Follow-up to Topic B (Engagement) 2017–18
Notes for Digital Society participants
These are archived versions of the pages from Digital Society 2017/8, to preserve content for past participants. See the main page for the latest materials.
Hi digital society — great to meet so many of you; thanks for engaging online and off. This has been a fantastic discussion — I hope it continues throughout the course. I’ve written a topic summary based on the session, your ideas online and off, and some bonus links. This is just my take — I welcome any comments, questions, or views you wish to share. My slides are at the end. A podcast will be available for Manchester students.
‘Engagement’
Engagement is a deliberately vague term. For this topic, we are talking about any activity involving one or more people. It will become clear why. We start by looking at engagement between people, then people and companies, and consider the differences. We will then take a look at digital marketing.
Taking a critical view, we will ask about the data gathered about our everyday activities, and whether we should consider this as engagement with whoever is ‘monitoring’ us. This topic will help you explore the boundaries of your engagement with companies/entities, and reflect on where you draw the line.
Engaging with each other
Analogue versus digital
In society, there has always been engagement between people. Thanks to technology, there are now ‘digital’ and ‘analogue’ ways we engage with each other. This was a nice discussion in itself — one student asked what I meant by analogue. I use this to mean ‘not using digital technology’, however you may define it differently. ‘Digital’ can imply a lot of things, so we can look at this from a few different perspectives.
Sometimes we only describe something as ‘analogue’ after a digital version arrives, leading to retronyms. One of you mentioned we now have physical books (previously ‘books’) versus ebooks. It reminded me of this cartoon.
Different aspects of engagement
We discussed some dichotomies: face-to-face/remote; physical/virtual; using digital/analogue technology (or no electric/electronic technology); online/offline. You also mentioned tone, emotion and physical contact — these are currently ‘harder’ in digital spaces; will that always be the case? Manchester students can experience virtual/augmented reality at DigiLab.
One of you made a point about synchronous (live) versus asynchronous (delayed) communication. A letter (or email) is asynchronous: you write a letter, then wait for a reply. A face-to-face talk (or Skype) is synchronous: a real-time conversation. This is not the same as analogue/digital, however technology — first analogue, then digital — moved us from having to be in the same room for a conversation to free video calls around the world in about 100 years. Amazing, and it shows how related some of the above ideas are. Technology has led to more options for live chat, but concepts such as the double text suggest asynchronous chat is here to stay. Joyce said in a comment:
“I can take 3 days to reply your text message but I sure can reply within 3 seconds if you asked me something in person!”
Your examples
Some ways you engage with people which you classed as digital: messenger apps such as Facebook Messenger/WhatsApp; social networks such as Snapchat/Instagram; video chat such as Skype/Facetime; email.
Some ways you engage in more ‘analogue’ ways: writing a letter; talking or meeting in person; phone calls (although this is quite debatable — I know the technology is now digital, but it still feels analogue to me).
Is there a difference?
We discussed whether digital and analogue engagement are fundamentally different, and thought about where engagement happens. Aral Balkan says:
“Facebook wants us to think that it is a park when it’s actually a shopping mall.”
A lot of people agreed with this, although some said that while Facebook is like a shopping mall, it is possible (if difficult) to ‘opt out’ to an extent by controlling browser/account settings, or using ad blockers. One participant suggested that these services are all-or-nothing opt in/out.
My view is that companies will continue to push boundaries, and what we accept as normal is changing. This is why I wanted to talk about ‘engagement’ generally; I feel we often engage with companies/entities without knowing it.
Taking it offline
We then looked at engagement between people in ‘private’ (or offline) and surveillance. It is not just your Facebook messages or Google emails which those companies have access to. The bonus reading explains that smart home technology can record our ‘offline’ engagements — with our full permission. Most of you felt this was going too far. It is worth considering what we agree to by using these services.
Engaging with things
Online — search engines, websites, apps…
We looked at the idea that we don’t just engage with people, but websites, companies and other entities when we do things online. You can look around a physical shop without anyone knowing your identity, without the creation of a list of things you looked at. Online, this is harder, because you will likely use websites, which can track you. As Phoebe mentioned in a comment:
“Often I experience advertising that I notice is personalized for me, taken from my earlier browsing history.”
This is not necessarily good or bad — Tara pointed out that it can make life easier, and you offered views on both sides in the session. If you are an Android user, view a timeline of almost everything you do on your phone.
‘Offline’ — if that even exists…
We discussed ‘offline’ activity — a big one for me is location. My phone knows my location, and Google records this with my permission. It’s useful for me, but more useful for them. We talked about Strava data revealing locations of ‘secret’ military bases, due to soldiers tracking workouts through the app (even if shared privately). If you use Google Maps, you can view your location history.
We can see that our ‘offline’ activities — not just conversations — can be digitised and stored in the same way as online activities. You shared some further examples: CCTV and phone calls. While the series Hunted is simulated, it gives an idea of the scale of ‘state’ surveillance.
Engaging with brands
We spent part of the topic talking about how we engage with brands in a digital world, and you had plenty of thoughts on this.
Cheyenne and Bridget mentioned Gucci and ASOS as having run campaigns which better reflect the diversity of the world compared to what we often see in advertising. Cheyenne commented, “the representation shown by gucci engaged me more”. Bridget questioned ASOS’s motivations — whether they are acting “for the benefit of social good or simply to make money”.
We discussed whether digital approaches can strengthen brands. Before the session, Claire mentioned “the rise of instagram” as important in brand awareness and loyalty in a digital world. Many of you — including Zara, Lukas and Luisa — mentioned the convenience of reviews and personalisation. Some of you felt personalisation comes at a cost, or found it intrusive and used ad-blockers.
We looked at how we are being ‘tracked’ by companies (aside from big players such as Google and Facebook). You asked questions: what about physical shops? If you pay by card, they may know who you are. If you use a store card, they can be sure (and have your permission). What about what you watch on TV? This surprised some of you — some adverts contain ultrasonic tones which we can’t hear, but which your phone (or other device) listens for, to track your viewing habits. These could, of course, be used beyond adverts…
Marketing in a digital society
As well as considering people as consumers in a digital society, we asked the question: has ‘digital’ fundamentally changed marketing?
Digital tools can be used to market traditional products — but many things we can buy are themselves digital. We talked about digital versions of ‘analogue’ products such as MP3s/DVDs, digital access to products such as Spotify/Netflix, and ‘born digital’ products such as Spotify’s workout and suggested playlist features. But are the methods and approaches different?
To help provoke discussion, we looked at a traditional model of marketing: the ‘7 Ps’, or extended marketing mix. This outlines a number of areas which companies can consider when deciding how to market products or services. The Marketing Mix website gives a fairly good overview of this.
The discussion was really good — we came up with some areas which are important in digital marketing, and less important (or non-existant) traditionally. Some examples: Digital creates new ways for customers to interact with campaigns, for example the Pepsi Max bus shelter. It has given rise to new levels of word-of-mouth marketing (via social media), content marketing, personalised/targeted and programmatic marketing.
For organisations, people are an important part of marketing, no less so in a digital society. However as we will explore below, there are concerning aspects to this, and I feel it is worth considering the impact and implications of marketing (and other topics) for us, not just the role we play in it…
Engagement generates data
“You are the product…”
Our discussion brought us to the idea that “if you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold” (Andrew Lewis). This is why we have talked about ‘engagement’ broadly rather than specifics. As we have seen, online/offline, social/otherwise, much of our activity is digitised and used by companies. It worth considering that in these cases, we are engaging with these companies.
…or maybe your data is the product…
The above sets us up for Shoshana Zuboff’s idea of surveillance capitalism. Not only are companies like Google and Facebook mediating many of our interactions, they are recording them, analysing them, and trying to predict our future behaviour. Their models and predictions are the true product, and perhaps Facebook’s purpose is to make you generate data.
This offers another explanation to ‘Facebook listening to your microphone’: perhaps these companies, because of their sophisticated, automated analysis of the mass of data they hold on you, know you better than you do.
But is this really new? Companies collect data on customers, use it to sell stuff, try to sell the data… what’s the big deal? Zuboff argues that the scale of the issue has boomed, leading to a new economic model. What do you think? My view: in a digital society, it is increasingly easy to capture and store data on people, and advances in computing (e.g. machine learning) make it easier to analyse and predict based on it — and this has fundamentally changed the way we engage with each other and the world.
…or maybe your data is part of you
Aral Balkan goes further, and suggests that our data is part of us:
“We are sharded beings; the sum total of our various aspects as contained within our biological beings as well as the myriad of technologies that we use to extend our biological abilities.”
One student suggested that we are cultural beings, and that culture does exist digitally. Perhaps what has changed is that in a digital society, culture can to some extent be digitised.
I feel that an increasing amount of my knowledge and memories are ‘outsourced to the cloud’ — but this is nothing compared to all of the data on me, which I may not even know about.
Risks of digital engagement
We asked whether we are more at risk in a digital society. Heather pointed out in a comment that the internet allows “harassment and abuse to be done anonymously, which has had some devastating consequences”. This is a huge problem on social networks such as Twitter, and may be a way in which digital platforms amplify existing inequalities and prejudices in society.
If more of our lives are digitised, it is also easier for the government to ‘watch us’. This too may lead to furthering of inequality and injustice, and reminds us: if the government can access data, potentially so can hackers. Beyond Facebook and Google, criminals trade data with less respect for the law. This video shows an example of a simple hack — this happens every day.
Who controls the data?
In the final article on the reading list, Henna Zamurd-Butt argues that data about people is largely controlled by Silicon Valley and the Global North, and because of this, the Internet is not achieving its true potential, but reinforcing biases already present in society. On the idea of digital colonialism, Phoebe noted, “Perhaps more of us in the privileged West should consider actions to take to prevent this kind of exploitation”
Summary
Our engagements with people, organisations, and to some extent ‘the world’, online and offline, digital or analogue, are increasingly captured and stored digitally. Digital may or may not have changed marketing fundamentally, but a few things are clear: a lot of our engagement online is mediated by big companies. Our engagement can influence our behaviour through digital marketing. Furthermore, our engagement can help generate data relating to us, which can sold, may lead to predicting or even influencing our behaviour — for marketing or otherwise. This ‘surveillance capitalism’ is controlled by a small number of huge companies, which may give rise to ‘data colonialism’, amplifying inequality and prejudice. The internet is arguably ungoverned; together with the above, this may be a problem. Some people see humans as partly digital/partly data. It is not fully clear who ‘owns’ these parts of us, and the law/our understanding may still be catching up.
It is up to you what you think about all this — I hope you enjoyed discussing it! Good luck with the rest of the course and in future. All comments welcome.
