Today’s Plan

• mid-term feedback• digital natives vs. digital immigrants• Ginsburg’s critiques of digital divide• BREAK• return to technofeminism• design activity• Wrap up and what is coming next

Mid-Term Feedback

As a learner, what has been working for you so far in this class?

– 2 readings per week, weekly reading assignments and blogging/commenting

– discussions in class; being led instead of free-for-all– examples and media– group work ok so far– visuals and lecture slides posted on website; summary

of each week– feedback emails

Mid-Term Feedback

As a learner, what do you need more of?– more structure with lectures – more slides with

info (but maybe just for core theory classes)– skim through main points of authors without

really grasping what they are saying– hand out defining certain terms; clarifying

terminology that may be unfamiliar– more visuals

Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants• Today's students have not just changed incrementally from

those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a "singularity" - an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called "singularity" is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century.

• today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.

• Our students today are all "native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.

• So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.

• http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Digital Immigrant Accent• turning to the Internet for information second rather

than first … reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it

• printing out your email (or having your secretary print it out for you - an even "thicker" accent); needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it (rather than just editing on the screen); and bringing people physically into your office to see an interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL)

• Today's older folk were "socialized" differently from their kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain.

Test YourselfConsider this quote from Warschauer (2002): “technology and society are intertwined and co-constitutive … so any assumption of causality problematic.” This is indicative of which of the following approaches?

a) Social construction of technology (SCOT)b) Domesticationc) Social shapingd) Technological determinism

Tools from Warschauer

• Not one type of ICT access but many• Meaning and value of access varies in

particular social contexts• Gradations of access not have/have-nots• ICT access = education and power• SOCIAL INCLUSION: we must work to enhance

the social, economic, political power of communities

Tools from Ginsburg

• Who has the right to control knowledge?• We should consider the power relations that

determine whose knowledge is valued• Notion of time as an important factor• Digital technologies can be used in many

different ways; ‘on their own terms’• Need to keep listening to the unwired side of

the so-called digital divide

Using Ginsburg to Critique Warschauer

• Access based on ownership or availability• TV ownership in US almost universal among rich and

poor• BUT Warschauer says there is more to it than that:

total cost of ownership• Barriers: differences in knowledge and skills,

differences in attitudes towards using them, inadequate online content for low-income citizens, especially in diverse languages, government controls/limitations

• How might Ginsburg respond?

Using Ginsburg to Critique Warschauer

• “re-orient the focus from that of gaps to be overcome by provision of equipment to that of social development to be enhanced through the effective integration of ICT into communities and institutions”

• How might Ginsburg respond?

Wajcman and Technofeminism

• Promise of cyberspace– Open to anyone– Non-hierarchical,

democratic space– Old divisions of class,

race, ethnicity and sexuality dissolved

– Free women from constraints of their sex

Sady Doyle of TIGERBEATDOWN.com

#mencallmethings

Wajcman and Technofeminism

• Common notion: women as technically incompetent or invisible in technical spheres

• Hegemonic form of masculinity strongly associated with technical prowess and power

• Is femininity incompatible with technical pursuits?

Wajcman and Technofeminism

• Should we reject technology as oppressive or uncritically embrace it as liberating?

• Will mass digitization sever the link between technology and male privilege?

• Have new technologies (like social media) undergone a sex change?

• Have existing societal patterns of inequality simply become reproduced in a new technological guise?

Wajcman and Technofeminism

• Technology and society are MUTUALLY CONSTITUTED– Source and consequence of gender relations

EXERCISE

• Come up with examples of products designed particularly for women or men.

• Pick one and re-design it!

Week Seven: Inclusions and Exclusions

• Gilbert, Eric, Karrie Karahalios and Christian Sandvig. 2008. “The Network in the Garden: An Empirical Analysis of Social Media in Rural Life.” CHI. (M)

• Kennedy, H., Thomas, S. and Evans, S. 2011. “Can the Web be Accessible for People with Intellectual Disabilities?” The Information Society 27(1):29-39. (M)

• Lam, Shyong K., Anuradha Uduwage, Zhenhua Dong, Shilad Sen, David R. Musicant, Loren Terveen and John Riedl. 2011. “WP: Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance.” WikiSym.