Making Sense of Computing: Methods, Uses, and Histories

Session Submission Type: Traditional (Closed) Panel

Abstract

This panel showcases the breadth of (inter)disciplinary methods that scholars are using to make sense of computing and information technologies. Each panelist focuses on one category of analysis and advances at least one case study to illustrate its use. Our talks will demonstrate how the past and present of computing illustrate and complicate five major themes in STS scholarship: Law, Identity, Gender, Disability, and Play. The range of approaches and methods in our talks will appeal to STS scholars interested in media, communication, and technology, regardless of their methodological preferences and backgrounds.

In the opening paper, historian Gerardo Con Diaz (Law) shows how the study of intellectual property law enables us to trace the discursive emergence of software as a distinct technology. Next, historian Marie Hicks (Identity) analyzes how the British government developed its own forms of hacking to deprive transgender citizens of their proper share of pension funds. Historian Joy Rankin (Gender) then turns the panel’s attention towards everyday users by revealing the heteronormative gender assumptions embedded in and reinforced by PLATO, a social network from the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on a more contemporary case study, communications scholar Meryl Alper (Disability) investigates the use of computing among people with autism and sensory processing disorders. The closing paper, by anthropologist Amy Johnson (Play) analyzes how social media users in Japan construct robotic personae for themselves on Twitter. Kevin Driscoll, a media studies and STS scholar, will comment on all papers.

Sub Unit

• 4S Annual Meeting

Chair

• Kevin Driscoll, University of Virginia

Discussant

• Kevin Driscoll, University of Virginia

Individual Presentations

• Law: Intellectual Property and Software in the United States - Gerardo Con Diaz, University of California, Davis (UCD)

• Identity: Transgender Users and the Hacking of the British Welfare State - Marie Hicks, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Gender: Challenging and Reinforcing Gender Roles in an Early Social Network - Joy Marie Lisi Rankin, Michigan State University

• Disability: Making “Sense” of Computing through Sensory Processing Disorder and Autism - Meryl Alper, Northeastern University

• Play: On Manual Bots and Being Human on Twitter - Amy Johnson