Expanding Imagined Affordance with Futuretypes: Challenging Algorithmic Power with Collective 2040 Imagination
Lonny Avi Brooks, Andrea Saveri · Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · 2017
Imagined affordance speaks to the hidden affordances not often seen of user expectations. What if we asked a group of working class, ethnically diverse range of people to re-imagine alternative forms of digital platforms for 2040, and other time horizons? What would they re-imagine? How might this approach expand our set of theoretical constructs, methodologies in design practice for digital social media (DSM)? Student stories and our analysis of them comprise a hybrid of evidence interweaving design thinking with textual analysis and future studies. Informed by an analysis of social and technology trends, students explore the citizen imaginary for peer-producing alternative visions of our DSM. An analysis of student visions uncovers future memes of civil rights; platforms as new governing states; and resistance to algorithmic capture. These stories become a collective selfie into re-imagined social worlds. In their wake, futuretypes, signals of platform alternatives, emerge--an expanded range of citizen emotions, feelings, and desires.