Podcast transcript: Digital Engagement
This podcast is part of the UCIL Digital Society course from the University of Manchester. The story it relates to is hosted on Medium and can be found here.
In this podcast Chris Millson introduces the topic — Digital Engagement.
TRANSCRIPT
AS: Welcome to the Digital Society podcast. This week’s topic is Engagement.
AS: Hello, I’m Amanda from the Library Student Team and today on the Digital Society podcast we are joined by Chris to talk about Engagement.
Hi, I’m Chris Millson, and I’m eLearning Manager for the Library. I’m interested in how we engage with technology such as websites and apps, how we engage with each other through technology, and how we engage with companies, organisations and brands through technology. This topic is all about Engagement.
CM: In this topic, we will be considering what digital engagement means, and whether there are differences between digital and analogue engagement. For example, if you talk to someone face-to-face, or through video chat, is that a fundamentally different interaction?
It is also interesting to consider our engagement with websites and the internet. Websites may be used to be passive, providing information to you on request, not really asking for much back. Now, companies like Facebook provide us with information on our friends, but they are gathering information on us too. In 2010, Andrew Lewis said, “If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” Do you agree? And does it matter?
We also do things in what you might call “the real world” which are captured digitally, and stored somewhere as data about us. For example, when you talk to Alexa or your smart TV, or walk around with a GPS-equipped phone in your bag, your recordings are uploaded for analysis — but what happens to them after that and do you care? Some people find that smart technology, also discussed in the Internet of Think topic, is merely a way of gathering valuable data on people.
So our engagements with people, organisations, and to some extent ‘the world’, online and offline, digital or analogue, are increasingly captured and stored digitally. A lot of our engagement online is now 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 be 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 or our understanding may still be catching up.
AS: Now that you’ve heard a little bit about this topic, you’re ready to work through the Topic post which includes activities to help you join in the discussion. Engaging with all this content will help you prepare for the assessments. We look forward to hearing what you’ve got to say!
