during public health emergencies by increasing psychosocial connections with formal and informal care providers while increasing the safety and security of CDOA.
Mobilizing Indigenous Movement and Social Media: A Case of the Black Lives Matter Protests in Australia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ritsuko Kurita
Social media has enabled the mobilization of people for political movements, transcending time and space, to protest authority or claim their citizenship. Social media platforms serve as a public sphere in which the socially marginalized can express their opinions, which are otherwise rarely heard in mainstream media. In particular, Indigenous people have actively utilized the space of social media as a means of protesting Indigenous policy and resisting violence stemmed from colonialism, thereby reterritorializing and indigenizing the information and communication space. Based on a content analysis of Facebook posts related to Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that occurred in South Australia in 2020, this paper examines the role of social media in the Indigenous movement. Originating in the USA, BLM spread globally. In Australia, while people initially mobilized around the death of George Floyd, Indigenous activists created a discourse in social media associating police brutality in the US with custodial deaths of Aboriginal people. For instance, the Facebook page of #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA was utilized to mobilize Indigenous and other viewers from racial minorities for offline rallies and to develop solidarity, both locally and globally, by inducing the emotions of anger, sorrow, and hope. However, while digital technology enabled Indigenous people to connect with other racial minorities, especially African Australians, it also caused disconnection of relations they had with non-Indigenous people. This paper discusses the potentials and limitations of the use of social media in the Indigenous movement to pursue their rights as Indigenous citizens.
Developing a Community Platform for Women Cyclists towards a Sustainable Cycling Lifestyle: A Futures Thinking Approach View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Naimi Ismadi
Research shows that women cyclists are an underrepresented group and suggests gender and cycling should be investigated. Through utilizing a co-design approach, a platform would be designed to empower women cyclists by gathering, building a network and empowering one another to make cycling accessible to women cyclists leading to a sustainable lifestyle. In-depth interview questions utilized the Futures Thinking Triangle to aid users of the platform through integrating their worldviews in the design process with the broader goal of achieving a desired future, one of an equal gender representation in the cycling world. Women Cyclists' contextual forces, trends and emerging challenges faced were explored. Preliminary findings suggest that women cyclists present a need to connect and locate other women cyclists and display a preference for a medium to discuss cycling related their themes and experiences influenced by their gender identity. Preferences include but are not limited to, a forum or chat room, cycling stop share, to improve mechanical knowledge of the bicycle and to meet other women cyclists who share a similar cycling identity and goals. The platform design attempts to fulfill these needs and a pilot test would be executed with a user-testing phase among interviewees.
