Systems for Listening in Private, Urban, and Institutional Environments

In this talk I’ll discuss three projects I’ve done to understand how and why people listen to themselves and others using digital technologies. The first project-centered on a custom-built technology-enhanced toy called «TellTale»-shows how young children can learn aspects of written literacy by composing oral stories with an interface that supports structured language play. The second project-using another custom-built technology called «TexTales»-demonstrates how urban groups can come together to debate issues by collaboratively producing media (specifically, interactive, large-scale projections of images and SMS-created captions) in physical, public environments. The third project-my dissertation work-asks what model of «press freedoms» encoded in the design and use of networked news technologies. I specifically question whether democracies are helped or hindered when the press’s autonomy (traditionally defended with appeals to both individuals’ rights to speak and publics’ rights to hear) is supplanted by networked technologies and practices that change who (or what) can orient and inform publics. My aim is to show how studying systems like these-technologies and institutions designed to listen to individuals and publics-can reveal how and why modern technologies, networks, and institutions for public expression intersect.

Speaker Bios

Mike Ananny is a Doctoral Candidate (Department of Communication), Masters Candidate (School of Education), Trudeau Scholar, and Fellow with the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, at Stanford University. He studies social uses of networked technologies, specifically focusing on the concept of press freedom in contemporary online American journalism. His dissertation argues that press freedom is increasingly defined not just by professional journalists, news markets, courts, and audiences, but by those who make and use networked technologies. At Stanford, he has worked as a moderator with the Center for Deliberative Democracy (Professor James Fishkin), a researcher with the Center for Innovations in Learning (Professor Roy Pea), a researcher with the Anthropology Department (Dr. Claudia Engel), and as a research assistant for the Stanford Law School (Professor Barbara van Schewick).

Before coming to Stanford, Ananny was a founding member of Media Lab Europe (the MIT Media Laboratory’s European partner) where he researched, designed and evaluated informal learning technologies. He also led several public-private partnerships with the BBC, University of Tampere, Amsterdam Computer Clubhouse, Loyalist College Canada, The Ark Children’s Cultural Centre; was principal investigator on European Union grant proposals; and licensed his custom software to Trinity College Dublin for classroom use.

Ananny holds a Bachelors of Science from the University of Toronto (Computer Science and Human Biology). While an undergraduate, he was a founding member of Expresto Software Corporation (sold in 2002). Ananny also holds a Masters in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Laboratory where he researched, designed and evaluated embodied conversational software agents and tangible, technology-enhanced toys to support children’s language learning. He has worked or consulted with LEGO, Mattel and Nortel Networks, helping to translate research concepts and prototypes into new product lines and services.

Date:
Haut-parleurs:
Mike Ananny
Affiliation:
Stanford