Melissa Mazmanian

Stories of the Smartphone in everyday discourse: conflict, tension & instability

As the smartphone proliferates in American society, so too do stories about its value and impact. In this paper we draw on advertisements and news articles to analyze cultural discourse about the smartphone. We highlight two common tropes: one calling for increased technological integration, the other urging individuals to dis-integrate the smartphone from daily life. We examine the idealized subject positions of these two stories and show how both simplistic tropes call on the same overarching values to compel individuals to take opposing actions. We then reflect on the conflicts individuals experience in trying to align and account for their actions in relation to multiple contradictory narratives. Finally, we call for CHI researchers to tell and provoke more complicated stories of technologies and their relationships with values in conversations, publications, and future designs.

It takes a network to get dinner: designing location-based systems to address local food needs

Based on an 18-month qualitative study that included the creation and testing of design considerations and a prototype location-based information system (LBIS), this research provides empirical insight into the daily practices of a wide variety of individuals working to address food insecurity in one U.S. county. Qualitative fieldwork reveals that nonprofit organizations in the food assistance ecology engage in location-based information practices that could be enhanced by the design of a LBIS. Two practices that would benefit from a collaborative LBIS are 1) practices of matching in which nonprofit workers help individuals who are seeking assistance to food resources and 2) practices of distribution in which nonprofit workers help organizations access and deliver food resources to clients. In order to support such practices across organizations the cooperative design component of this research suggests that an LIBS should: support the role of intermediaries who engage in practices of matching and distribution; provide interactive mapping tools that match resources to need; enable organizations to control visibility over specific data; and document work and impact. This research further suggests that designers should explore the wide variety of spatial patterns that must align and overlap such that ecologies of nonprofit organizations might synergistically work together to address pressing social needs.

Motherhood and HCI

Motherhood and mothering are fundamental aspects of life, and as a consequence, every culture has knowledge, values, practices and expectations related to the role. Technologies now have an increasing role in motherhood, altering many womens experiences of pregnancy, birth, and mothering. For HCI, such a transition opens a whole host of questions relating to areas of participatory design, social connection, data sharing, identity, memory-making, emotion work, as well as offering a new lens through which to understand notions of care and wellbeing. This workshop will bring together researchers, designers, and practitioners interested in the role of motherhood, the act of mothering, and its relation to HCI and technology. We will identify a collective research agenda related to motherhood and HCI and forge connections amongst a community of researchers to support the sharing of knowledge, resources and design approaches.

The labor practices of service mediation: a study of the work practices of food assistance outreach

In this paper, we present the results of a study of the work practices of food assistance outreach workers. We introduce the construct of service mediation, which includes the technical, social, and knowledge labor practices involved in enabling access to and use of an e-government service. We explore the service mediation activities of outreach, technological assistance, providing knowledge, and ongoing engagement. These activities bring to light how successful service relationships involve fostering a process, bridging relationships, and providing broader scaffolding. The results of our research highlight the role service mediation plays in the use of services and service technologies in information-rich organizations. This research extends previous conceptualizations of mediation by documenting how mediators support broader service processes for their clients, transform potential beneficiaries into clients, and engage in long term assistance. Therefore, this work moves beyond prior conceptualizations of mediation that concentrate solely on enabling access and use of specific technologies.

E-government intermediaries and the challenges of access and trust

In this article, we present the results of a study examining challenges related to access and trust for nutrition assistance outreach workers and suggest design implications for these challenges. Outreach workers are e-government intermediaries who assist clients with accessing and using e-government online applications, systems, and services. E-government intermediaries are not typical end users; they use e-government systems on behalf of clients, and as such their challenges differ from those of primary users. We detail social and technical aspects of these challenges to develop a nuanced understanding of access and trust in the ecosystems surrounding e-government systems. First, we describe how the practical accomplishment of access involves multiple stakeholders, actors, and practices. Second, we highlight how trust emerges through the e-government intermediaries’ work to project themselves as professional and competent through their technical practice. Last, we propose design implications sensitive to both the social and technical aspects of these challenges.

Circumscribed Time and Porous Time: Logics as a Way of Studying Temporality

In this paper, we introduce the notion of a temporal logic to characterize sets of organizing principles that perpetuate particular orientations to the lived experience of time. We identify a dominant temporal logic, circumscribed time, which has legitimated time as chunkable, single-purpose, linear, and ownable. We juxtapose this logic with the temporal experiences of participants in three ethnographic datasets to identify a set of alternative understandings of time -- that it is also spectral, mosaic, rhythmic, and obligated. We call this understanding porous time. We posit porous time as an expansion of circumscribed time in order to provoke reflection on how temporal logics underpin the ways that people orient to each other, research and design technologies, and normalize visions of success in contemporary life.

From interaction to performance with public displays

Abstract Interacting with public displays involves more than what happens between individuals and the system; it also concerns how people experience others around and through those displays. In this paper, we use “performance” as an analytical lens for understanding experiences with a public display called rhythIMs and explore how displays shift social interaction through their mediation. By performance, we refer to a situation in which people are on display and orient themselves toward an audience that may be co-located, imagined, or virtual. To understand interaction with public displays, we use two related notions of collectives—audiences and groups—to highlight the ways in which people orient to each other through public displays. Drawing examples from rhythIMs, a public display that shows patterns of instant messaging and physical presence, we demonstrate that there can be multiple, heterogeneous audiences and show how people experience these different types of collectives in various ways. By taking a performance perspective, we are able to understand how audiences that were not physically co-present with participants still influenced participants’ interpretations and interactions with rhythIMs. This extension of the traditional notion of audience illuminates the roles audiences can play in a performance.

The work of reuse: birth certificate data and healthcare accountability measurements

Data reuse – long a key focus of information studies and CSCW research on eScience – is increasingly a major issue in organizations attempting to leverage data gathered using information systems for accountability functions such as performance measurements. Carrying out organizational analytics and performance measurements for accountability typically rests on the ability to successfully reuse existing, procurable data. We present results from an ethnographic study of the practices of recording birth certificate data and related attempts to assess and improve birth certificate data in response to a new reuse of birth certificate data for measurements introduced to hold hospitals accountable for the quality of the care they are delivering. Drawing on literature on data reuse and information infrastructure, we describe the situated work that must take place in order for birth certificate data to be reused for accountability purposes, and the organizational capacity building that must take place to facilitate the reuse of birth certificate data for measurement oriented to organizational improvement and accountability.

“Making” Your Numbers: Engendering Organizational Control Through a Ritual of Quantification

Numbers such as output controls drive action in organizations, yet we know little about how key numbers are created and take on authority. Using qualitative data from multiple properties managed by a hotel management firm, we find that individuals develop and then become committed to achieving budget goals through a ritual of quantification. The budget numbers serve as output controls for the properties and employees. We find that the strength of the budget number as an undisputed future projection emerges from the ritualistic intertwining of process and normative controls in the course of producing a robust output control. Process controls delineate stages in the budgeting cycle, while normative controls (performative work and emotional investment) operate at each stage, propelling people from one stage to the next while also increasing commitment to both the process and the outcome. The result is a single reified budget number. This ritual of quantification further fosters collective solidarity and an u...

Theory Transfers?: Social Theory & CSCW Research

Finding time to present and discuss theories at CSCW events has proven a perpetual challenge. This workshop takes up this cause by facilitating an open-ended discussion about how diverse strands of social theory not only align with but support innovative CSCW research. The workshop will focus on three guiding questions: How, when, and to what end can social theory benefit CSCW research? What recent developments in social theory could be especially impactful for CSCW research today? What can CSCW research contribute to social theory? With an aim to building a new community of practice, the workshop will provide an open forum for scholars and practitioners to probing the merits and limitations of social theory for CSCW research. We welcome participants with diverse theoretical interests, ranging from organizational theory to intersectionality, social materiality to pragmatism, practice theory, and beyond.