“Big Brother’s Bigger Brother”: The Visual Politics of (Counter) Surveillance in Baltimore

In 2016, without the knowledge of its citizens, Baltimore City Police deployed a military aerial surveillance technology called Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI), which can track the movements of every person in public view over the entire city. Though the trial of the “spy plane,” as the program was dubbed, quickly ended in scandal, organizers from Baltimore’s low-income minority neighborhoods successfully rebooted the program in 2020, this time framing WAMI partly as a tool of “sousveillance” (watching “from below”) that can track the movements of police officers. The paper shows how organizers “rebranded” WAMI around two conceptions of sousveillance—“citizen-centered” and “state-centered”—creating an unlikely coalition of supporters from both pro- and anti-policing sides of the criminal justice reform debate. But while the renewed program has vowed to be a “Big Brother” to the state, it will continue to be used for traditional surveillance, raising troubling questions about privacy. The article sheds light on the politics of watching and being watched in the era of technology-driven criminal justice reform.     

Analysis of social innovation on social networking services

ABSTRACT

Social network services are allowing more social connectivity and making possible sharing information and knowledge of a different nature. This article analyses if social workers related to active social policies from Malaga province (Spain) are using social network services to share information and knowledge and if there is a mirror between online and offline relationships. Since it is an experimental model, through virtual ethnography and through social network analysis methodology, we observed the presence, connectivity and analysed the structure of relationships that keep 235 professionals from 52 organizations in Facebook®. Moreover, the model uses the statistical technique of modularity for detecting online communities, which are compared with distribution of professionals in their organizations. Results show how social network services applied to social intervention are massively and frequently used by professionals. On the other hand, the detected communities reflect existence of analogy between online and offline relationships. The online structure shows a high degree of cohesion and how certain professionals have higher capacity of influence and diffusion depending on position in the online structure. It argues about the opportunity to incorporate social network services towards social intervention as a manner of social innovation to improve cooperation and diffusion of information and knowledge.     

Then press enter: digital payment technology and the history of telephone interface

The internet and other digital networks in the U.S. (and beyond) remain essentially an upgrade of the national telephone network built by AT&T over the first half of the twentieth century, and digital payment remains tethered to telephony at the level of infrastructure. Telephone history also continues to inform digital payment at the level of interface. Debit card readers feature a keypad nearly identical to those introduced (also by AT&T) to the dialling public a half-century ago on touch-tone telephones. In this essay I highlight the development of the touch-tone keypad as a transformative payment technology. There have been three great leaps forward in the history of telephone interface: the dial, the keypad and the touch screen. Each corresponds to a period of technological transformation in the telephone industry and society more broadly: the rotary dial and automation, touch-tone keypads and digitization, and touch screens and computerization. The successful careers of the dial and the keypad, especially when read in tandem, suggest that touch screens will alter the everyday economics of retail payment even more radically than its predecessors. I also describe a broader trajectory of digital naturalization, whereby telephone numbers have proliferated into a personal identification number, passwords and a plethora of personalized information. Payments increasingly circulate today as subsets of personal information within the vast sea of big data. Payment apps are demonstrating a capacity to reorganize retail transactions on a scale as vast as any technology since the cash register. The history of retail payment finds the point of sale heading from the till into shoppers’ pockets. As a result, consumers are increasingly shouldering the costs of purchasing, maintaining, upgrading and securing the technology used for everyday transactions.     

Arranging sensations: smell and taste in augmented and virtual reality

The development of digital taste and smell underscores the importance of cultural dimensions of bodily perception in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices. This can be seen in Vocktail and Season Traveller, two digital devices incorporating taste and smell. Vocktail is an AR technology that augments the experience of drinking water, or even air, through the electrical stimulation of tastebuds and the manipulation of color and smell. Season Traveller is a VR game in which the user moves through four seasonal landscapes. It uses wind, odor, and temperature in addition to the more standard audio-visual displays. The cultural dimensions of these devices can be examined using phenomenological terms. They instigate perceptual circuits, and call on and create sedimented habits. Although VR and AR are often thought of in terms of their similitude to reality, understanding Vocktail and Season Traveller this way illustrates the world-creating dimension of multisensory devices. These technologies structure and shift thresholds of taste and smell, reworking past perceptual styles and habits to develop new perceptual experiences. In so doing, Season Traveller and Vocktail throw to the fore questions about the conditions according to which people exercise their senses in digitally dominated environments.     

网络视频实时在线评论用户认可度的影响因素

目前，网络视频实时在线评论激增带来的信息爆炸，使实时在线评论信息管理成为重要议题。以往对实时在线评论的研究多集中于个人行为结果方面，而缺乏对实时在线评论信息管理问题的关注；同时，现有视频网站对实时在线评论信息的管理也存在诸多局限。以爱奇艺视频网站热度榜中的电影为样本，基于信息质量维度框架并采用Tobit模型对实时在线评论用户认可度的影响因素进行研究，结果发现：实时在线评论的新颖性、相似性、情感倾向性和信息丰富性，均对实时在线评论的用户认可度存在显著影响，其中新颖性和相似性影响作用最大。视频网站可以据此进一步强化实时在线评论管理，改善用户的体验，保持用户的粘性。     

Exploring gaps in the online economic inclusion of persons with disabilities in Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the difference in the online economic activities of people with and without disabilities in Korea. We conducted a multiple regression analysis to investigate the impact of socioeconomic characteristics, internet access, and internet skills on online economic activities. Our sample, based on a 2016 dataset that included 1554 people with disabilities and 6004 people without disabilities, was developed using quota sampling based on gender, age, and residence. We determined that individuals with disabilities were more likely to engage in online economic activities if they had higher levels of education, lived in urban areas, were employed, or had greater internet skills. Individuals without disabilities were more likely to engage in online economic activities if they were women, had higher levels of education, were employed, lived in a two-generation or more household, or had greater internet skills. For both people with and without disabilities, the level of education, employment status, and internet skills positively contribute to online economic activites. We also determined that education level, participation in economic activity, living in a two-generation or more household, and internet skills had a statistically significant influence on online economic activity for people both with and without disabilities. These results highlight the importance of education and internet training for people with disabilities, as well as social support systems that help them learn to use the internet in diverse ways through both formal and informal networks. The study also underscores the importance of information and communications technology that adequately addresses people’s needs.     

城市治理的基本假设及其幻想

当前关于城市“管理”的理论研究中，“城市治理”的话语正在取代“城市管理”，由此形成的各种对城市的认知也反映在城市的实践中，譬如，提倡提高公众参与、实施精细化治理、信仰信息技术等。通过审视城市治理主张的公众参与假设、技术治理假设和空间治理假设，文章提出治理理论的兴起不足以取代城市管理理论;对管理主义的批评，不能通盘否定“管理”理论对城市的重要作用。主张重塑城市管理理念，以管理思想处理理性与自由的关系，理清并守住政府的职责，警惕唯市场效率，探索多元价值的平衡之道，贡献管理公共性的经验，促进国家治理能力和治理体系的现代化。     

新一代信息技术驱动的产品适应性创新机制

现有产品创新研究多从用户、产品以及技术单一视角出发,然而,进入数字经济时代,在新一代信息技术驱动下,产品以用户、企业、环境多维互动的方式进行创新,呈现出特有的适应性创新特征。本文采取多案例研究方法,探讨在新一代信息技术驱动下产品适应性创新的特征和实现机制。研究发现:产品适应创新具有高频互动、即时反馈、快速适应性和用户主导创新四个显著特征,形成用户、企业、产品多方互动的适应性创新实现机制。与此同时,通过案例论证以产品、场景、用户为核心特征的产品适应创新实现机制的存在性,指出其本质是深入挖掘用户需求并实现用户需求的快速匹配。     

Risking safety and rights: online sex work,crimes and ‘blended safety repertoires’

It has been well established that those working in the sex industry are at various risks of violence and crime depending on where they sell sex and the environments in which they work. What sociological research has failed to address is how crime and safety have been affected by the dynamic changing nature of sex work given the dominance of the internet and digital technologies, including the development of new markets such as webcamming. This paper reports the most comprehensive findings on the internet‐based sex market in the UK demonstrating types of crimes experienced by internet‐based sex workers and the strategies of risk management that sex workers adopt, building on our article in the British Journal of Sociology in 2007. We present the concept of ‘blended safety repertoires’ to explain how sex workers, particularly independent escorts, are using a range of traditional techniques alongside digitally enabled strategies to keep themselves safe. We contribute a deeper understanding of why sex workers who work indoors rarely report crimes to the police, reflecting the dilemmas experienced. Our findings highlight how legal and policy changes which seek to ban online adult services advertising and sex work related content within online spaces would have direct impact on the safety strategies online sex workers employ and would further undermine their safety. These findings occur in a context where aspects of sex work are quasi‐criminalized through the brothel keeping legislation. We conclude that the legal and policy failure to recognize sex work as a form of employment, contributes to the stigmatization of sex work and prevents individuals working together. Current UK policy disallows a framework for employment laws and health and safety standards to regulate sex work, leaving sex workers in the shadow economy, their safety at risk in a quasi‐legal system. In light of the strong evidence that the internet makes sex work safer, we argue that decriminalisation as a rights based model of regulation is most appropriate.     

Quality management as a tool for job satisfaction improvement in low-level technology organizations: the case of Ethiopia

Human resources are an important determinant of operational performances as it is crucial for quality improvement. Research suggests that issues related to quality of work life of employees are often overlooked in low technology level organizations in the developing countries. This article aims to investigate the relationship between quality management (QM) practices and job satisfaction (JS) in relation with the Ethiopian manufacturing organizations. Data were collected using a structured survey questionnaire and face-to-face interviews of shop-floor workers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the survey instrument and structural equation modelling was used for the analysis. The findings provide evidence that top management commitment, participation of employees and continuous improvement are significantly and positively associated with JS. However, customer focus has insignificant relationship and surprisingly, teamwork showed unexpected negative relationship with JS. The study provides important insights into the true worth of QM implementation in which it enforces the belief that its practices are the decisive factor in enhancing workplace satisfaction of employees.