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
--
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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