Since translating is an office activity which, like other office activities, consists primarily of processing text, it is instructive to examine the reasons for automating text…
Abstract
Since translating is an office activity which, like other office activities, consists primarily of processing text, it is instructive to examine the reasons for automating text production. Most of these reasons will be equally applicable to the production of translated texts. We shall then investigate the current developments in machines and micro‐chip technology which are applicable to translation. These will include voice recognition and response and optical character recognition equipment amongst others.
Paula M.C. Swatman, Cornelia Krueger and Kornelia van der Beek
To provide an empirically based analysis and evaluation of the existing and possible future evolution of Internet business models within the digital content market, focusing…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide an empirically based analysis and evaluation of the existing and possible future evolution of Internet business models within the digital content market, focusing particularly on the possibilities for cooperation and coopetition within this market‐space.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a three‐year study of the European online news and online music sectors, comprising a set of preliminary, scene‐setting case studies of a number of major players within the European online news and music sectors; a detailed, two‐stage survey made up of online questionnaires and face‐to‐face interviews; and a small number of in‐depth case studies.
Findings
Provides a discussion of the changes taking place in the online news and music sectors, the evolution of the business models within them, the driving forces we have identified, and finally some predictions about what the future may hold for both these sectors.
Research limitations/implications
The research is indicative, rather than general – being centred on European participants in two sectors of the digital content market‐space in the period between May 2003 and August 2004.
Practical implications
A rich evaluation of these two fast‐moving digital content sectors, providing empirically based insights into the ways in which they are evolving and changing and into parallels with other, similar sectors of the digital content market.
Originality/value
This paper is the first major empirical evaluation of the digital content market‐space and offers practical assistance, as well as new theoretical insights on e‐business model evolution in this area.
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An inquiry into the constitution of the experience of patienthood. It understands “becoming a patient” as a production of a subjectivity, in other words as a process of…
Abstract
Purpose
An inquiry into the constitution of the experience of patienthood. It understands “becoming a patient” as a production of a subjectivity, in other words as a process of individuation and milieu that occurs through an ontology of production. This ontology of production can, of course, also be understood as a political ontology. Therefore, this is, first of all, an inquiry into a mode of production, and, secondly, an inquiry into its relation to the issue of social justice – because of effects of digital divisions. In these terms, it also reflects on how expert discourses, such as in medical sociology and science studies (STS), can (and do) articulate their problems.
Approach
An integrative mode of discourse analysis, strongly related to discursive institutionalism, called semantic agency theory: it considers those arrangements (institutions, informal organizations, networks, collectivities, etc.) and assemblages (intellectual equipment, vernacular epistemologies, etc.) that are constitutive of how the issue of “patient experience” can be articulated form its position within an ontology of production.
Findings
The aim not being the production of a finite result, what is needed is a shift in how “the construction of patient experience” is produced by expert discourses. While the inquiry is not primarily an empirical study and is also limited to “Western societies,” it emphasizes that there is a relation between political ontologies (including the issues of social justice) and the subjectivities that shape the experiences of people in contemporary health care systems, and, finally, that this relation is troubled by the effects of the digital divide(s).
Originality
A proposal “to interrogate and trouble” some innovative extensions and revisions – even though it will not be able to speculate about matters of degree – to contemporary theories of biomedicalization, patienthood, and managed care.
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With the ubiquitous spread of the Selfie as a central feature of millennial digital practices, this article examines the impact of digital media on the traditional uses of the…
Abstract
With the ubiquitous spread of the Selfie as a central feature of millennial digital practices, this article examines the impact of digital media on the traditional uses of the snapshot as a record of private life, particularly in terms of the family and circles of friends. It argues that the affordances of digital photography and social media lead to a transformation of the snapshot into the Selfie. The Selfie as a kind of performance impacts the social practices of family photography in a variety of ways. Some positive, in that the affordances of digital photography put the opportunity for the public circulation of self-selected Kodak “moments” which show the individual in the best possible light; and some negative since the new emphasis on the body as a vehicle of self-expression sustains a tournament based on appearances. The resultant shift from notions of the gift economy implicit in practices of family photography leads to the personal snapshot becoming a proto-commodity form in which the competitive logic of Celebrity culture pervades the social exchange of the photograph. The chapter closes with consideration of the importance of the Selfie across the life course and the logic of self-impression management as a digital performance.
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The debate concerning the Quantified-Self Movement (QS) has been extremely polarised. As Tamar Sharon has pointed out, each aspect of the lifestyle promoted by Gary Wolf and Kevin…
Abstract
The debate concerning the Quantified-Self Movement (QS) has been extremely polarised. As Tamar Sharon has pointed out, each aspect of the lifestyle promoted by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly has provoked opposite reactions, generating a debate that revolves around some basic conceptual dichotomies: empowerment versus surveillance, self-awareness versus reductionism, and personalised healthcare versus disintegration of public assistance (Sharon, 2017). The aim of this chapter is to provide a critique of QS, namely an assessment of its limits and its (technological and social) conditions of possibility. In particular, the author’s analysis will focus on the relationship between technology and subjectivity, and its main theoretical framework will be Michel Foucault’s research on the notion of ‘care for the self’ (Foucault, 1986, 2005). Quantification is an essential and unescapable aspect of our present technological environment. The devices that make our onlife (Floridi, 2014) possible are connected with a complex technological system made of GPSs, satellites, computers, and networks. Health is no longer managed through a distinct set of practices within the limits of a well-defined space (the hospital or the ambulatory), but it rather becomes a dataset integrated into a system where all aspects of life (health, law, leisure, work, social relations) are treated and managed simultaneously. This technological condition implies a new form of cognitive and practical delegation (Ippolita, 2016; Morozov, 2013), which makes the very notion of ‘self-tracking’ at least problematic. Individuals do not track themselves anymore: on the contrary, they are tracked by prosthetic extensions of their own bodies. This, however, does not mean that they do nothing. Our digital devices require a specific set of practices, a determinate way of life. The author will argue that these practices are the product of design, understood as a specific way of conceiving and organising the interaction between subject and technical object (Flusser, 1999). Through our technological environment, design reshapes the social and political function of bodies, their interaction and the set of practices connected to them (Bratton, 2015; Dyer, 2016; Vial, 2014). Automated quantification is an aspect of our designed user experience. As such, this chapter discusses design as a key element to understand the role of quantification in our digital milieu. It analyses the QS movement as a specific way of responding to our new technological condition. The main research question will be the following: is QS to be regarded as a simple acceptance of a new form of delegated – and thus alienated – subjectivity, or is it a kind of practice that allows the subject to overcome his passivity, and to take part in the process through which quantification is designed and managed? Is it possible to understand QS as a technology of the self (Foucault, 1988, 2005)?