Wearables, Wearing, and the Rhetorics that Attend to Them

Gouge, Catherine; Jones, John M.

doi:10.1080/02773945.2016.1171689

Cited by 32 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Ekphrasis provides a concept of how material-discursive apparatuses do the work of making phenomena present through the twin actions of vivification and clarification, actualization and delineation. While some recent research in rhetorical studies has analyzed the rhetorical force of technologies and objects themselves, the rhetorical potential of objects and technologies is often constituted by distinct human-object interactions in particular environments (Alac, 2011;Gouge and Jones, 2016;Henderson, 1999;Lynch & Kinsella, 2013;Teston, 2012). How images and technologies are construed, segmented, and talked about shape what they do, and so to comprehend what technologies do and how they mediate action, we must continue to study "how humans give meaning to these mediations" when they are part of the action (Verbeek, 2015, p. 191, emphasis in original).…”

Section: Mediation Morality and Rhetoricmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing as Making: Mediation, rhetoric, and the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act

Weedon

2022

Poroi

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How do material and discursive arrangements, technologies and rhetoric, shape the subjects and objects of medical discourse (Scott & Melonçon, 2017; Selzer & Crowley, 1999)? How are the affordances of material and discursive arrangements seized by political actors? Tackling these and similar questions has been a growing preoccupation in the rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine, where researchers have sought better ways of understanding the entanglements of the symbolic and material (Booher & Jung, 2018; Graham, 2009; Jack, 2019; Propen, 2018). A perspicuous case for this research is the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act (UICA), an amendment to the Public Health Service Act mandating that women receive an ultrasound and have its images described to them before having abortions. Three US states have a version of this law, with over twenty others having laws similar to the UICA (Guttmacher Institute, 2019, n.d.). Through this law, antiabortionists are able to construct a kairotic situation through the mediating capacity of ultrasound where they can use the actual state of affairs (a woman seeking an abortion) to argue through images for a possible future (a woman foregoing abortion). This article analyzes the UICA to understand how the political speech of antiabortionists enrolls the moralizing capacity of ultrasound to construct a kairotic situation to intervene in women’s pregnancies. Starting from studies of actor-networks (Latour, 1983;1999a) and technological mediation (Verbeek, 2011; 2015), and departing to feminist rhetorical science studies (Booher & Jung, 2018; Frost & Haas, 2017) and rhetorical approaches to imagery and visualization (Propen, 2018; Roby, 2016; Webb, 2009), I argue that not only do translation processes and technical mediation distribute agencies; they construct the very situations where agencies are constituted. This study can widen our understanding of how political entities appropriate the rhetorical capacities of technology and discourse to translate their politics into legislature.

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Section: Mediation Morality and Rhetoricmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing as Making: Mediation, rhetoric, and the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act

Weedon

2022

Poroi

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“…The quantified lifer works toward self-improvement without recognizing the cognitive load it requires. Embodied technologies do not always lead to empowerment without potential tradeoffs that stand to adversely affect individual users, now or in the future (Gouge and Jones, 2016). Embodied computing technologies are part of an innovation-driven industry that must remain open to critique.…”

Section: Motivations For Cultural Adoption Of Embodied Computingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The fabric of digital life

Iliadis

Pedersen

2018

JICES

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Purpose This paper aims to examine how metadata taxonomies in embodied computing databases indicate context (e.g. a marketing context or an ethical context) and describe ways to track the evolution of the embodied computing industry over time through digital media archiving. Design/methodology/approach The authors compare the metadata taxonomies of two embodied computing databases by providing a narrative of their top-level categories. After identifying these categories, they describe how they structure the databases around specific themes. Findings The growing wearables market often hides complex sociotechnical tradeoffs. Marketing products like Vandrico Inc.’s Wearables Database frame wearables as business solutions without conveying information about the various concessions users make (about giving up their data, for example). Potential solutions to this problem include enhancing embodied computing literacy through the construction of databases that track media about embodied computing technologies using customized metadata categories. Databases such as FABRIC contain multimedia related to the emerging embodied computing market – including patents, interviews, promotional videos and news articles – and can be archived through user-curated collections and tagged according to specific themes (privacy, policing, labor, etc.). One of the benefits of this approach is that users can use the rich metadata fields to search for terms and create curated collections that focus on tradeoffs related to embodied computing technologies. Originality/value This paper describes the importance of metadata for framing the orientation of embodied computing databases and describes one of the first attempts to comprehensively track the evolution of embodied computing technologies, their developers and their diverse applications in various social contexts through media archiving.

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“…In a recent collection of scholarship considering wearable technologies, Gouge & Jones (2016) argue that the increasing popularity of the quantified self movement through wearables "provides an important and timely opportunity for rhetorical scholars to reexamine rhetorics of technology and the body as well as the impact on emergent rhetorical situations precipitated by wearable devices" (p. 201). One scholar contributing to that collection, Jordynn Jack (2016), argued in the context of her research on breast pumps that "a study of wearable technology should consider its actual use in practice and should not limit itself to the study of how technologies are developed and advertised" (p. 208).…”

Section: Quantified Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecologies of Sponsorship: What Fitbit Users Can Teach Us About Digital Literacy

Tweedale¹

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Wearables, Wearing, and the Rhetorics that Attend to Them

Cited by 32 publications

References 9 publications

Seeing as Making: Mediation, rhetoric, and the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act

Seeing as Making: Mediation, rhetoric, and the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act

The fabric of digital life

Ecologies of Sponsorship: What Fitbit Users Can Teach Us About Digital Literacy

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