(ITD1b) Technology and Society II: General Topics

As the sociological study of technology continues to progress, many questions remain unanswered regarding the social implications of digital technologies in our everyday lives and on society-at-large. With this in mind, our annual ITDS general session broadly explores the complex intersections of technology and society by highlighting scholarship that offers new directions and critical contributions to the emerging subfield of digital sociology. This session aims to provide a space for digital sociologists to share their diverse research interests, including presentations on topics of online identity management, emotional expression on social media, AI and disability, locative media, and autonomous vehicles. Tags: Canadian Sociology, Digital Studies, Technology

Organizers: Andrew Nevin, University of Massachusetts Boston, Anabel Quan-Haase, University of Western Ontario, Michael Adorjan, University of Calgary; Chair: Andrew Nevin, University of Massachusetts Boston

Presentations

Zahra Falahatpisheh, Western University

Threads and Instagram: Ethics of Cross-platform Online Identity Management

People tend to use multiple social media platforms simultaneously, with an average of seven platforms (Horvát and Hargittai, 2021; Matassi, Mitchelstein and Boczkowski, 2022; Matassi and Boczkowski, 2023). This means that users now have various opportunities to represent different aspects of their identity. As a result, several and often unique online identities have been created on social media platforms, each developed based on features and characteristics of platforms and the groups with whom a user interacts. A problematic belief in the design of social media platforms is that a single unified identity is adequate (Farnham and Churchill, 2011). Owning a single unified online identity across multiple platforms can pose several privacy challenges (Malhotra et al., 2012), including identity theft, stalking (e.g., Irani et al., 2009), targeted spam and phishing (e.g., Balduzzi et al., 2010, as cited in Malhotra et al., 2012), and targeted advertisement. Research on online self-representation has significantly focused on single-platform analysis (e.g., Birnholtz et al., 2014; Duguay, 2016; Litt et al., 2014); however, with the increasing use of multiple social media platforms simultaneously and their close connection, it is important to consider online identity management across multiple platforms. Users’ data privacy has received a lot of attention, and while this paper addresses privacy issues of this new platform, its primary goal is to explore users’ control over their online identities from a cross-platform perspective (Matassi and Boczkowski, 2023). The importance of this issue is evident in Gulotta et al.’s (2012) study, where participants showed respect for other users’ right to autonomy in freely representing their identity. Therefore, the study draws attention to users’ lack of control over whether to link their online identities and the inability to de-link without affecting their identity on the original platform (Instagram). An unwanted result of this issue can be self-censorship, which hinders authentic self-representation and freedom of speech. This study uses Brey’s (2000) ethical framework of disclosive computer ethics to explore online identity management. As case study method provides a comprehensive and contextualized of the research topic, I have chosen this methodology for this study. A case study is an empirical exploration that examines a phenomenon in its real context (Yin, 2009, p. 18). Autonomy is the most relevant in this study, as it relates to users’ ability to have control over how they choose to show themselves to others. Gulotta et al. (2012) call on academics to clarify “ethical and practical implications” of the rights to create and represent identities in the modern day, where the lines between the online and offline worlds are becoming increasingly blurred. Therefore, this paper discusses the importance of managing online identities, particularly on a cross-platform level. This paper draws on existing literature as well as Instagram’s and Thread’s privacy policies and terms of use. Scholars studying topics of social media, online privacy, online identity, context collapse as well as social media platform designers can benefit from this study. Thus, the research question of this study is: How is logging into Threads using an Instagram account relate to online identity management and self-representation? Therefore, this study concludes with a number of design recommendations for platform designers to mitigate these concerns. These recommendations are re-evaluating privacy controls, consent-based information sharing, profile differentiation, and improving transparency. This paper calls on social media platforms, developers, and designers to incorporate these suggestions into their processes and prioritize ethical considerations. The application of these recommendations is a crucial starting point for fostering a more ethical and user-centered approach to online identity management. Future research should include a more diverse array of platforms and examine the differences between platform policies and users’ behavior.

Shayan Morshedi, Memorial University

Content Analysis of Iranian Users' Emotional Expression on Social Media; The Café Instagram versus Twitter Square

In this study, I argue the agentic role of cyberspace by studying how different social media platforms (SMP) affect Iranian users’ reactions to specific events. People express and share their emotions and thoughts with others through social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. Nevertheless, is it accurate to consider these platforms as a glass into which we pour our emotions and reactions? Or can SMP influence our thoughts and emotions? As the use of social media is increasing, researchers have begun exploring the relationship between emotional expression and social media use. The rise of social media has revolutionized the way people express and share their emotions. SMPs such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok provide a social space where users can express their emotions and react to the events. These platforms offer a range of features, such as emojis, likes, comments, and shares, that alternate the way that people interact with each other or express their emotional responses to the events. Scholars discussed that our thoughts are engaged within the context and situation. Considering cyberspace as an agentic actor with noticeable and independent effects on social life, using different SMPs may provoke different reactions and emotional expressions. However, the impact of different SMPs on users’ emotions and reactions remains relatively understudied. In this study, I argue that cyberspace is agentic by studying how different SMPs affect users’ reactions to specific events. To do this, I have conducted a qualitative content analysis of Iranian users on Twitter and Instagram, comparing their reactions to five specific events. The five target events were selected based on complex emotions theory and the political atmosphere of Iran. Hence, the Sanchi collision, the Plasco disaster, the FIFA World Cup 2018 (narrowed to reactions about Iran’s team), the PS752 flight, and the Iranian MeToo movement are the specific target events of this study. The inclusion criteria were public posts/tweets in Farsi (Persian) language, and posted during specific relevant time frames. I collected the first 1000 posts/tweets on Instagram and Twitter using a hashtag-based approach. This study did not exclude bots, rather it included bots and other nonhuman actors in the analysis. This approach’s rationale is that nonhumans play an essential role in social media, as they are often involved in the algorithms and infrastructures that enable social media platforms to function. In the early stages of analysis, two major themes emerged from the data. The SMP users on Twitter acted as “aggressive complainers,” while users on Instagram were the “nice mourners.” In the lens of emotions, Twitter was triggering more hot emotions, while Instagram was the space for expressing cold emotions. Twitter content was more active, collective, and target-based, while Instagram posts were more passive and individualistic. Thus, I conclude with a metaphorical theme: We can understand Instagram as a café and Twitter as a square/street. Also, returning to the metaphor about pouring content into a glass, I argue that the “glass” has agency and shapes how that content looks and is interpreted. This study demonstrates that users behaviour on different SMPs varies while bridging cyberpsychology to the sociology of social media.

Bushra Kundi, McMaster University

AI and Disability: Analyzing Challenges and Embracing Opportunities

The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health informatics has a transformative potential for enhancing the health and life experiences of individuals with disabilities. This systematic scoping review delves into the nuanced interplay between disability and AI, scrutinizing both the benefits and challenges of this intersection. The research further utilizes a decolonial theoretical and methodological framework to interrogate the over-reliance on AI systems justified by sustainability and efficiency, rendering issues of accountability and ethical responsibility invalid. . The overarching aim is to articulate how AI aids people with disabilities and to confront the crucial challenges, particularly the pervasive ableist bias within and through AI research, necessitating more decolonial and justice-oriented approaches guiding AI systems development. The theoretical underpinning of the study is informed by the social model. It is rooted in disability justice and decolonial approaches, which center on the disabling effects shaping the everyday realities of disabled people. This framework also calls out the dominance of medical modalities, which predominantly informs current AI research, underscoring the need for a paradigm move away from deficit orientation to diagnosis. The methodological approach adopted in this study follows Arskey and O’Malley’s five-step process, ensuring a comprehensive and systematic exploration of the existing literature. The main arguments presented in the review highlight AIs potential to aid the self-management of health conditions, enhance assistive technologies, and further disability justice. AI has been instrumental in diagnosing conditions like multiple sclerosis and developmental disorders, predicting disease progression, and facilitating rehabilitation. It has also shown promise in developing assistive technologies for communication and mobility and advocating for disability justice by creating platforms for disability advocacy groups. However, the review also unveils critical challenges; it reveals a predominant reliance on the medical model of disability, with a stark underrepresentation of the social model and disability justice in AI research. The articles reviewed demonstrate an acute need for debiasing strategies as a step to decolonize data and AI systems. Specifically, AI models have not sufficiently measured or addressed bias, particularly concerning disabilities. This neglect indicates a broader issue within AI, where ableist perspectives prevail, potentially exacerbating disparities rather than alleviating them. The review emphasizes the need for a collaborative effort to reorient AI development towards disability-justice and decolonial frameworks. It encourages collaboration across disciplines, urging AI technologists to work alongside disability scholars better to incorporate the socio-political and economic aspects of disability into AI systems. Such a transdisciplinary approach promotes empowerment within the disability community, ensuring that AI advancements are leveraged to advance inclusive, accountable, and just technologies beyond neoliberal cost and effect priorities. It calls for transdisciplinary collaborations between AI researchers, disability justice advocates, and scholars to transcend the limitations of the medical model and embrace the broader social and political context of disability. This studys relevance to the Technology and Society session at the CSA Conference lies in its critical analysis of AIs impact on individuals with disabilities—a vital societal issue. It underscores the imperative for AI systems to advance beyond technical excellence to encompass social responsibility and inclusivity. The insights offered call for the creation of AI that upholds social justice, ensuring equitable technological progress that serves the diverse needs of society, especially marginalized social groups. This resonates with the session’s focus on technology’s societal effects, advocating for innovations prioritizing inclusivity and equality.

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Non-presenting authors: Fariah Mobeen, York University; Sarah Taleghani, York University; Rachel da Silveira Gorman, York University; Yahya El-Lahib, University of Calgary; Christo El Morr, York University

Darryl Pieber, Western University

A map that contains utopia: Locative media and Queer world-making

Locative media are mobile apps that depend upon users’ location as the central organizing principle of the information collected and presented. These apps present and collect information about the specific location of a user in the specific moment that they are in that location. There is an inherent ephemerality to locative media use: Information can change from moment to moment, and from place to place. The anchoring of digital information in physical space allows for a broader, potentially richer, understanding/imagining of these spaces. But, as Özkul (2021) observes, the location data that is being collected through these apps is increasingly being combined with other data to develop an understanding of—and to shape—the relationship between users and the spaces they inhabit and move through. Rather than providing a predictive capacity, she argues that locative platforms are interested in making the future predictable, by shaping it. Within this context, I examine the potentials and challenges that locative media use might present for a project of what Muñoz (2009) calls Queer world-making. For him, Queer world-making “hinges on the possibility to map a world where one is allowed to cast pictures of utopia and to include such pictures in any map of the social”. Queerness originates from non-normative gender and sexual identity categories, but also extends beyond this to embrace particular non-normative ways of reading the world. What we can see here is a rich interplay of the responses to/against heteronormativity by Queer-identifying people and the imaginings of a Queer world. Queerness is a sort of IRL magical realism whereby Queer imaginings live side-by-side with the day-to-day “prison” (Muñoz, 2009) of heteronormativity. There is a growing body of research into uses of locative media apps by Queer people. However, as Miles (2021) notes, there is a shortage of research into the effects of these applications on spatial relations within and among queer communities and spaces. An essential consideration in any study of this relationship, however, is an understanding of what constitutes the parameters of a Queer space, and what potential there might be for locative media apps to contribute to the larger project of Queer world-making. Queer space is inherently ephemeral and necessarily contains some degree of the idea of utopia that Muñoz describes. While Queer space itself is not imagined, Queer spaces involve the imagining of alternative possibilities. Within this imagining there is almost invariably some degree of fantasy, extravagance, or at least eccentricity, however small it might be. From the spaces of Drag Queen Story Time to the ballroom cultures of New York, Detroit, and elsewhere, these imaginings of other possibilities are essential to the creation of Queer spaces. They help to subvert and reinterpret the spaces of heteronormativity that Queer spaces, however fleetingly, displace. There are intriguing parallels between Queer space and the space of locative media that merit study. In this paper, I examine these parallels. I interrogate the interplay between Queer and heteronormative space and between the imagining and shaping of spaces of locative media. I end by proposing a framework for studying the capacity of locative media to facilitate Queer world-making.