Multistability and the Agency of Mundane Artifacts: from Speed Bumps to Subway Benches

Rosenberger, Robert

doi:10.1007/s10746-014-9317-1

Cited by 115 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Notably, the flat ontology of ANT entails that human and nonhuman entities should be studied symmetrically, while phenomenologists might be less inclined to fully accept such radical symmetry. Attempting to outline these intricacies or to reconcile these two perspectives, however, is beyond the scope of this article (for an illuminative discussion on the commensurability of the two approaches, see Rosenberger, 2014). We simply wish to make the very pragmatic point that the concept of 'material presence' points to a dimension of existence that ordinarily escapes our analytical craftsmanship.…”

Section: Qualitative Epistemologies: Including Materials Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

Methods of materiality: participant observation and qualitative research in psychology

Aagaard

Matthiesen

2015

Qualitative Research in Psychology

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This article challenges the hegemonic status of 'language' as the primary substance of qualitative research in psychology, be it through interviews or recordings of naturally occurring talk. It thereby questions the overt focus on analyzing linguistic meaning. Instead, it is suggested that researchers should start paying attention to the material world (consisting of both human bodies and material objects) and what it means for how people live their lives. It is argued that this can be achieved by incorporating the concept of material presence to capture embodied and material layers of existence, and the method of participant observation is suggested as a viable approach to achieve this end. An empirical example of how authority is produced in a parent-teacher conference, not only through language but also through material objects and embodied being, is presented. The article concludes by suggesting practical guidelines for incorporating attention to materiality in qualitative research.

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Section: Qualitative Epistemologies: Including Materials Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

Methods of materiality: participant observation and qualitative research in psychology

Aagaard

Matthiesen

2015

Qualitative Research in Psychology

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“…Actor-Network Theory (ANT), postphenomenology, speculative realism, new materialism, and informational structural realism, to name a few (see for example Bogost, 2012;Cudworth & Hobden, 2014;Floridi, 2002;Rosenberger, 2014).…”

Section: Becoming Through Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

On False Augmented Agency and What Surveillance Capitalism and User-Centered Design Have to Do With It

Hernández-Ramírez

2019

CITAR Journal

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Recently, there has been a surge in AI-powered products. Often marketed as "free", these services operate as hooks to lure unsuspecting users into voluntarily giving up data about every aspect of their life. Their data is the primary fuel of surveillance capitalism, a new economic system that exclusively benefits so-called Big Tech organisations at the expense of personal privacy and freedom of choice. This paper argues the ways these AI-powered products are being imagined and designed is further generalising a kind of "enframing" that encourages a bureaucratic relationship with the world disguised as (a false sense of) augmented agency. This paper shows that technologically informed philosophical reflections can contribute to getting ourselves back into the feedback loop of technological mediation by helping us recognise our "becoming" with technologies as a design process.

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“…Over time, some relational strategies take deeper roots than others, and technologies are mostly encountered in terms of one's dominant strategy: If one usually writes with pencils, a pencil is directly perceived as a writing tool rather than, say, a backscratching device (Rosenberger, 2017a). Finally, the concept of mediation designates how technologies shape the human-world relation: Technologies do not afford action possibilities to preexisting subjects with fixed goals, but subtly invite (Verbeek, 2005) and facilitate (Rosenberger, 2014a) certain comportments while inhibiting and foreclosing others. Returning to our example, it has been shown that using a pencil to take lecture-notes yields better results than using a laptop (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014).…”

Section: Studying Human-technology-world Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetic and multistable: reinterpreting the affordances of educational technology

Aagaard

2018

Int J Educ Technol High Educ

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The concept of affordances has become a popular analytical tool in educational technology. The present article, however, argues that the current understanding of affordances does not adequately address the use of educational technology and instead advocates a phenomenological reinterpretation. The article first introduces Gibson's concept of affordances and describes how scholars in the field of educational technology have invoked this concept to compile lists of technical action possibilities. It then argues that affordances do not just 'offer' a range of action possibilities; they actively 'invite' certain actions. To explore how such behavioral invitations manifest themselves in the everyday use of educational technologies, the article introduces the analytical concepts of multistability, relational strategy, and mediation and uses these concepts to analyze the affordances of laptops in the classroom. It is argued that laptops act as powerful attentional magnets that often invite students to become distracted. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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Multistability and the Agency of Mundane Artifacts: from Speed Bumps to Subway Benches

Cited by 115 publications

References 26 publications

Methods of materiality: participant observation and qualitative research in psychology

Methods of materiality: participant observation and qualitative research in psychology

On False Augmented Agency and What Surveillance Capitalism and User-Centered Design Have to Do With It

Magnetic and multistable: reinterpreting the affordances of educational technology

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