Technological Discourse Research Articles

Transformation of technology discourse in Jules Verne's novels

Döneminin, hatta insanlık tarihinin en vizyoner yazarlarından biri olan Jules Verne, yazın evreninin merkezine teknolojiyi koyarak insanlığın uygarlık çizgisindeki ilerleyişini yüzyıllar öncesinden öngördüğü yapıtlar üretmiştir. Ancak yazarlığının ilk yıllarında insanlığın gelişmesine yönelik umutlu söylemleri, 1880’li yıllardan sonra verdiği yapıtlarında gelişen teknoloji karşısında daha karamsar ve endişeli bir yöne kaymıştır. Çalışmada Jules Verne’in Ay’a Yolculuk (1865) ve Ayın Çevresinde Seyahat (1869) başlıklı erken dönem yapıtları ile serinin üçüncü ve son romanı olan Ne Altı Var Ne Üstü (1889) başlıklı geç dönem yapıtındaki teknoloji söylemleri, çağdaş ve birbiriyle ilintili olan transhümanizm ve posthümanizm kavramları çerçevesinde karşılaştırmalı olarak ele alınmıştır. Bu kavramların, Jules Verne’in yaşadığı dönemden yaklaşık 100 yıl sonra üretilmiş olsalar bile, yapıtların içerdiği teknoloji söylemleri ile örtüştükleri görülmüştür. Erken dönem yapıtlarının transhümanist bir çizgide, yani insan merkezli bir teknolojik ilerleyişi öncelediği anlaşılmıştır. Buna karşın geç dönem yapıtlarında posthümanist bir çizgide kaldığı, başka bir deyişle insanın kendini merkeze koyduğu ve diğer varlıkları geri planda değerlendirdiği antroposen çağını eleştirdiği ve canlı-cansız, doğa-kültür ve ırklar arası hiyerarşilerden doğan endişelerini aktardığı yeni bir teknolojik söylem ürettiği gözlemlenmiştir. Yapılan karşılaştırma sonucu Jules Verne’in teknoloji söyleminin zaman içerisindeki bu dönüşümü, transhümanist ve posthümanist söylemler arasındaki benzerlik ve farklılıklar bağlamında irdelenmeye çalışılmıştır.

A panoramic view of ‘the New Woman’ in Victorian literature

The great social and cultural changes in the Victorian period had a great impact on gender roles. In both public and private sphere, the divisions in gender roles started to disappear with the emergence of a type of woman willing to be active in every area of life. Along with more frequent appearance and growing numbers of women in the work force through the late nineteenth century Elaine Showalter’s notion of “sexual anarchy” and its different forms were invigorated. How the social status of women started to change along with industrialization by the end of the nineteenth-century was also reflected upon Victorian literature. For instance, in Mrs Warren’s Profession the protagonist Vivie represents the new woman type who is ambitious to get education and to participate in work life as a self-sufficient woman in Victorian drama. When compared with the traditional woman type, she is more free-minded, independent and career-oriented. In D. H. Lawrence’ The Rainbow, Ursula, is another significant prototype for the ‘new woman’, who struggles for more freedom and independence. She is well-educated and it is very difficult for her to come to terms with her pregnancy as she cannot accept the fact that one part of hers belongs to a man. She is unconventional and rebellious. She counters domesticity. In The Story of An African Farm by Olive Schreiner the protagonist Lyndall’s life story on an ostrich farm depicts the limited choices and living conditions of a woman constrained by the rigid conventions of Boer lifestyle. Her main goal in life is to pursue after her own choices. In The Type-Writer Girl by Grant Allen, Juliet Appleton stands out with some infamous characteristics of her identity as a New Woman, such as smoking cigarettes, attending college, travelling on her bicycle, and wearing rational clothing. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that working women had an unstable position at the end of the nineteenth century, based on all these trappings of the New Woman, and the intersection of gender with the discourses of class, evolution and technology through a feminist perspective. Social pressure and prejudices restrict the opportunities of the new woman to go beyond her capacity and reach real freedom and happiness. Therefore, the society mostly puts barriers in front of her ideals and her dreams. Through a feminist lens, this study reveals the fact that the new woman expects to live in a more democratic society where she is honoured with equal rights and opportunities with men. She rejects being completely dependent upon men finally, instead she adopts the idea of self-help to gain the respect she deserves as a self-sufficient woman.

THE LOSS HERITAGE: SAMSUN RAILWAY CAMPUS

In this study, which focuses on the railways, a sign of the Early Republic, the Samsun campus of the Samsun-Sivas Railway was the subject of the study. Samsun Railway Campus, which is one of the first examples of the railway policy in the province, which marked the first twenty years of the Republic, was opened to discussion within the scope of its location in the city and building stock. It is aimed to record the original existence of the campus, which has developed and changed with political, urban and technological discourses since 1926, when it was opened for business. The study is based on literature review, archive research and field studies. Considering the effects of the Samsun Railway Campus, the architectural heritage of the Early Republic, on the urban memory and railway history, it has been argued that a few remaining original structures and physical traces should be preserved.

Look at all those big knobs! Online audio technology discourse and sexy gear fetishes

Despite a predominantly digital, 21st century music production landscape, analogue hardware professional audio technologies persist. In the discoursal throes of the leading online audio technology message forum Gearslutz, such technologies are routinely objectified, sexualized, fetishized and socialized into gear. Situated in a contemporary critical, interdisciplinary framework of fetish, masculinity and sexuality studies, this research interrogates how audio technologies manufactured and intended for music production contexts become sexy. Applying a mixed-mode methodology, including an intensive discourse, image and material-semiotic analysis of an ‘epic’ sexy gear thread, we collated extensive data about technological fetishization. Sexy gear discourse articulates themes of voyeurism, acquisition, control and animation – linking the fetish value of technological objects and their connoisseurship with the erotic potential of sexualized objects. Such discourses ultimately serve to maintain social order, and become sites for performing the maintenance work of hegemonic masculine formations. This research provides new insights into how hegemonic masculinities depend upon the organization of online and offline sociability around fetishized material objects. Furthermore, our findings align with those of current scholarship focused on representational politics of technoculture.

Poetry, Ghosts, Mediation

AbstractThis essay takes the example of a poem composed by a ghost in the Tang dynasty—one of many preserved in literary anthologies and treated as actually having been authored by the dead—as an entry point to ask broader questions of ghostly haunting and poetic presence. What the essay demonstrates is how both the ghost and the poem are informed by logics of analog mediation (rather than representation): how the ghost finds purchase in the world only through bodily possession, spatial haunting, material displacement, and psychic transference and how the poem effects the transmission of mind through the channels of linguistic form, meter, and rhyme. Neither the ghost nor the poem exists except in or as its mediations, yet through these mediations, both the ghost and the poem become present and are communicated into the world. While contemporary media theory has identified the intertwined discourses of technology and spiritualism, the focus has almost solely been on the nineteenth century and later, on the age of electric and electronic telecommunications. The medieval ghost poem, as an exemplary case, complicates this account, showing how poetry has long served as a necrotechnology that mediates the dead and returns ghosts to presence.

“It Has Seldom Been So Difficult to Try to Dress Up a Sound Experience in Words”

The aim of this paper is to explore the rhetoric of sound in high fidelity magazines, and how this rhetoric is linked to a technological discourse. Rhetoric of sound refers to the magazines’ efforts to describe sound and music experiences in words. The aim is also to show how an identified technological discourse legitimizes a specific social order. The paper argues that the technological discourse naturalizes the link between technology and masculinity based on notions of gender differences, and that it reproduces a technological worldview in general by offering multiple positions of identification.

Research on the Characteristics of China's Foreign Energy Discourse

This article focuses on the research of the characteristics of foreign energy discourse from the perspective of "One Belt One Road". Combined with the current international economic background, the international energy cooperation language discourse and activities relevant documents reading are carried out through a horizontal and vertical comparative analysis. It is mainly about the language itself to analyze energy discourse development, existing problems and improvement measures. From the case analysis of scientific knowledge competition and discourse construction in the international energy field, it can be seen that adding the scientific and technological discourse perspective to study energy transition is conducive to a deeper understanding of the future energy strategic pattern and direction. It is also advantageous to the huge driving force contained in energy transition to promote China's development and international system change. It requires us to consider the international background work understanding and the language plan itself. We are supposed to analyze the current political hotspots reasonably such as the situation in Russia, Ukraine and related energy development strategies, and conduct in-depth exploration of energy academic discourse studies socially and contemporarily. Besides, it is significant to highlight the times development theme to promote global energy governance.

Green Technology: Color Metaphor in Professional Discourse

The transition to the paradigm of sustainable development and safe production has provoked an exponential increase in the number of scientific papers on the topic of green technology. This article deals with the linguacognitive approach to the metaphor of green technology and the modeling potential of this color metaphor. The research was based on ten scientific articles on green technology published in 2011–2020 in different countries. The analysis involved traditional linguistic methods in combination with a discursive-cognitive approach, as well as a corpus and contextual analysis supplemented by statistical and bibliometric methods. The author identified the conceptual core of the green technology discourse and organized the conceptual domain into a framework structure. The cognitive approach facilitated the identification of non-semantic elements of meaning, e.g. emotional and sensory reactions, psychological associations, positive attitude, etc., i.e. the total aura of meanings around the color green which are superimposed on the professional context and determine the vector of its interpretation. The article introduces this metaphorical model as a lexical manifestation of professional discourse of sustainable production and development.

Ezra Pound's 'Poetico-Political Mission' and the Revival of Confucianism in Modern China

The following essay attempts to compare and collate Ezra Pound's poetico-political 'mission' of redeeming the West through his interpretations, translations and commentaries of the Confucian system of thinking with the ongoing revival of Confucius in China. Did Pound's poetico-political visions of a Confucian framework for the Western world consider whether or not Confucianism had ever taken root in Ancient China much less in modern China ? Is present day China's return to the Old Master a re-idolisation of him or a promotional stimulus to her globalising crusade ? Or can this return be interpreted as the spiritual and cultural asset to sustain and nurture her global élan ? Where does the 'real' Figure of Confucius lie between Pound's poetico-political 'mission' and China's own mission to influence the world ? Indeed, my readings of Pound's meditations on Confucian thinking, and their poetic and political implications in today's ever-expanding Chinese economy, may explain, relatively speaking, the Chinese Communist Party's need to accompany its economic and technological discourses, challenges and drives by a Mentor whose towering momentiousness, however 'ancient' or 'antiquated', confers to these discourses, challenges and drives, a powerful civilising Figure, whose rectitude, probity and virtue quell or mitigate any untoward consequence of these economic and technological adventures, purvey them a sound and stable humanised or enlightened resource. Keywords : Confucius-Ezra Pound-Cantos-globalization-mission-Order-Beauty-Harmony-Analects DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/79-04 Publication date: April 30 th 2022

Translating Technical Terms of the Latin and Greek origin from English into Chinese and Ukrainian: Linguistic and Pedagogical Background

The Discourse of Science and Technology is represented in the viewpoint of its strategic and tactical vectors of manifestation. Some linguistic peculiarities characterising the discourse of science and technology are described; the appropriate translation techniques used while reproducing the content of the English technical terms originated from Latin and Greek in Chinese and Ukrainian are introduced. The constituents of the terminological competence as a component of the translator’s competence are presented in the article. Some translation quality criteria which could be used for evaluating students’ terminological competence are introduced. A set of teaching tools which could facilitate students’ academic success in translating terminology is specified. The required outcomes that students are to demonstrate (assessment criteria) after finishing their translation course within their professional training are clarified.

A Study on Appropriate Technology Categorization that Combines ICT with Changes in Appropriate Technology Discourse in Response to Changes in the Technological Environment

최근 ICT 기반 기술 환경의 급격한 변화에 따라 정보통신기술(ICT)과 접목된 적정기술의 개발 및 활용 사례가증가하고 있다. 이에 이 연구에서는 기술환경의 변화에 따라 적정기술 관련 논의가 어떻게 형성되었는지, 그리고ICT와 접목된 적정기술 사례의 유형 및 특징은 무엇인지를 분석함으로써, ICT를 활용한 적정기술이 지닌 기술적, 사회적 함의를 파악하고자 했다. 우선, 적정기술 관련 논의의 변화를 분석하기 위해 이 연구에서는 1990년 이후 적정기술 관련 언론보도를 수집하여 토픽모델링과 의미연결망 분석방법을 활용하여 언론보도에 나타난 핵심어와 주요 이슈를 분석하였고, 다음으로 ICT 활용 적정기술 사례를 수집하여 기술의 속성과 활용주체/대상을 축으로 4개의 유형으로 구분하고, 비용, 규모, 사용성, 협동성, 지속가능성 등의 다섯 가지 요소로 구성된 분류 매트릭스를 활용하여 사례 유형별 특징을파악하였다. 주요 분석결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 언론보도 분석결과, 적정기술과 관련한 언론보도는 2010년 이후 본격적으로 등장하기 시작하였으며, 이는정보통신 기술의 발전과 궤를 같이한다. 언론보도에서 발견된 핵심 빈출 단어들은 창업, 혁신, 시장, 미래, 융합등 기존의 적정기술과는 다른 새로운 단어들이 적정기술과 연계되어 출현하였다. 토픽모델링 분석 결과, ‘미래참여’, ‘친환경 시민참여’, ‘ICT 시장접근’, ‘사람중심 디자인’, ‘민간 사회공헌’, ‘국가 지원정책’ 등 여섯 개의 주요 주제 군집이 발견되었고, 기존의 적정기술 관점과 달리 민간, 시민참여 중심, 시장중심 접근과 제품 디자인 활용 이슈들부상하였다. 언론보도 분석결과, 기술 환경의 변화에 따라 적정기술의 활용과 접근방식이 변화되어 왔으며, ICT 기술과 적정기술의 연계성이 높아지고 있다는 점을 확인할 수 있었다. 둘째, ICT와 접목된 적정기술의 사례 유형 및 특징을 분석한 결과와 함의를 살펴보고자 하였다. 분석 결과, ICT 활용 적정기술은 기술역량강화형, 사회통합형, 소외계층지원형, 행복증진형 등 4개 유형으로 분류할 수 있었다. 네 가지 유형의 적정기술은 고비용 구조와 높은 사용성을 지니며, 소규모 개인 맞춤형 기술이라는 특징을 보였다. 고비용 구조는 시장중심 접근과 연관되며, 소규모, 개인 맞춤형 특징은 ICT의 기술속성에서 비롯된 것으로보인다. 종합하면, 정보자원의 가치와 중요성이 증가하면서 정보소외계층의 디지털 역량 강화, 정보자원의 접근 및 소비불균형 해소, 나아가 디지털 기술을 활용한 보편적 복지를 제공하는 데 ICT를 접목한 적정기술의 활용도가 높아질것으로 전망된다.

Students’ collaboration in technology-enhanced reciprocal peer tutoring as an approach towards learning mathematics

Technology-enhanced Reciprocal Peer Tutoring (RPT) was carried out with Finnish, nine to ten year-old primary school students (N=40). The RPT as a method of paired mathematics placed specific emphasis on electrical mathematical writing and drawing. Little is known about the important area of implementing digital mathematical skills at the primary level. The contribution of this study is to address the research gap in implementing Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) into primary school students’ digital mathematics learning. Data was collected from one primary school mathematics lessons by videotaping student’s peer collaboration. In this empirical educational study, the data was analysed qualitatively with content analysis and quantified based on the Contact Summary Sheet (CSS)-instrument and TPACK -framework. This work sheds a light on how students’ collaboration such as instruction, thinking aloud, feedback, support and new ideas during their peer tutoring arouse students’ mathematical attainment and technological discourse. The results indicate that all dimensions of TPACK emerged during primary school students Technology-enhanced RPT. Data reveals that there was a high degree of PK in all videotaped episodes. More research on RPT with an empirical electrical mathematical focus is needed.

The relationship between readability and scientific impact: Evidence from emerging technology discourses

• Readability analysis of 135,502 abstracts pertaining to twelve technologies. • The language of the abstracts has become more complex over time. • More complex texts are more likely to receive at least one citation. • Highly-cited articles of larger discourses tend to be more complex to read. • Scientists may have an incentive to (artificially) make their abstracts more complex to read. This study examines how the readability of scientific discourses changes over time and to what extent readability can explain scientific impact in terms of citation counts. The basis are representative datasets of 135,502 abstracts from academic research papers pertaining to twelve technologies of different maturity. Using three different measures of readability, it is found that the language of the abstracts has become more complex over time. Across all technologies, less easily readable texts are more likely to receive at least one citation, while the effects are most pronounced for comparatively immature research streams. Among the more mature or larger discourses, the abstracts of the top 10% and 1% of the most often cited articles are significantly less readable. It remains open to what extent readability actually influences future citations and how much of the relationship is causal. If readability indeed drives citations, the results imply that scientists have an incentive to (artificially) reduce the readability of their abstracts in order to signal quality and competence to readers—both to get noticed at all and to attract more citations. This may mean a prisoner dilemma in academic (abstract) writing, where authors intentionally but unnecessarily complicate the way in which they communicate their work.

Matters (and metaphors) of life and death: How DNA storage doubles back on its promise to the world

For this special section on “geographies of the digital,” we explore how DNA‐based data storage is touted as an alternative to traditional storage modalities and pitched by the data storage industry as a more efficient, stable, and long‐term archival solution than that offered by current technologies. In analyzing how DNA is soaked in the language of sustainability, life, and longevity by those trumpeting the new technology, we situate emergent discourses proposing DNA as a remedy to energy‐, water‐, and land‐intensive data centres and cloud storage. While DNA is not an “online” data storage technology, we show that the prospects of biological computation have altered the imagined futurity of cloud infrastructure. We then explain how DNA data storage works, and we complete the paper with three case studies—Microvenus, The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, and The Arch Mission Foundation's Lunar Library—offering a critique of “the archive” as it is framed through these nascent scientific and technological discourses. In sum, we argue that DNA‐based data storage is imbricated by an apocalyptic thinking, and that the temporality and timing of this technology speaks to growing, unevenly distributed, planetary anxieties.

By-passing teachers in the marketing of digital technologies: the synergy of educational technology discourse and new public management practices

ABSTRACT This paper examines the online marketing of digital technologies in education from three multi-national technology corporations' websites focusing on both the language used in the text and the nature of the accompanying images. Through a content analysis, the paper shows the ways in which the need for technology investment is rationalised. It also highlights how the need for educational reform drives much of the discourse in relation to K-12 education whereas, within the higher education sites, alignment with existing practices is emphasised. The analysis of the sites highlights the veiled ways in which digital futures are presented and how the corporations and their products and services are positioned. The paper highlights how educational technology advertising capitalises on new public management practices in education to a target school and university management in the promotion and marketing of educational technology – largely by-passing those working at the coalface of education.

Power and Resistance: Digital-Free Tourism in a Connected World

Although digital-free tourism is growing in popularity, research in this area has not unpacked the complex power relations between humans and technology through a critical perspective. Building on Foucault’s analysis of power and resistance, we theorized technology as disciplinary power and conducted a collaborative autoethnography to explore how individuals resist the dominant discourse. Through a reflexive account, we theorize digital-free travel as a process of negotiating and rejecting the dominant discourse of technology, particularly through effective personal strategies of engaging in full disconnection, redefining punishments and rewards, recalling nostalgic memories, and constantly reflecting on embodied feelings and self-transformations in the power relations. Theoretically, this study contributes to understanding digital-free tourism through the lens of power and resistance; it also contributes to critical studies in technology and tourism. Methodologically, we emphasize the potential of applying collaborative autoethnography in analyzing embodied self-transformations. Practically, this study offers suggestions for digital-free tourism providers.

The Underlying Values of Data Ethics Frameworks: A Critical Analysis of Discourses and Power Structures

Abstract A multitude of ethical guidelines and codes of conduct have been released by private and public organizations during the past years. Those abstract statements serve as a response to incidents of discriminatory algorithms and systems and have been quantitatively investigated for the proclaimed principles. The current study focuses on four frameworks designed for application during the development of new technologies. The purpose is to identify values and value conflicts and consider how these are represented in relation to established discourses, practices, and attitudes in Computer and Information Ethics. This helps to understand to what extent the frameworks contribute to social change. Critical Discourse Analysis according to Fairclough is used to examine language and discourses, and review edition and publication processes. Well-established values like transparency, non-maleficence, justice, accountability, and privacy were detected whereas value conflicts were barely addressed. Interestingly, the values were more often framed by a business, and technology discourse than an ethical discourse. The results suggest a hegemonic struggle between academia and tech industry whereas power asymmetries between developers and stakeholders are reinforced. It is recommended to extend stakeholder participation from the beginning and emphasize value conflicts. This can contribute to advance the field and effectively encourage a public debate about the desired technological progress.

Is the Internet of Things a helpful employee? An exploratory study of discourses of Canadian farmers

The increasing global population and the growing demand for high-quality products have called for the modernization of agriculture. “Internet of Things” is one of the technologies that is predicted to offer many solutions. We conducted a discourse analysis of 19 interviews with farmers in Ontario, Canada, asking them to describe their experience of working with IoT and related technologies. One main discourse with two opposing tendencies was identified: farmers recognize their relationship with IoT and related technology and view technology as a kind of “employee”, but some tend to emphasize (1) an optimistic view which is discourse of technology is a “Helpful Employee”; while others tend to emphasize (2) a pessimistic view which is a discourse of technology is an “Untrustworthy Employee”. We examine these tendencies in the light of the literature on organizational behavior and identify potential outcomes of these beliefs. The results suggest that a farmer's style of approaching technology can be assessed on a similar scale as managers’ view of their employees and provide a framework for further research.

The Many Facets of Frugality: Insights from a Quasi-comprehensive Literature Survey

Frugal innovation has become a popular research agenda in the field of Innovation studies. Frugality, however, has been part of the intellectual tradition for centuries and scholarly giants such as Cicero, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, David Hume have deliberated upon its meanings, nuances and applications. The present study using quantitative text mining approaches supplemented by qualitative methods aims at a detailed exposition of these deliberations to Gauge the complexity of the term, and its implications for the modern-day production and innovation processes. We used the Google' N-gram tool for qualitative text analysis. Subsequently, using the time series graph of N-gram we spot the relevant periods of the key narratives, and related documents, for a deeper scrutiny. This literature survey helps us recalibrate the concept of frugality, within innovation and technology discourse, to provide a philosophical underpinning, going beyond a strict criteria-oriented approach to define the concept of frugality. The study facilitates reimagining the process of innovation. Drifting away from the present (excessive) emphases on growth, mechanization and protocolization, a recalibrated concept of frugality nudges us to formulate a more human centered process of technological innovation.

Robots in Healthcare? What Patients Say.

In this paper, we analyse patients’ perspectives on the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic systems in healthcare. Based on citizens’ experiences when hospitalised for COVID-19, we explore how the opinions and concerns regarding healthcare automation could not be disassociated from a context of high pressure on the health system and lack of resources, and a political discourse on AI and robotics; a situation intensified by the pandemic. Thus, through the analysis of a set of interviews, a series of issues are identified that revolve around the following: the empirical effects of imagined robots, the vivid experience of citizens with the care crisis, the discomfort of the ineffective, the virtualised care assemblages, the human-based face-to-face relationships, and the automatisation of healthcare tasks. In light of these results, we show the variability in patients’ perspectives on AI and robotic systems and explain it by distinguishing two interpretive repertoires that account for different views and opinions: a well-being repertoire and a responsibility repertoire. Both interpretative repertoires are relevant in order to grasp the complexity of citizens’ approaches to automatisation of healthcare. Attending to both allows us to move beyond the dominant (political) discourse of technology markets as the only way to respond to healthcare challenges. Thus, we can analyse and integrate patients’ perspectives to develop AI and robotic systems in healthcare to serve citizens’ needs and collective well-being.