Since February 2019, the Kigali-based start-up Digital Umuganda has been coordinating the crowdsourcing of the first openly available voice dataset for Rwanda’s official language Kinyarwanda. This process originated from a pilot project of the Open Resources Incubator (ORI), an emergent service designed by GIZ staff and the author as consultant. ORI aims to facilitate the collective provision of open content, thereby affording previously inaccessible opportunities for local innovation and value creation. It promotes the community-based stewardship of open resources by (inter-)national actors who share responsibilities for their production, distribution and use. ORI’s pilot project cooperates with Mozilla’s team behind Common Voice, a platform to crowdsource open voice data, and has attracted Rwandan public and private actors’ interest in voice technology to improve their products and services.Informed by research on ICTs, datafication and big data in development discourses, and using the ICT4D approach ‘open development’ as its analytical lens, this thesis examines inherent conceptual aspects and socio-technical dynamics of the ORI pilot project. An in-depth analysis of qualitative data gathered through participant observation, interviews and focus groups explores assumed developmental benefits which international and Rwandan actors involved in the project associate with open voice data, power relations manifesting between these actors as well as underlying development paradigms.The analysis shows how the project established a global-local datafication infrastructure sourcing voice data from Rwandan volunteers via technically, legally and socially formalised mechanisms. By placing the dataset in the public domain, the decision as to how it will be used is left to the discretion of intermediaries such as data scientists, IT developers and funders. This arrangement calls into question the basic assumption that the open Kinya-rwanda dataset will yield social impact because its open access is insufficient to direct its usage towards socially beneficial, rather than solely profit-oriented, purposes. In view of this, the thesis proposes the joint negotiation of a ‘stewardship agreement’ to define how value created from the open voice data will benefit its community and Rwanda at large.

This thesis investigates the relation between human and smartwatch by exploring the experiences of four Swedish long-distance runners who use digital technology to self-track their running activities. By examining the participating runners’ use of their smartwatches and smartwatch data as postphenomenological human-technology relations (Ihde, 1990), this thesis offers a perspective on the use of wearable self-tracking technology as augmenting human experience through digital data. The empirical material was gathered through semi-structured interviews with the participating runners. In the analysis of the material, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software is used to transcribe and code the material following a concept-driven approach influenced by Ritchie and Lewis’ Thematic Framework Method (2003). The coded transcripts are summarized in thematic charts based on postphenomenological human-technology relations developed by Ihde (1990) and Verbeek (2008) along with an understanding of data influenced by the field of critical data studies and adjacent work (e.g. Iliadis & Russo, 2016; Kitchin, 2014; van Dijck, 2014; Edmond et al., 2022). The runner-smartwatch relations that are analyzed in this thesis showcase how the digital data produced in self-tracking practices become part of the self-tracker’s experiences by being incorporated in a runner-data assemblage. Viewing the runner-smartwatch relation as a type of augmentation relation (Verbeek, 2008), this thesis further suggests that the digital data function as an augmenting layer through which the running activity is experienced.

The smart city is not a new concept. For centuries urbanists have sought to rationalize city making and explore more efficient means to operate cities. Meanwhile, the exponential utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) have opened up for a new wave of ‘smart’ development that is rapidly sweeping across the globe contributing to a previously unseen ‘datafication’ of cities. The concept of smart cities is often met by staunch criticism due to, among other things, the influence from corporate actors. Smart cities have also been criticized for not adequately addressing issues related to sustainable development. Despite this recent upswing of smart initiatives and plans, there is still a significant gap in our understanding of what this looks like in situ. While spectacular cases (Songdo, South Korea; Masdar City, UAE, among others) of smart cities have been dissected and covered extensively over the last few years, more ordinary examples of already existing cities transitioning into smart cities are still largely unexplored. Against the backdrop of both the high appraisal and vast criticism of smart cities, a growing literature have recently called for a more nuanced approach, advocating for a focus on the ‘actually existing smart city’ and how smart cities unfold in specific contexts. This study examines the situatedness of smart cities in the Australian context through a grounded theory lens, looking specifically at how the ‘datafication’ plays out and how it influences the realization of the sustainable city. Taking an inductive approach, this study applies semi-structured interviews with key smart cities stakeholders in Australia and participant observations to identify key themes in the smart city sphere in relation to sustainability and data. The findings highlight that smart city initiatives do not necessarily fit into preconceived ideas about smart cities. Secondly, while data is seen almost universally as a valuable source of information to better understand and manage cities, it is not clear that it influences sustainable development. In addition, competing opinions on open data also suggest that this is a fairly contested topic in Australia, which should encourage further investigation of its intended contributions to a more sustainable form of urban development. This study adds to a relatively scarce number of qualitative studies of smart cities in general, and of smart cities in the Australian context in particular.

Submitted by Clebson Anjos (clebson.leandro54@gmail.com) on 2016-02-18T18:09:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1029536 bytes, checksum: c6402b495142035de9a42bf1bf610cc9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-18T18:09:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1029536 bytes, checksum: c6402b495142035de9a42bf1bf610cc9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The interaction between society and technology in the context of mediated ambience, enhanced by processes and tools such as Big Data and Internet of Things are the basis of scientific advances that are gradually transforming our daily lives. With the Big Data phenomenon we are able to capture a massive quantity of data, creating endless possibilities of connections and control. The Internet of Things, in turn, is related to embedded devices networks that communicate with each other in an automated way to help make our lives more efficient and more vulnerable too. In the era of pervasive computing and datafication, any attempt to safeguard our data seems insufficient. So, this study presents a reflection on the existing oppositeness between the ideas of freedom as an essential attribute for online information sharing and the sovereignty imposed by the data control, besides we also examine the implications of this surveillance on the user autonomy. To understand the links between the mediations, the network and the members of this interconnected system, we adopted the Actor-Network Theory (LATOUR, 2012). This theory of social also inserts itself as the methodology, laying the foundations for guiding this study. Another important point is to understand the conceptual differences between surveillance, control and monitoring (LEMOS, 2009). The work, divided into two parts and their respective chapters, also includes the analysis of some attempts of resistance to this control imposed on members of the interconnected public sphere, and it points out the paradoxes concerning, particularly, to anonymity, one of the main forms of opposition to the monitoring state established in the net. Since we are in the middle of a still in progress process, accurate and airtight conclusions are not possible. However, if we are not able to set limits to the new digital society, then we run a risk of seeing vital rights, essential to the proper functioning of society, wrecked in the name of innovation and convenience. / A interação entre sociedade e tecnologia presente no contexto da midiatização, potencializada por processos e ferramentas como o Big Data e a Internet das Coisas são a base de avanços científicos que vêm, paulatinamente, transformando o nosso cotidiano. Com o fenômeno do Big Data capta-se uma torrente de dados, gerando infinitas possibilidades de conexões e controle. A Internet das Coisas, por sua vez, está relacionada às redes de dispositivos embarcados que se comunicam uns com os outros de forma automatizada para ajudar a tornar nossas vidas mais eficientes, porém mais vulneráveis. Na era da computação pervasiva e da dataficação, qualquer tentativa de salvaguardar nossos dados parece insuficiente. Assim, este estudo traz uma reflexão sobre o oposicionismo entre as ideias de liberdade como atributo essencial para o compartilhamento de informações online e a soberania conquistada através do controle dos dados, além de examinar as implicações da vigilância sobre a autonomia do usuário. Para compreender os vínculos entre as mediações, a rede e os integrantes desse sistema interconectado, adotamos a Teoria Ator-Rede (LATOUR, 2012). Essa teoria do social insere-se também como metodologia, lançando os princípios norteadores para elaboração da pesquisa. Outro ponto relevante é a compreensão das diferenças conceituais entre as ações de vigilância, controle e monitoramento (LEMOS, 2009). O trabalho, dividido em duas partes e seus respectivos capítulos, conta ainda com a análise de algumas tentativas de resistência ao controle imposto aos integrantes da esfera pública interconectada, e com apontamentos às antinomias referentes, em específico, ao anonimato, uma das principais formas de oposição ao monitoramento instaurado na rede. Por estarmos diante de um processo em franco desenvolvimento, conclusões exatas e certeiras não são possíveis. Todavia, se não formos, desde já, capazes de estabelecer limites para essa nova sociedade digital, então correremos o risco de vermos naufragar direitos vitais para o bom funcionamento da sociedade em prol da inovação e da conveniência.

This study aims to explore how the Danish grassroots movement #hvorerderenvoksen is shaped through the usage of Facebook as their primary communication tool. Using the embedded case study method, this thesis describes in detail how and why the movement arose and explains the role of Facebook’s features, primarily groups and sites, for the movements external communication. As such, it will become clear that using Facebook is not merely a means to an end. Being an activist on Facebook means using and being used, it entails the acceleration of mobilisation, but also disciplining activist action in accordance with Facebook’s terms and conditions. This thesis will draw upon modern communication theories such as mediatization and network media logic and analyse #hvorerderenvoksen as a digital social phenomenon. As will become clear, digitalisation and even more so datafication processes play a role when critically examining contemporary activism. To sum up, this thesis aims to show how an activist movement is mediatized and strongly emphasizes the role of digitalization and media hybridity in this process. It suggests that future research will focus more on the influence datafication, and especially the collection of human data and its untransparent processing, has on mediatized activism.

No description available.

This thesis investigates reactions of young people in Malmö-Sweden about the proposed Facebook Metaverse. Gauging young people’s association/reactions about Facebook Metaverse before its practical existence is the study's main focus. The thesis assesses Web 2.0 as a pivotal mark that enabled development of social networks and virtual worlds like Facebook Metaverse. Through qualitative interviews and semiotic analysis in data collection, three main themes became noted as both theoretical perspectives and findings of the study that entails the young people's opinions on the soon to be launched Facebook Metaverse. The 3 themes are; Connectivity & interactivity, Anonymity and identity, and Datafication, privacy & commercialisation. The results highlight pros and cons with the Facebook metaverse that encompasses risks of intrusive data collection, possibilities for self-empowerment through avatars and new ways of communicating. The thesis concludes with a created artifact/altered video that presents a critical aspect of Mark Zuckerberg’s version of the Facebook Metaverse informed by the research. / Young adults’ perception of Facebook Metaverse in less than 11 minutes

Digital implants have become a new frontier for body hackers, technology enthusiasts and disruptive innovation developers, who seek to service this technology for themselves and to new users. This thesis has explored conditions for future user adoption of human body augmentation with digital implants. The conditions explored were mainly self-beneficial health optimization through technology, self-quantification or convenience scenarios. Applying Diffusion Of Innovation theory, Value-based Acceptance Model and research through design methods were used. The process consisted of quantitative and qualitative data gathering and analysis, using interviews, surveys and iterative prototyping with evaluation. The results show mixed user attitude towards implant usage, mainly depending on users' need for added benefits, whether the user is a technology enthusiast actively using technology for self-beneficial gain or a casual everyday consumer of technology. Certain conditions could affect adoption of implants into mainstream usage, mainly data privacy, regulation, convenience, self-quantification or health management. In order for implants to succeed as a mainstream technology, there needs to be proper secure infrastructure, easy installation and coordinated services that offer individual benefits of health or convenience, with a high consumer confidence in supported services, installation / removal and devices. Several companies are working on offering such a service, in order to evaluate such a proposition, iterative prototypes were created to evaluate a health management scenario as a streamlined consumer service, using a service design blueprint and a related interactive smartphone application prototype.

Människor använder sig allt mer av digitala hälsoplattformar, vilket gör att det genereras mängder av hälsodata från användarnas digitala aktiviteter. Syftet med detta examensarbetet är att med hjälp av en konceptdriven designforskning framställa ett designkoncept för att hantera denna stora mängd hälsodata. Målet med konceptet är att det ska skapa en möjlighet för individer att själva hantera och få tillgång till sin hälsodata som genereras, för att i sin tur även kunna utnyttja det till något meningsfullt.  Med hjälp av en metodologisk guide har konceptet utvecklats, för att ta fram teoretiskt förankrade egenskaper och sammanställa dem till ett koncept i form av en modell. För att få in extern kritik av konceptet involverades tio användare, vilket i sin tur ledde till revidering och kontextualisering av HealthLab. I resultatet presenteras slutgiltligt koncept av Healthlab. Konceptet ska fungera som en multiplattform vars syfte är att samla in externa hälsodata, för att användarna ska få in flera aspekter i deras träning, som ska i sin tur hjälpa till att bidra till en bättre träningsupplevelse. Det slutgiltiga resultatet av HealthLab är tänkt att vara en framtidsvision för att vägleda och väcka nya tankesätt hos forskare och designers. / People are increasingly using digital health platforms, which means that lots of health data is generated from users' digital activities. The purpose of this paper is to develop a design concept to manage this large amount of health data, with the help of concept-driven design research. The goal of the concept is to create an opportunity for individuals to manage and access their generated health data, in order to use it for something meaningful.  With the aid of a methodological guide, the concept has been developed, to create theoretically anchored qualities and to compile them into a concept in the form of a model. To get external criticism of the concept, ten users were involved, which in turn led to revision and contextualisation of HealthLab. In the result, a final concept model is presented of HealthLab. The concept will serve as a multiplatform whose purpose is to collect external health data so that users can get several aspects of their training, which in turn will contribute to a better training experience. The final result of HealthLab is intended to be a vision for the future to guide and awaken new ways of thinking among researchers and designers.