Issues relating to the unequal access to or usage of digital technologies or networks.
Kinolab
Stakeholders and Power in Digital Worlds
Westworld, a western-themed amusement park, is populated by realistic robotic creatures known as "hosts" that are designed in a lab and constantly updated to seem as real and organic as possible. Dr. Ford, the park director, speaks to his employee Theresa about his hegemony over Westworld, and how he can rule it as a sort of empire thanks to the subservience of the robots and the data collected from guests.
Digital Divides and Inequality
What is the relationship between the human 'maker' and AI? Do AI-based theme parks work on a similar business models as other theme parks, or does the 'creator' have more power? What are some real-world connections you can make between the power dynamic which Ford has over his employees, guests, and AI and the power of technological corporations?
Westworld: Ford and Theresa
Lacie Part I: Translating Online Interactions and Social Quantification
In a world in which social media is constantly visible, and in which the averaged five star rating for each person based on every single one of their interactions with others are displayed, Lacie tries to move into the higher echelons of society. She does this by consistently keeping up saccharine appearances in real life and on her social media feed because everyone is constantly connected to this technology. Once she is spurred to up her rating, Lacie gets an invite to a high-profile wedding. However, after a few unfortunate events leave her seeming less desirable to others, thus lowering her rating, she finds her world far less accessible and kind. For further reading and real-life connections, see the narrative "Inside China's Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking."
Digital Addiction
How do digital platforms promote inauthenticity? Why do appearances matter more in the digital age? Can digital technologies ever truly perfectly mirror an in-person interaction? Do the shallower ways in which people communicate online translate well into the real world? How could digital social platforms do better at promoting longer connection instead of the instant gratification of likes or ratings? Should social media platforms be so focused on quantifying interactions, in terms of likes or comments or followers? How can this quantification be de-emphasized?
Black Mirror: Lacie Starts Her Day
Black Mirror: Lacie's Nosedive
Identity and Mobility in a Techno-capitalist Economy
Cassius "Cash" Green is a telemarketer who is taught to harness his "white voice," which essentially means to exude privilege, in order to reach success. While this does eventually earn him upward mobility within the corporation RegalView, an owner of the controversial labor-contracting company WorryFree, his new status begins to conflict with his friends' unionized protest efforts against the corporation.
Have corporations become more or less adept at image control in the digital age? Does the common laborer have any more of a voice than they did before digital communication channels? How might the "white voice" be interpreted as commentary on how digital communication channels allow one to act in a completely different identity, no matter how false it is?
Sorry to Bother You: White Voice
Sorry to Bother You: Organizing
Sorry to Bother You: RegalView Response
Sorry to Bother You: Power Caller
Spreading Digital Resources and Global Inequality
Wakanda, a country founded upon a great repository of Vibranium, a natural resource used to develop cutting-edge technology, keeps itself hidden from the rest of the world to maintain its prosperity and avoid becoming a target. After one man betrays Wakanda by revealing its location in hopes that they will spread their prosperity to oppressed black people across the globe, he and his bloodline are punished severely. T'Challa, the new leader of Wakanda and the superhero known as Black Panther, is then faced with solving this dilemma between hiding away the technological prosperity of Wakanda or spreading the digital resources to disadvantaged black communities across the globe.
What is the relationship between colonialism and imperialism and current digital divides? What are the vast, far-reaching consequences of a lack of digital connection for disadvantaged communities, especially communities of color? What responsibility to digitally privileged countries have to help those communities or countries that have less access to digital resources? How can the image of the internet as a democratizing force reach reality for all communities across the globe? How often do people consider that there are considerable physical infrastructure and resource needs for digital connection? How should we approach the distribution of technology to oppressed people around the world?
Black Panther: Wakanda Origins
Black Panther: Stolen Goods
Black Panther: We Left Him
Black Panther: Wakandan Outreach
Hidden Figures Part I: Goals of Equity and Women of Color in the Workplace
"Hidden Figures" chronicles the journeys of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), three black women who worked on the space missions at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia in 1961. All three women persist against segregation and abject racism as they climb the ladder and make important contributions to the space mission. While Katherine becomes the first black woman on Al Harrison's Space Task Group, Mary Jackson pursues her dream of becoming an engineer at NASA by petitioning to take courses at an all white school, and Dorothy Vaughan attempts to learn the programming language Fortran in order to ensure that herself and fellow human computers are not replaced by the newest IBM 7090 computer.
How is the history of the oppression of Black people in America responsible for a lack of diversity in workplaces, including those involving science and technology in the present? What do technology companies in the current day need to consider in order to ensure that their workforce is diverse and equitable? What does the specific case of Dorothy being initially denied access to the Fortran book reveal about the past and present accessibility of minority groups to fluency in digital technologies? What needs to happen inside of and outside of the technology industry to ensure better opportunities for women of color in technology-focused workplaces?
Hidden Figures: Police Escort
Hidden Figures: Katherine Meets the Space Task Group
Hidden Figures: Fortran
Hidden Figures: Things Heat Up At NASA
Hidden Figures Part II: Goals of Equity and Women of Color in the Workplace
How is the history of the oppression of Black people in America responsible for a lack of diversity in workplaces, including those involving science and technology in the present? What do technology companies in the current day need to consider in order to ensure that their workforce is diverse and equitable? What does the specific case of Dorothy being initially denied access to the Fortran book reveal about the past and present accessibility of minority groups to fluency in digital technologies? What needs to happen inside of and outside of the technology industry to ensure better opportunities for women of color in technology-focused workplaces? What role does implicit bias play in all of these considerations?
Hidden Figures: I Work Like a Dog
Hidden Figures: Mary Goes to Court
Hidden Figures: I Like Her Numbers
Hidden Figures: I Have Nothing Against Y'All