On the Nature of Future Worlds? - Considerations of Virtuality and Utopias

McBeath, Graham B.; Webb, Stephen A.

doi:10.1080/136911800359392

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The normative influences of important others (e.g., friends, other mothers) have been identified by several studies as a key determinant of parenting health practices (e.g., [21,30]. Internet sites (e.g., parenting forums) may provide an avenue for connecting with an online community where a common interest draws parents together, providing information, support, and advice [31,32]. Madge and O’Connor [14] suggest that using the Internet for health information seeking is positively viewed within parenting social groups and important in forming connections with other parents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictive modelling: parents’ decision making to use online child health information to increase their understanding and/or diagnose or treat their child’s health

Walsh

Hyde

Hamilton

et al. 2012

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak

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BackgroundThe quantum increases in home Internet access and available online health information with limited control over information quality highlight the necessity of exploring decision making processes in accessing and using online information, specifically in relation to children who do not make their health decisions. The aim of this study was to understand the processes explaining parents’ decisions to use online health information for child health care.MethodsParents (N = 391) completed an initial questionnaire assessing the theory of planned behaviour constructs of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control, as well as perceived risk, group norm, and additional demographic factors. Two months later, 187 parents completed a follow-up questionnaire assessing their decisions to use online information for their child’s health care, specifically to 1) diagnose and/or treat their child’s suspected medical condition/illness and 2) increase understanding about a diagnosis or treatment recommended by a health professional.ResultsHierarchical multiple regression showed that, for both behaviours, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, (less) perceived risk, group norm, and (non) medical background were the significant predictors of intention. For parents’ use of online child health information, for both behaviours, intention was the sole significant predictor of behaviour. The findings explain 77% of the variance in parents’ intention to treat/diagnose a child health problem and 74% of the variance in their intentions to increase their understanding about child health concerns.ConclusionsUnderstanding parents’ socio-cognitive processes that guide their use of online information for child health care is important given the increase in Internet usage and the sometimes-questionable quality of health information provided online. Findings highlight parents’ thirst for information; there is an urgent need for health professionals to provide parents with evidence-based child health websites in addition to general population education on how to evaluate the quality of online health information.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictive modelling: parents’ decision making to use online child health information to increase their understanding and/or diagnose or treat their child’s health

Walsh

Hyde

Hamilton

et al. 2012

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak

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“…3 3 See McBeath and Webb (2000) for a discussion of the relationship between utopias and future worlds. They argue that utopias and future worlds refer to possible worlds with varying degrees of plausibility, although utopias may be thought of as future worlds with ‘explicit, inflexible, value commitments which either constrain or make demands upon a projected structure of the human world’ (2000, p. 2). …”

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confidence: 99%

Gendered Futures? Women, the ICT Workplace and Stories of the Future

Moore

Griffiths

Richardson

et al. 2008

Gender Work & Organization

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This article investigates stories of the future in relation to women in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector through the development of a theoretical and methodological stance towards the future. Given concerns about the future of the ICT sector in terms of skills shortages and gender imbalances, an understanding of how female ICT professionals view this future is vital. Using data gathered from female ICT professionals in the UK, we look specifically at gendered stories about the future in relation to hybrid/bridger ICT workers, the practices of offshoring/global locating ICT work and the under-representation of women in ICT. Such stories of the future are part of wider discourses on gender relations in late modern society, and so their examination becomes a conduit for problematizing contemporary discourse about gender, work, time and technology. IntroductionW omen remain under-represented in the information and communications technology (ICT) profession in the UK and this seems likely to continue in the future. In terms of recruitment trends in the UK it is estimated that the overall proportion of women working in ICT occupations is around 16 per cent. In addition, women are concentrated in the lower paid ICT sectors (e-skills, 2006). Regarding retention, the IBM/Women in IT Champions report (2003) on achieving workforce diversity indicates that in recent years more women leave the ICT industry than are being recruited, so while 36 per cent of new IT engagements in the UK (in the first quarter of 2002) were women, in the same period women accounted for 46 per cent of all leavers (2003, p. 6). The low numbers of women in science, engineering and technology (SET) sectors more generally is of concern to liberal feminists 1 and 'technofeminists' 2 alike. From a latter perspective, Wajcman writes:What has been missing from much of the debate about getting women into technoscience is that their under-representation profoundly affects how the world is made. Every aspect of our lives is touched by sociotechnical systems, and unless women are in the engine rooms of technological production, we cannot get our hands on the levers of power. (2004, p. 111) Wajcman highlights the importance of imagining how different, if at all, our sociotechnical world might be if women had a greater involvement in the shaping of technologies now and in the future, while stressing the important role that women's agency plays in transforming technologies. Those in industrial and educational sectors are concerned about the low numbers of women participating in computing and ICT precisely because computer competence and engagement with ICTs has a broader impact on social life:The fact that women have practically no voice in the creation of major technological innovations that control our lives is surely to the detriment of the industry and society as a whole. (Selby et al., 1997, p. 6) While there may be a highly problematic 'genderless' or 'gender-neutral' understanding of technological design and an absence of wo...

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“…Utopia is not only a literary genre but also a vision of another time or place that reflects on and criticizes the imperfections of our current reality by imagining idealized counterfactuals (MacLaran and Brown, 2005; McBeath and Webb, 2000). Yet utopian visions do not describe a whole social structure (Levitas, 2013).…”

Section: Utopiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“Sometime in the future”—The technology entrepreneur as utopian market hero

2022

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In this conceptual article, we outline a process through which some technology entrepreneurs come to be viewed as heroes in the public’s eye. We argue that market heroism relies on top-down narratives of imagined future utopias that combine with bottom-up consumer desire for those utopias. While extant marketing theory has typically focused on imagination of products and consumption, we expand the conversation by highlighting the importance of consumer imagination for an idealized future time. The relevance of our process to consumer behavior lies with the potential for products and services to indirectly represent that imagined future time. Synthesizing work in and beyond marketing, we map out a process by which technology entrepreneurs attempt to enlist the participation of consumers, media, and the state into their visions of social and market progress. In doing so, we bring critical attention to the effect of heroic discourses of technological utopias and the ideological ground that supports and enables such discourses.

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On the Nature of Future Worlds? - Considerations of Virtuality and Utopias

Cited by 9 publications

References 4 publications

Predictive modelling: parents’ decision making to use online child health information to increase their understanding and/or diagnose or treat their child’s health

Predictive modelling: parents’ decision making to use online child health information to increase their understanding and/or diagnose or treat their child’s health

Gendered Futures? Women, the ICT Workplace and Stories of the Future

“Sometime in the future”—The technology entrepreneur as utopian market hero

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