scholarly journals Surveillance Capitalism, Datafication, and Unwaged Labour: The Rise of Wearable Fitness Devices and Interactive Life Insurance

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 132-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Gidaris
Keyword(s):  
Life Insurance ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
Personal Health ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Health And Fitness ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
And Control ◽  
Fitness Trackers ◽  
The Relationship

This paper examines the relationship between interactive life insurance companies and their policyholders and the way in which wearable fitness devices are deployed by these companies as data-generating surveillance technologies instead of personal health and fitness devices. Working within an expanded framework of “surveillance capitalism” (Zuboff 2015), I argue that while the notion of self-care generally associated with wearable fitness devices is underpinned by neoliberal constructs, the incentivization of interactive life insurance programs works to obscure the immense value placed on information capital. This paper briefly considers the legal loopholes involved in the harvesting of sensitive health and fitness information from consumer wearables and suggests that the push toward fitness trackers has little to do with any real concerns for the health and fitness of consumers and policyholders. Lastly, I consider different forms of unwaged labour in the relationship between policyholders and interactive life insurance programs. I contend that policyholders do not recognise the free and immaterial labour that goes into sustaining the data-based business model that interactive life insurance companies and social media platforms use and rely on for profit. In so doing, they relinquish power and control over the data they work to produce, only so that the information can be commodified and used against them.

Power and Control in Communication Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohan Jyoti Dutta
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Extractive Industries ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Marxist Analysis ◽  
Digital Development ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Contemporary Context

Power constitutes discourse and is in turn, constituted by discourse. Power mediates the relationship between economics and discourse, working through discourse to reproduce the extractive interests of capital. It is on hand, embedded in economic structures; on the other hand, it is often enacted through discursive processes, discursive spaces, and discursive tactics. A conceptual framework for theorizing power is offered in this overview in order to understand the various approaches to power in communication studies, the divergences between these approaches and the convergences between them. A Marxist analysis of power as rooted in economic structures and exerted in oppression is positioned in relationship with post-structuralist reading of power as fragmented and multi-sited. Reading power and control through a framework of intersectionality foregrounds the intersections between class, race, gender, caste, and colonial formations. The various sites of workings of power are examined, from interpersonal relationships, to groups, to organizations and communities, to mediated spaces. The roles of communication strategy, communicative inversions, and communicative erasure are articulated in the context of power, depicting the ways in which power plays out through communication. These concepts then grapple with the contemporary context of power and communication in the realm of the digital, and outline potential anchors for communication scholarship seeking to explain & resist power amid the digital turn in the neoliberal transformation of the globe. Attention is paid to the extractive industries, poor working conditions, big data industries driving behavior change, and digital development markets that are continually consolidating new forms of capitalist profiteering.

scholarly journals The orphanage as an institution of coercive mobility

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 1905-1921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Disney
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Segregation ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Institutional Environments ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
And Control ◽  
Coercive Mobility ◽  
The Relationship

This article reconsiders children’s mobilities through the relationship between care and control in the context of Russia’s disability orphanages. Drawing upon the lens of carceral mobilities, the article challenges the dominant conceptualisations of children’s mobilities as ‘independent’ or necessarily intertwined with notions of ‘wellbeing’. Instead this piece draws upon ethnographic research into the Russian disability orphanage system to present three typologies of multi-scalar carceral mobilities which children experience in this context; firstly as a form of spatial segregation and containment, secondly as a form of punishment and finally enforced stillness and restraint as a form of care. In doing so it provides new insights into the nature of the everyday for children in restricted institutional environments, largely absent from the wider geographical literature. Through the lens of carceral mobility this article provides a more nuanced geographical reading of the orphanage beyond an environment variously understood to harm or problematically to provide shelter, but as an institution enmeshed in biopolitical processes of power and control.

The In-Laws

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-153
Author(s):  
Steven M. Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
Marital Relationship ◽  
Role Reversal ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Control Work ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Distinctive Role

This chapter examines power and control issues that emerge in the marriage as a result of the relationship between wives and their mothers-in-law, and how the husband, wife, and mother-in-law use control work in various types of power struggles. In an attempt to move beyond negative stereotypes, a more realistic interpretation of the origins and construction of in-law relationships in the sport marriage is analyzed, including the origins of a durable mother-son bond and its effect on the marital relationship. The chapter introduces the concept of subordination work, which allows for an insightful evaluation of how the wives manage their subordinate status as they try to preserve their marital relationship and avoid offending their mothers-in-law. Attention also is given to a distinctive role reversal initiated by some mothers-in-law, resulting in the mother taking on the surrogate role of wife in public life.

Social Media Relationships

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Umoloyouvwe Ejiro Onomake
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Multiple Relationships ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Media Data

Ethnography has been used to research various people and topics online, primarily using netnography and digital ethnography. Researchers and businesses employ digital ethnographic methods to access an assortment of social media platforms in order to learn about social media users. Researchers seek to understand relationships between social media users and organizations from both academic and practitioner perspectives. These organizations run the gamut from for-profit businesses, to nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and government agencies. The specific focus here is on social media research as it relates to businesses. Organizations make use of social media in a variety of ways, but chiefly to market to clients and to gather information on followers; the latter of which, in turn, helps them understand their target markets. While this social media data is both quantitative and qualitative in nature, the emphasis here centers on qualitative data, particularly the ways businesses interact with social media users. While some firms mainly use older forms of one-way marketing that solely focus on disseminating information, other firms increasingly seek ways to interact with customers and co-create products with clients. Additionally, social media users are creating their own communities, formed due to a shared interest in a brand. Companies strive to learn more about their customers through these groups. Influencers also play a role in the relationship between organizations and social media users by linking their own followerships to products and brands. In turn, influencers develop their own relationships with organizations through sponsorships, thus becoming brands themselves. Influencers risk losing their followerships when followers perceive them as no longer accessible or authentic. This change in perception can occur for a variety of reasons, including when followers believe that an influencer has prioritized brand alignment over building connections with followers. Due to multiple relationships with different brands and their followers, influencers must negotiate the ambiguity and evolving nature of their role. As social media and digital spaces develop, so must the tools used by anthropologists. Anthropologists should remain open to incorporating hallmarks of ethnographic research such as fieldnotes, participant observation, and focus groups in new ways and alongside tools from other disciplines, including market and UX (user experience) research. The divide between practitioners and academics is blurring. Anthropologists can solve client issues while contributing their voices to larger anthropological and societal discussions.

Women and politeness: The Javanese example

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Smith-Hefner
Keyword(s):  
Public Power ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
The Family ◽  
Structural Variables ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
Linguistic Behavior ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTThis article explores the relationship between the status of Javanese women and the politeness or formality of their speech. I examine the hypothesis that, cross-culturally, women will speak more politely than men as an expression of their secondary status. Ethnographic research from East Java reveals that Javanese women are required to be more polite within the family where they receive less polite speech and offer more. In the wider context of Javanese culture, however, it is Javanese men who strive to cultivate politeness for the purpose of expressing their superior status and authority. The potentially coercive or political power of politeness in Javanese is related to the ambiguity of the polite codes themselves, which may be used to express both deference or humility on the one hand and status, refinement, and power on the other. Speech patterns are linked to a number of social-structural variables: patterns of socialization, models of appropriate male and female linguistic behavior, and men's and women's social roles and typical spheres of interest. Where, as in Java, polite codes are associated with public power and control, we should expect that men may be especially concerned with the cultivation of polite styles of speech. (Politeness, gender roles, linguistic socialization, Indonesia)

Social media influencers, post-feminism and neoliberalism: How mum bloggers’ ‘playbour’ is reshaping public relations

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Archer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship

The rise of blogging mothers as precariat workers conducting ‘playbour’, a combination of play and labour, and as subjects of neoliberalism, requires a re-examination of virtually mobile mothers and their role in 21st century society. At the same time, public relations (PR) and marketing practitioners are grappling with how to interact and ‘work’ with these, among other, social media influencers who are increasingly seen as able to sell products and ideas through their blogs, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. The relatively new relationships between PR practitioners and social media influencers raise questions of unequal power and vulnerability for both the largely amateur influencers and the PR practitioners. The relationship between the two means that ethical questions around exploitation, authenticity, professionalism and control have arisen, with both sides feeling their way in new terrain. This article uses the concepts of precarity and liminality and applies them to a group of ‘mommy/mummy/mum bloggers’, that is, blogging mothers of young children, negotiating their identities as mothers, and moving beyond their homes using social media to, in part, create a sense of belonging (but also, in some cases, to make money). The article is based on the author’s own longitudinal digital ethnography within online influencer territory, and includes mainstream and online media reports and interviews with both mum bloggers and PR practitioners. It is argued that the marketisation of motherhood within a dominant culture of neoliberalism means that practitioners may wrongly assume that mum bloggers are acting freely to engage with entrepreneurial endeavours.

scholarly journals Unas notas sobre la manera de pensar las relaciones entre la medicina y los poderes públicos / Notes on How to Consider The Relationship Between Medicine and Public Authorites

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis González Quirós
Keyword(s):  
Health System ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Historical View ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Right ◽  
And Control ◽  
Sistemas Sanitarios ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTIn order to examine relations between political authorities and the health system we need a historical view that allows us to understand the drift of the ever expanding health system under liberal systems and the introduction of new concepts such as the right to health under so-called Welfare States. State appropriation of citizens’ health, through health systems, changes the paradigm of the doctor-patient relationship as understood traditionally and historically, and makes us cautious about what may be a threat to our individual liberties, with a disproportionate health service and states that intervene directly in the lives of their citizens not only as regards the law but also their health and bodies. This all needs to be analyzed unreservedly and we must be careful that the right to health does not become an instrument of power and control by states over citizens, thus diminishing our liberties.RESUMENLa necesidad de examinar las relaciones entre poder político y sistema sanitario requiere de una mirada histórica que nos permita comprender la deriva que al amparo de los sistemas liberales ha ido teniendo el cada vez más expansivo sistema sanitario y la introducción de nuevos conceptos como el derecho a la salud propio de los llamados Estados del Bienestar. La apropiación por parte de los Estados, a través de los sistemas sanitarios, de la salud de los ciudadanos cambia el paradigma de relación medico / paciente que había sido tradicional a lo largo de la historia y nos hace ser precavidos sobre lo que puede resultar una amenaza a nuestras propias libertades individuales con una sanidad seguramente desmedida y unos Estados que intervienen directamente en la vida  de sus ciudadanos no solo jurídicamente, sino sanitariamente, corporalmente. Todo ello requiere ser analizado sin reservas de ningún tipo y estar atentos no vaya a ser que el derecho a la salud acabe siendo un instrumento de poder y control por parte de los Estados sobre los ciudadanos que permita una disminución de nuestras libertades.

scholarly journals Developing “place leadership” when hierarchical accountability is omnipresent: the case of English sub-national government

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Ferry ◽  
Mark Sandford
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
News Media ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Government Relations ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship

PurposeThe relationship between central and sub-national (local) government is contentious around distribution of power and control. There is a specific concern when a (local) place has power devolved, but centralised hierarchical accountability pervades.Design/methodology/approachThis paper addresses that concern by considering recent innovative developments around place-based accountability arrangements in England, through analysis of official reports and news media.FindingsThe article illustrates aspirations towards accountability to the local electorate clash with hierarchical accountability that remains an omnipresent mechanism of central control. It is suggested, accountability forums be developed to blend hierarchy and the place leadership role of directly elected mayors. This could enable local accountability to the electorate, whilst taking account of the context of specific regional level complexities.Originality/valueThis is one of the first papers to consider issues of place leadership and place based accountability within the framework of hierarchical accountability for central and local government relations.

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