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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Technology in everyday life : an exploration of gender and age in internet use

Kadi, Selma January 2013 (has links)
This study combines perspectives from domestication theory, feminist technology studies and sociological research on ageing in order to understand older people’s internet use. The suggested approach enables us to examine the complexity of social inequalities in domestication processes. Firstly, I argue that domestication theory benefits from the integration of gender-technology relations, a perspective developed from within feminist technology studies. This allows a better understanding of different dimensions of gender (structure, symbolism, identity) as well as mutual shaping processes between gender and technology. Secondly, this analysis of gender-technology relations can also be utilised to enhance our understanding of age-technology relations. Gender and age are examined in relation to (i) different phases of domestication, (ii) the use of the internet for different activities and (iii) forms of social connectedness in everyday life. The research draws upon 33 semi-structured interviews with women and men between the ages of 55 and 80 about their internet and web 2.0 use experiences. My study demonstrates the diversity of intersections between age, gender and technology within older women’s and men’s internet use experiences, and highlights the significance of traditional age-gender-technology relations (which marginalise older women) for internet use. Furthermore, it identifies specific mechanisms found within domestication processes which serve to maintain these traditional relations. This thesis proposes a research perspective for studying age-gender-technology relations, and examines mutual shaping processes in the domestication of the internet.
2

Angels in Unstable Sociomaterial Relations : Stories of Information Technology

Elovaara, Pirjo January 2004 (has links)
I have explored spaces, where negotiations of border transgressions take place and where issues of technology and politics mingle. We meet a diversity of actors in the world of information technology (IT): political texts, people and technology participating in numerous sociomaterial relations. Time is the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium, 2000. Years, when IT occupied the western world and created its own fuzzy discourse. Years, when IT stole the biggest newspaper headlines and years, when IT became a mundane everyday part of our work practices. Years, when we learned to live in heterogeneous worlds. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Actor-Network Theory and After (ANTa) provide analytical and methodological perspectives when working with the empirical material. I present a chronological exposé of some of the key concepts of ANT and ANTa. I also discuss how the classical ANT perspective has changed during the last few years from being a theory of networks to become a methodological and analytical approach to other kinds of spaces such as fluid and fire. The heart of the thesis consists of six empirical cases. My aim of writing stories of information technology has been to investigate the black box of information technology. Investigating includes also efforts of opening. Concepts that are taken for granted, such as the very notion of information technology in my case, can be explored, questioned, transgressed, blurred and opened up. Each of the diffracted stories is specific and unique, with its own actors, context, location and situatedness. But the stories are also connected through ANT, and feminist technology and technoscience studies. Case number one, ‘Discourses and Cracks – A Case Study of Information Technology and Writing Women in a Regional Context ’, is about a project, where questions concerning discourses of information society with a special focus on citizenship are discussed and where global and national politics are translated to local and situated practices. Case number two, ‘Translating and Negotiating Information Technology ’, consists of two main parts. The fi rst one is about a regional library project. The analysis of the project is based on the classical Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach that invites the study of the heterogeneous and negotiable shaping of IT. The second part is about librarians developing web-based services. The analysis is inspired by the later development of ANT (called ANTa in the thesis) in order to include more invisible actors, relations and negotiations. Case number three, ‘Negotiating Information Technology: Politics and Practices of The Public Sector Web Production’, is about work practices of a municipal web developer, through which creation of sociotechnical relations of everyday information technology practices is analysed and also mirrored to national and local IT politics. Case number four, ‘Making e-Government Happen – Everyday Co-Development of Services, Citizenship and Technology’, is presenting the same web developer as in the third case, but now his everyday practices are connected with an expanded and wider circuit of co-constructors of information technology. The text is a co-production of a multidisciplinary research group aiming to describe, analyse and problematise connections when creating practices, where technology and society collaborate. Case number fi ve, ‘Citizenship at the Crossroads of Multiple Layers of Sociotechnical Relations’, enrols technology as an active actor in the construction of citizenship in an IT context in Sweden. The perspective emphasising the active agency of non-humans both enhances and challenges the Scandinavian approach of systems development by suggesting a direction towards a cyborgian approach towards technology design. Case number six, ‘Between Stability and Instability – a Project about e-Democracy ’, takes its point of departure from a small-scale project having as its goal the development of e-democracy in a municipal context. In the text the focus is on the stabilisation processes in shaping the technology (‘e’) and democracy parts of the project. I also discuss what kinds of spaces exist in between (the hyphen in e-democracy) and ask if integration between technology and democracy is possible as a whole. Finally, my intention is to step further into stories and practices not yet existing. Inspired by the French philosopher Michel Serres, I introduce the fi guration of an angel as a cartographer, intermediator and (co-) constructor of sociomaterial relations. Angels are needed to sew the separate fi elds of technology, politics and everyday practices to a rich seamless tapestry. They are the ‘artful integrators’ (Suchman).
3

Exploring socio-technical relations : perceptions of Saskatoon Transit’s go-pass smartcard and electronic fare system

2012 December 1900 (has links)
It is essential to consider what new technologies mean to the people who use them and the ways in which they are experienced and used. In the context of public transit services in Saskatoon, understanding what the recent changes from a manual to an electronic/automated system means to users and the broader community is critically important to the overall assessment of the service. Investigating users’ lived experiences and interpretations of technical artifacts is valuable to understanding socio-technical relations or the embodied interactions of humans and machines as “technologies-in-practice.” Research into socio-technical relations has primarily focused on large scale technological systems and expert practices while less attention has been paid to “seemingly mundane” technologies or technical artifacts routinely used in everyday life. At the same time, this preoccupation has overshadowed or downplayed the importance of exploring users’ experiences and interpretations of technologies. The goal of this research is to contribute to the sociological understanding of mundane technologies-in-practice and socio-technical relations more broadly. In order to gain insight into this relationship, this thesis focuses on bus riders’ (users) and the community’s perceptions of the Go-Pass smartcard and electronic fare system used by the public transit service in Saskatoon. The perspectives of Go-Pass users and community stakeholders (n=15) were investigated using qualitative semi-structured interviews to gain deeper understanding into the complex relationship between users and technologies. Drawing from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the sociology of technology literature, I propose that a sociomaterial theoretical perspective following a mutual shaping framework offers insight into socio-technical relations. Both critical and feminist technology studies literature has been helpful for developing an understanding of the wider social and political contexts of technical use which underscores this study. In particular, the conceptual insights of “socio-technical assemblages” (Suchman, 2007) and “intra-action” (Barad, 2003) have been helpful tools for exploring agency, subjectivity and power which is key to uncovering the intricacies of socio-technical relations and human-machine interaction. The four main themes emerging from this study were: 1) shifting human-machine roles and relationships; 2) the socio-technical construction of the bus rider; 3) configuring users’ and technologies; and 4) structural issues and social justice implications of technologies-in-practice. The findings demonstrate that the use of this new system is mutually co-constructed by both social and technical factors whereby both the users and the technology inform perceptions and use. There was also the unexpected connection between users’ everyday situated uses, experiences and interpretations of the Go-Pass technologies to wider social-political contexts. There were a number of issues raised in relation to the implementation of the Go-Pass system which had negative effects or unintended social and technical consequences particularly for those most marginalized economically. At the same time, there were important benefits and positive effects on riders’ quality of life and use of the service. Finally, participants’ perspectives have contributed to understanding what the Go-Pass technologies mean to them, the ways in which they are used in practice and the ways in which the mixing of people and seemingly mundane technologies shape relations in everyday settings.
4

Jeux vidéo pour les filles : le genre, la technologie et le design aux service du recrutement des femmes dans les Technologies de l'Information et de laCommunication ( TIC) ? / Girl Games : gender, technology and design for women’s recruitment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)?

Krupa, Frederique 30 November 2018 (has links)
Cette thèse se concentre sur le genre, le design et la technologie à travers l'artefact des jeux vidéo - les produits de la culture d'ingénierie masculine, et le lien de genre entre ceux qui font les jeux vidéo (Production) et ceux qui les jouent (Réception). Ma recherche porte sur l'industrie du jeux vidéo consacré aux pré-adolescentes qui, il y a 20 ans, était le site de l'entreprenariat féministe espérant remédier au déséquilibre entre les sexes dans les TIC. Si la parité a été atteinte dans la consommation des médias, la production technologique reste délibérément une quête masculine. Cette étude constructiviste en trois phases commence par les préférences personnelles (MBTI) et l'orientation de rôles sexués (BSRI) des femmes dans le développement des jeux, en soulignant leur résistance aux stéréotypes de genre, et se termine par une étude ethnographique des enfants jouant à des jeux vidéo indépendants et non sexistes dans un programme extrascolaire à Paris. Utilisant la sémiotique pragmatique, cette thèse soutient que les croyances et habitudes des stéréotypes négatifs de genre et de technologie sont le principal obstacle à la diversité des genres dans les TIC - limitant le nombre de femmes désirant transgresser les normes de genre dans les professions masculines — et créant une prophétie auto-réalisatrice à travers la socialisation du genre par les parents qui réifient la croyance dans les compétences technologiques masculines tout en développant un accès et un encouragement technologiques inégal entre les sexes. La thèse se termine par de l'heuristique de conception pour la neutralité de genre dans les expériences numériques des enfants. / This dissertation focuses on gender, design and technology through the artifact of video games — technology products of masculine engineering culture, and the gendered link between those that make video games (Production) and those that play them (Reception). My research examines a sector of the video game industry devoted to pre-adolescent girls, which 20 years ago was the site of feminist entrepreneurship hoping to remedy the gender imbalance in ICT (Information and Communication Technology). While parity has been achieved in media consumption, technological production firmly remains a masculine pursuit. This three-phase constructivist study begins with the personality preferences (MBTI) and sex-role orientation (BSRI) of women in game development, highlighting their exceptional resilience to gender stereotypes, and concludes with an ethnographic study of children playing independent, gender-neutral video games at an afterschool program in Paris. Using pragmatic semiotic epistemology, this dissertation argues that the belief-habits of negative gender and technology stereotypes are the principal roadblock to gender diversity in ICT – limiting the number of women willing to transgress gender norms into masculine professions and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy through parents’ gender-socialization that reifies the belief in masculine technological passion and skill while developing unequal gendered technological access and encouragement. The dissertation concludes with strategies for gender-neutralizing technology, including design heuristics for gender neutrality in children’s digital experiences.

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