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Call for Abstracts - Hype Assessment Panel - 6th European Technology Assessment Conference (ETAC6)

Technology Assessment Goes Global

Abstract submission deadline: 9th of December Submit your abstract at: criticalhypestudies@posteo.com

Panel description

The burgeoning field of hype studies is ever-growing. This panel stems from a collective effort to create a unified approach named Critical Hype Studies that started during last year’s 4S/EASST conference. Hype is a topic that matters for TA as S&T trajectories, trust and expectations are severely impacted by overpromises and also affect assessment and political regulation of technology. With this panel we want to leverage collective experiences, to co-creatively build foundational structures and establish a TA and STS rooted, but also outer-disciplinary, set of perspectives.

Acknowledging that hype is a phenomenon intimately related to financial interest and political agendas that performs epistemic, behavioral, communicative, urbanistic, environmental and affective agencies, this panel will have two aims:

(1) firstly, we want to present our current progress as a collective of researchers focusing on critical hype studies as part of our introductory presentation linking it to current TA debates;

(2) secondly, we aim to invite new contributions explore why hype should be assessed; what would be a possible programme for hype assessment; present possible hype cases to be assessed; and reflect about what kinds of methods can be designed to assess hype in order to inform policy makers and TA practitioners.

Thus, we are particularly interested in insights considering how promises, visions, futures, imaginaries, expectations, narratives, fictions, and discourses come together in hype. Especially for TA it is important to assess what path dependencies and lock-ins they produce and how they should be addressed in order to guarantee democratic, sustainable and fair socio-technical societies. That is especially relevant when very local elites (i.e. Silicon Valley) are capable to activate hype cycles whose effects are global, but with local instantiations through regulations, investments, media outlets, discourses and affects ranging from hope to fear.

We welcome contributions that present historical analysis of hype and its consequences, as well as contemporary approaches addressing its possible performative effects in decision-making, public perception, innovation, policies, funding and in general the unequal distribution of attention, information, wealth and power. Our scope is global: Given the rising importance of global TA, political notions are present if (western) tech-hypes silence other global pressing issues of poverty and environment combatting.

Further, and in alignment with the theme of ETAC6, we are committed to explore how hype assessment, as an emergent TA practice, can be activated through advisory in different socio-political contexts; how it can engage different TA practices; or how hype assessment has already conducted in specific contexts close to TA.

Scholars with a background in STS and innovation studies, particularly those engaged in TA, studies of innovation, expectations, expertise and experience,transitions, and imaginaries, are especially invited. Contributions from media studies, design studies, philosophy, cybernetics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis are also highly welcome, as we weave together multiple threads to formulate a comprehensive understanding of hype phenomena.

Background:

Panel participants and attendees are particularly welcome into this forum, currently consisting of more than 30 hype researchers, where, together, we are assembling insights into a structured field. We envisage that by the time of ETAC6, we will have submitted a multi-authored position paper, offering a unified approach for hype studies, with definitions, related literature, methodological recommendations, and research agenda that followed from our initial meeting last year, that we will be willing to share in preprint form for discussion as a point of departure for an international hub and observatory for the critical study of hype as a sociotechnical phenomenon. Addressing hype assessment will be an opportunity to activate many of the conclusions addressed in the upcoming work and follow new avenues of research and action.

Best,

Jascha in the name of the critical hype studies group

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Jascha Bareis(Profile) (Scholar) (LinkedIn)

Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis(ITAS)

Karlsruher Institute of Technology(KIT)

Research Group Digital Technology and Societal Change(FG DigIT)

Recent Publications

Ask Me Anything ! 😈How ChatPGT Got Hyped Into Being.SOC ARXIV Preprint

The Trustification of AI. Disclosing the bridging pillars that tie Trust and AI together.Big Data & Society

Technology Hype: Dealing with bold expectations and overpromising, with M. Roßmann and F.Bordignon.Journal of Technology Assessment in Theory and Practice

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