Papers by Nathanael Bassett
International Journal of Communication, 2019
This article explores the tension between the freedom a self-driving car offers and privacy consi... more This article explores the tension between the freedom a self-driving car offers and privacy considerations. Studies of the automobile's impact on the environment, public health, noise, planning, and development, as well as its appearance in, and inspiration of, popular culture are easy to find. In the field of communication, research on cars as a medium or as a site of communication often falls into the domain of mobilities, as defined by John Urry (2007). Mobilities consider not just the travel of people and objects through space, but also the imaginative, virtual, and communicative travel of messages between people and things. Julia Hildebrand (2017) notes the relationship of mobilities to media ecology and argues that we can understand the exploration of converging media and mobility entities as transportation-information-communication technologies. Furthermore, imaginaries of the autonomous car promote greater freedom for drivers while raising concerns with the necessity of increased connectivity. The automobile is a case for concern in communication studies, particularly around mobilities, privacy, autonomous vehicles, affordances issues of control, freedom, and privacy.
This paper argues identity documents (ID) prefigure wearables as artefacts connected with archive... more This paper argues identity documents (ID) prefigure wearables as artefacts connected with archives. As participants with human practices, they constitute an apparatus that engenders sensibilities about the proper way to participate in society, through the use of socio-technical systems. The use of these artefacts is necessary to make individuals legible to the state. Refusing them renders us insensible. Through a media archaeology of the history and use of IDs through modern Europe, an understanding emerges of the agential properties of artefacts and their essential role in establishing a social imaginary of the state.
Among non-users of ICT are those who make a deliberate choice to disengage with social media. The... more Among non-users of ICT are those who make a deliberate choice to disengage with social media. These “rejectors” follow a contemporary trend of disconnection and justify their decisions through confessional messages. The question of their motives leads to a need for analysis of those confessions to understand why people chose to depart or disconnect from social networking sites. In this study, four themes emerge which do not completely follow motivations suggested by other literature.
The proliferation of media and technology access has been seen as a liberating and democratizing ... more The proliferation of media and technology access has been seen as a liberating and democratizing move. But how do we socially construct the difference between users and non- users? Without a critical reflection on how media and technology practices are represented in popular media, we cannot understand the connotations of use and non-use. This study examines science fiction’s representations of use versus non-use. Deviance from the norm results in dramatic effects of biopower, on relationships, and for society. Discursive apparatuses relating to those representations include practices of alter-use and materializations of modified technology. These challenge our concept of prescribed use, and encourage us to think about the nuanced ways in which media and technology refusers confront standard expectations of use.
This thesis examines hackathons and their outcomes for participants and organizers. These event... more This thesis examines hackathons and their outcomes for participants and organizers. These events exemplify issues in collective identity and the recursive relationships between individual and collective concerns. Hackathons in the public interest are best understood as collaborative venues which engender both technological output and personal benefit to organizers and participants. Negotiating the tensions between the agendas of participants and organizers leads to a reevaluation of collective identity in these groups. Conceptualizing these events as "weak collectives" reflects the individual autonomy of participants and how personal agency determines participation versus representation within the group.
In today's "network society," individuals are highly connected, due in large part to the increase... more In today's "network society," individuals are highly connected, due in large part to the increased public access to information technologies. The Internet, mobile communications and digital networks provide communication channels through which most social actors with access can exercise some control over the flow of information to which they are exposed. Hacktivists, part of a broader range of media activists, can take advantage of the connectivity between individuated identities to explore the possibilities of collectivizing personalist concerns into communal action or movements.
When we think about identity, the medium through which we express, articulate and define that con... more When we think about identity, the medium through which we express, articulate and define that concept plays heavily into how it is understood. As society uses new mediums, that mediation becomes remediation, and consequently redefinition. 1 As the public sphere has become more " identity research has shifted focus to collective issues. This is due to concerns regarding group agency and politics, the means by which those definitions are created and maintained, and the freedom from physical proxemics due to new communications technologies. 2 Those developments foreshadowed the mainstream embrace of new media and social networks. The condition of virtual identity and community is now experience by a large public, interacting and existing through digital media. But how does that change the way we shape the community, and how it shapes us? Issues of the individual and the collective provide challenges to internet users and scholars alike. This work explores those issues, namely the question of how we resolve the online public sphere (or spheres) with our personal identities, and how we collaboratively construct recursive publics.
As the US has seen declining civic engagement across the board, providing youth with the skills t... more As the US has seen declining civic engagement across the board, providing youth with the skills to take action is a challenge. When dealing with the diverse backgrounds and issues faced by different communities, problems vary as much as the people. They all deserve the chance to become involved in solving those problems, but the work involves key struggles, from a changing idea of what civic engagement means, to the need for new skills that foster community action.
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Papers by Nathanael Bassett