A Critical Reading of the Scholarly and ICT Industry’s Construction of Ambient Intelligence for Societal Transformation of Europe

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A Critical Reading of the Scholarly and ICT

Industry’s Construction of Ambient Intelligence for

Societal Transformation of Europe

By Simon Elias Bibri

School of Art, Communication and Culture,

Malmö University, Sweden

Thesis Submitted for Completion of Master of Communication for

Development, Malmö University, Sweden

June 2012

Supervisor: Ulrika Sjöberg

Examiner: Bo Reimer

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Abstract

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to a vision of the information society where everyday human environments will be permeated by intelligent technology: people will be surrounded and accompanied by intelligent interfaces supported by computing and wireless networking technology that is ubiquitous, embedded in virtually all kinds of everyday objects. These computationally augmented, smart environments - composed of a myriad of invisible, distributed, networked, connected, interactive, and always-on computing devices - are aware of human context; sensitive to people's needs; adaptive to, and anticipatory of, their behavior; personalized to their requirements; and responsive to their emotion and presence, thereby intelligently supporting their daily and social lives by providing limitless services in a seamless and unobtrusive way. The vision of AmI assumes a paradigmatic shift in both computing and society – far-reaching societal implications. The challenge lies in developing AmI forms that acclimatise to societal change and the diversity of European socio-cultural life. Indeed, one of the most fundamental views in the prevailing AmI vision is a radical and technology-driven change to social environments and people’s lives. Research emphasizes the fundamental role the ISTAG, a group of scholars and ICT industry experts, plays in the reproduction of AmI as a positive force for societal change. Therefore, the objective of this study is to carry out a critical reading of the scholarly and ICT industry’s construction of AmI in relation to societal transformation. To achieve this objective, a discourse analytical approach was employed to examine the selected empirical material: three reports published by the ISTAG in 2001, 2003 and 2006. The approach consists of seven stages: (1) surface elements and organizational structure, (2) discursive constructions, (3) social actors, (4) language and rhetoric, (5) framing as power and operation, (6) positioning and legitimation, and (7) ideological viewpoints.

The AmI discourse (vision) construction tends to be deterministic, i.e. it assumes that the ‘amization’ of society will lead to radical social transformations, and has an unsophisticated account of how social change occurs. It is also inclined to be rhetorical - it promises revolutionary social changes without really having a holistic strategy for achieving the goal. Moreover, topicalization is accomplished in correspondence with the preferred mental models and social representations. Furthermore, the discourse is exclusionary: many issues (pertaining to trust, social sustainability, human-centred design, healthcare, and community life) are left out with the intention to advance the idea of the eventual societal acceptance of AmI. It additionally plays a role in wider processes of legitimation of social agents and structures on the basis of normative and political reasons, and it offers different subject positions: between ISTAG and Europe and European citizens, and between citizens and ICT designers and producers. Likewise, it plays a major role in constructing the image of social actors – ISTAG, ICT industry, research community and EU – as well as in defining their relations and identities in ways that reallocate roles and reflect new attributes. A great highlight and space is awarded to represent these actors, and their views dominate the reports. They are the prime definer of the represented reality. As to ideological reproduction, the discourse perpetuates power relations, serves the interest of certain stakeholders in European society, and reconstructs ideological claims.

This discursive endeavor provides a valuable reference for social researchers or scientists in related research communities. Until now, there has been, to the best of one’s knowledge, no comprehensive discursive research

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Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge and express my gratitude for my supervisor Ulrika Sjöberg, Associate Professor of Media and Communication at Malmö University, for her support and encouragement during the course of the project work. Her feedback was always constructive and her guidance kept me on a sound research path while her good nature made working with her a pleasure.

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Abbreviations

AmI: Ambient Intelligence CDA: Critical Discourse Analysis DA: Discourse Analysis

DG: Directorate General EC: European Commission EU: European Union

FDA: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis FP: Framework Program

HCI: Human-Computer Interaction

ICTs: Information and Communication Technologies

IPTS-JRC: Institute for Prospective Technological Studies-Joint Research Center IST: Information Society Technologies

ISTAG: Information Society Technologies Advisory Group PD: Participatory Design

RTD: Research and Technology Development Ubicomp: Ubiquitous Computing

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Chapter One

1. Introduction

1.1. Ambient Intelligence for Societal Transformation of Europe

ICT permeates modern societies and has a strong effect on human lives. Technological breakthroughs and paradigm shifts continue to demonstrate that there is a tremendous untapped potential for harnessing and adding intelligence to ICT to better serve society and, thus, transform the way people live within it. Since the early 1990s, researchers have had the vision that ICT could do much more. ICT could weave into the fabric of human society and offer useful services that support communication, interaction and actions in various ways whenever and wherever needed, regardless of time and place (e.g. Weiser 1991; ISTAG 2001, 2003; Streitz & Nixon 2005). Contemporary societies are increasingly realizing ICT’s transformational and constitutive effects. ISTAG (2006, p. ii) states: ‘As ICT becomes more deeply embedded into the fabric of European society, it is starting to unleash massive and far-reaching social...change. ICT is essential...for bringing more advanced solutions for societal problems, and for providing new services’ to citizens. As a ‘constitutive technology’, ICT shapes how we do things; ‘it transforms, enriches and becomes an integral part of almost everything we do’ (Ibid, p.2). This vision of ICT builds on the AmI vision – essentially proposed by ISTAG – which claims a birth of a new paradigm shift in computing with far-reaching societal implications. AmI vision is promoted by certain stakeholders in Europe: research institutions, academia, industry and governments, mobilizing a number of scholars, scientists, experts, entrepreneurs, policymakers and so on. AmI, a revolution of technology and minds, is the privilege of the citizens of the European information society. By enthusiastically embracing AmI in all areas of European society will its citizens achieve their true potential (Ibid). AmI refers to a wide-ranging vision of the information society where everyday human environments will be pervaded by intelligent technology. According to ISTAG (2001), people will be surrounded and accompanied by intelligent interfaces supported by computing and wireless networking technology that is omnipresent, embedded in all kinds of everyday objects. These digital, smart environments are aware of human context, and are sensitive, adaptive and responsive to people and intelligently support their daily and social lives by providing efficient services in a seamless and unobtrusive way (ISTAG 2001, 2003; Riva et al. 2003). Smart environments, which can support living through advanced service provision, will be

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commonplace in the near future. After reviewing many reports and studies, Wright (2005) concludes a strong belief in the advance of technology towards AmI, which stems from the fact that computing devices are already embedded in many everyday objects, a trend that will undoubtedly continue.

Technological innovation has become a driving force for societal transformations in modern society (Castells 1996). Change in society, e.g. in its technological environment, affects individuals, communities and organizations. As technology changes, so do social norms, relations, behaviors and structures. Hence, technology has the potential to fundamentally alter our perception of the world and thus our actions -and our place in it, as well as our sense of self -and others. The idea of mobilizing the potential of AmI to alter European social model relates to the information society discourse, whose underlying beliefs are that, according to Uimonen 2001, cited in Hemer & Tufte 2005), a total social transformation is envisaged and constitutes a good and progressive motion. The notion of AmI provides a far-reaching vision on how the information society will evolve (ISTAG 2001). This vision assumes a societal paradigm shift for Europe, whereby the emphasis is on user-empowerment, support for human interactions, and social and public services support (ISTAG 2001, 2003, 2006). Furthermore, there is a strong institutional support of AmI in Europe. It has been embedded in one of the funding instruments of the European Commission (EC), notably under its Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Framework Program (FP5, FP6 and FP7). European industry, universities and member states are also participating collaboratively in taking AmI closer to realization by devoting funds to AmI research (Wright 2005). The ultimate goal is to unlock and capture the transformational effects of AmI, as it has a great potential to lead to ‘radical social transformations’ and to ‘shape Europe’s future’ (ISTAG 2003, 2006).

1.2. Research Problem and Justification

Research (e.g. Punie 2003; Crutzen 2005; José, Rodrigues & Otero 2010) emphasizes the fundamental role the ISTAG, a group of scholars and industry experts in Europe, plays in the reproduction of AmI as a positive force for societal change. Hence, it is relevant to critically engage with the claims and assumptions made in the discourse (or vision) of AmI about the transformation of the way people live within society, by delving deeper into the social dimensions of AmI with focus on aspects that could be understated, neglected, concealed or excluded in the discourses of AmI, perhaps to perpetuate specific power relations and social conditions.

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Conspicuously, AmI discourse is increasingly reshaping social practices - institutionalized and socially anchored actions - in Europe. As a configuration of social knowledge, it is valued and supported by the European Union (EU). This relates to what Foucault (1972, cited in Hall 1997, p. 49) labels ‘regimes of truth’, a society’s ‘general politics’ of truth: ‘the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true’ and ‘the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true’, among others. Consequently, both AmI technologies and truths are discursive and social constructions whereby seamless webs of social and political actors and factors shape their development and their creation, respectively. One implication of this argument is that AmI discourse may be constructed in correspondence with the social positions of the groups that support it, for example, in ways that regulate and control society or serve the interests of certain segments of society, hence the relevance of a critical examination.

In addition, numerous studies (e.g. Punie 2003; Bohn et al. 2004; Wright 2005; Crutzen 2005; Wright et al. 2008; Criel & Claeys 2008) have raised a plethora of societal implications of AmI, such as unjustified encroachments, abuses and violations associated with privacy, security and surveillance; digital divide; social power relations and power concentration in large organizations; user disempowerment; loss of control; and fear for technology. Many of these aspects, which are of fundamental social relevance, tend to be undervalued, ignored or unvoiced in the underlying discourse of AmI. AmI promoters seem to eschew the interrogation of new technology, preferring to see it as a realist enterprise. Indeed, there is a propensity towards painting the promises of AmI in sunny colors, promoting its goodness and godliness, e.g. as a panacea for social problems and a road to revolutionary social transformations, as featured in a number of promotional publications (e.g. Philips Research 2003) and reports (e.g. ISTAG 2001, 2003, 2006) - the object of inquiry in this study. With the above points in mind, it is pertinent to look at how various discursive strategies are deployed in the ISTAG’s reports to achieve particular intentional effects in the construction of AmI discourse.

1.3. Research Objectives and Questions

The aim of this study is to carry out a critical reading of the scholarly and ICT industry’s construction of AmI in relation to social transformation, that is, the prevailing view, in the discourses of AmI, of a radical and technology-driven change to the way people live socially (within society). Involved in the

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construction of AmI discourse are those scholarsthat have taken part in building the vision of AmI, not all scholars interested in the AmI and the whole of the ICT industry. The study examines the main topics, discursive strategies and linguistic resources prioritised by the ISTAG’s reports to portray the discourse in question while unveiling what is overvalued, undervalued and excluded. It also establishes inferences about the ways in which symbolic forms help perpetuate power relations and social conditions while revealing several converging points between the ISTAG’s discourse, subjects, ideology and power. This discursive research is thus of a category that views the text in a macro-context of institutions and ideologies.

Based on the objectives and justification, the following questions can be formulated:

 How is AmI for social transformation constructed by the scholarly community and ICT industry in terms of rhetoric, framing, positioning and legitimation?

 What kinds of ideologies are reproduced and advanced by the ISTAG?

 How are different social actors and their views represented in the reports?

To achieve the overall objective and thus answer the research questions, the empirical material is examined by means of a discourse analytical approach consisting of seven stages: (1) surface elements and organizational structure (2) discursive constructions, (3) social actors, (4) language and rhetoric, (5) framing as power and operation, (6) positioning and legitimation, and (7) ideological viewpoints.

1.4. Scope and Limitations

This study deals with two sweeping areas: AmI and societal transformation; combined, they form a large-scale discourse in society. The analysis is confined to the potential of AmI in altering the European social model in terms of: facilitating new social groupings and community building, providing new forms of healthcare and social support, modernizing public services, providing new learning opportunities, promoting social sustainability, improving civil security, and so forth.

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As there are strict limitations on time and space in this research paper:

 Analysis of AmI-enabled economic and sustainable development as dimensions of societal transformation of Europe will not be conducted due to the scope limitations.

 Historical-diachronic analysis (e.g. discourse temporal evolution and the impact of representations of reality on subsequent ones) will not be carried out.

1.5. Review of Key Concepts

This section outlines the core theoretical constructs that make up this study, including ICT, AmI, ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp), AmI paradigm and paradigm shift, social change and transformation, and new technology and kinds of society. A reader can read a more in-depth definition of ICT in Appendix C.

1.5.1. AmI versus Ubicomp

ICT encompasses a diverse set of computer systems and the various applications and services associated with such systems. The focus in this study is on ICT services pertaining to the social, including social support, public services, (social) learning, social grouping, community building, healthcare, and so forth, in the context of AmI.

AmI offers a vision of a next wave in ICT or computing (see Appendix C for a detailed definition). This technology vision of the future is reflected in a variety of terms that closely resemble each other, including Ubicomp/pervasive computing, sentient computing, calm computing and disappearing/invisible computing. These terms are used by different scholars and industry players to promote the vision on the future of technology in different parts of the world. For example, in Europe this vision is known as AmI, a term coined by Emile Aarts of Philips Research in 1998 and adopted by the European Commission, whereas Ubicomp is prevalent in the USA. Marc Weiser was first credited for dubbing the phrase ‘Ubicomp’ in 1988 and for spotting the vision in 1991. The two terms mean pretty much the same. AmI is similar to Ubicomp - intelligence everywhere (Poslad 2009). While AmI and Ubicomp refer to a vision of the Information Society, the terms can still imply a slightly different focus (Punie 2003). The term AmI has a recent provenance and is not clearly discerned from earlier concepts, such as Ubicomp (ISTAG 2003). It is the merger of two visions: Ubicomp and ‘social user interfaces’ (Riva et al. 2003, p.5). The term

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‘Ubicomp’ denotes technology appearing everywhere and used all the time. According to Weiser (1991), technology will vanish, be invisibly woven, into the fabric of everyday life and be massively used by people. Whereas AmI is defined as a technology that is 'invisible, embedded in our natural

surroundings, present whenever we need it,’ and ‘enabled by simple and effortless interactions,’ which are ‘attuned to all our senses, adaptive to users and context and autonomously acting’ (Gill & Cormican 2005,

p. 3) on their behalf. The aim is to create digital environments that can improve the quality of life of people. This work critically engages with the claims, made in the discourse of AmI, about the improvement of the quality of social life of the European citizens.

1.5.2. AmI as Discourse and Paradigmatic Shift in Computing and Society

AmI implies a shift towards a novel approach to HCI – human-centric or social interfaces. There can only be a scattered archipelago of local HCI perspectives. By this logic, there cannot be a general theory, let alone a paradigm. According to Kuhn (1962), a paradigm denotes the explanatory power of a theoretical model and its institutional ramifications for the structure of science. What renders AmI non-paradigmatic is that it is not grounded on a meta-theoretical base that transcends contingent human actions and historical and cultural situativity. Hence, AmI paradigm can be used in a broad and loose sense of an ‘intellectual framework or trend’, similar to discourse and episteme, and not in Kuhn’s specific sense. Episteme, in Foucault’s sense, has been equated to Kuhn’s notion of paradigm in the sense of distinct thought patterns in any scientific discipline or other epistemological field. Moreover, AmI concerns normative values; it is more a vision of the future than a reality, prescribing a certain desired view on the world. It is also largely based on theories of social sciences. Kuhn’s (1996) position is that social science is ‘pre-paradigmatic’ because a scholarly consensus is not available - the concepts are polysemic in the sense of the deliberate mutual ignorance between scholars (Mattei 2001). In addition, social constructivism and constructionism are widely accepted as theoretical frameworks in relation to social science theories. Social sciences, permeating the field of AmI, are of an extraordinary complexity as they involve social and political processes which are reflexive in nature (see Bourdieu 1988). They are articulated within the confines of a particular discourse and regimes of truth (Foucault 1972).

AmI promises to alter the way people live within society, by transforming the way they communicate, interact and do things. It thus represents a paradigmatic shift in computing and society. At issue is a

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claim for technological and societal convergence: by emphasizing the intellectual convergence of diverse elements, the chances for socio-technological unity of diverse constituencies may be enhanced. Part of the appeal of Kuhn’s (1996) paradigm shift is the element of a drastic break in intellectual and therefore social practice. The overused phrase ‘paradigm change’ is appropriate in the context of AmI as it implies a radical shift in such dimensions as the users of the technology, its incorporation into different living and working spaces, the skills required, the applications provided, and the players involved (Miles, Flanagan & Cox 2002). AmI goes beyond the ubiquitously embedded computing; ‘it is a vision in which ICT, its applications and uses are both widened and deepened.’ (Punie 2003, p. 12). The vision of Ubicomp marked a paradigm break with the post-desktop paradigm of HCI, shifting from computing bottled in desktop-bound PC to computing distributed in the environment. Weiser (1991) positioned Ubicomp as embodied reality, an opposite of virtual reality, where computers are integrated in the real world, receding into the background of our lives, instead of putting human users in computer-generated environments. Ubicomp is a way to explicate ‘machines that fit the human environment instead of forcing humans to enter theirs’ (York & Pendharkar 2004, 773-774). While the vision of AmI assumes - at the level of the discourse - many shifts, including, in addition to the above, a shift in communication processes from people conversing to people over people interacting with systems, to systems/software agents talking to each other and interacting with people; a shift in using computers as tools to computers performing tasks autonomously on behalf of their users; and a shift in accessibility and networking from on/off to always on, anywhere, anytime (Punie 2003, p. 12).

To match Kuhn’s (1996) concept, a paradigm shift in computing and society should be accepted by a community of practitioners, and have a body of successful practice. As mentioned above, AmI is reflected in the EU FP5, FP 6 and FP7 for RTD. There is a strong support of AmI by a range of stakeholders - ICT industry, scholarly community, governmental bodies and policymakers. In addition, as an interdisciplinary enterprise, AmI R&D involves hard sciences as well as soft sciences – social sciences. There is an intensive collaborative work happening on cross connections of AmI with human-directed sciences, with the aim to build future generation technologies.

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1.5.3. Social Change and Transformation

Change is such an evident feature of social reality and concerns both developed and developing societies. Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of society: the structural transformation of social, cultural, political and economic systems and institutions, so that they better respond to the aspirations of the people who seek their transformation in society. The emphasis in this study is on social systems and structures. Moreover, social change involves enormously complex processes operating concurrently and several intertwined factors that result in different social transformations. In the context of this study, social change is driven by AmI, a vision enabled by a constellation of technological and social - defined in its broadest sense - factors. The socio-technological force of AmI is mobilized to enhance the processes of communications and interactions that set social transformations in motion. Furthermore, social change is an ongoing process that can be spontaneous, purposeful or both. It results from a merger of systematic factors along with some random or unique factors (Shackman, Liu & Wang 2002). AmI technology is part of a systematic process as it has evolved as a result of a societal, intentional strategy – to promote, build, develop, realize and deploy the vision of AmI.

Technological innovation is perhaps one of the most valuable means to the road to social transformation, which results from a shift in collective consciousness of a society, so that reality is refined by consensus that can happen by both external stimulus and intentional will. Coined by Durkheim (1951), the term ‘collective consciousness’ refers to the shared social beliefs and values which operate as a unifying force within society. In the context of Europe, enhancing social reality was inspired by the Ubicomp vision that emerged in the USA in the early 1990s and by the intention of certain European stakeholders to create the AmI landscape to reinvent Europe and reflect a conscious transformation that will result in reinvigorated and revitalized society, and thus achieve intentional social transformations. Society is made up of various collective groups, such as organizations, regions and nations, which as Burns and Egdahl (1998, p. 72) state: ‘can be considered to possess agential capabilities: to think, judge, decide, act, reform; to conceptualize self and others as well as self’s actions and interactions; and to reflect’.

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1.5.4. New Technology and Kinds of Society

Over the last decades there has been a near passion for labeling new kinds of society: information society, network society, postindustrial and so on - these are seen as the successor to industrial society. These visions of a new and different age derive substantially from the transformational effects of new technology, most prominently computing, such as AmI, which offers a vision on how the European information society will evolve - a kind of socio-technological evolution. Social evolution theory has been used to analyze various visions and to predict future societal development. In this study, the term ‘information society’ denotes the creation, distribution, diffusion, use and integration of information as a significant socio-cultural activity. Here, the information is considered as an agglutinative aspect and the technology innovation an element to get closer to information (Marì 2011). The term network society describes different phenomena related to the social changes caused by the spread of networked ICT. This is related, in the discourse of AmI, to the ‘home in a networked society’ (ISTAG 2003, p. 10). According to Bell (1974), a post-industrial society is one where knowledge is of a central preoccupation, and the prime source of innovation, power and social dynamism. Theories of such a society argue that information and services will increase in importance compared to industry (Sztompka 2002). Bell (1974) predicted that by the end of the 20th century, advanced societies would reach the post-industrial stage, which is demonstrated by: domination of the service sector (e.g. administration, healthcare, education, science and culture) and growing importance and use of ICT, among others. The increase in performance of computers and the development of the internet is a megatrend that will alter societies on a worldwide scale (Naisbitt 1982, cited in Sztompka 2002). This epitomizes AmI technology. However, critics of the post-industrial society theory argue that technology domination remains vague (Ibid).

1.6. Structure of the Study

Following chapter 1, which provides a general description of the entire research work, the remainder of the report is organised as follows: Chapter 2 provides a thorough review of the relevant literature. Chapter 3 presents and discusses the conceptual and theoretical frameworks for the study. Chapter 4 motivates and discusses the chosen research methodology. Chapter 5 presents results, an in-depth critical analysis, which answers the research questions. Finally, chapter 6 provides concluding remarks, highlighting and discussing key findings and providing avenues and directions for future research.

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Chapter Two

2. Literature Review

Like all past paradigm shifts in computing, AmI technology has both a bright side and a dark side. Most critics and advocates say that AmI has positive and negative implications and that at the moment the balance tilts in favour of the former. Indeed, the anticipated benefits of AmI are numerous and appealing, owing to its technological features. Due to space restrictions, the reader is directed to Appendix B for detailed descriptions of key benefits and features of AmI. However, new thinking on AmI - critical studies such as Punie (2003), Bohn et al. (2004), Crutzen (2005), Wright (2005), Wright, Gutwirth and Friedewald (2007), and Criel and Claeys (2008) – distances itself from some of the original features and emphasizes the negative social implications of AmI. Among the social issues raised by critics encompass: privacy and security, loss of control, digital divide, user disempowerment, partial user participation in design, and so forth. The AmI vision is thus associated with many user issues relating to the acceptance of this computing paradigm by users.

This chapter reviews relevant literature material in relation to the topic under study, covering theoretical, empirical and critical scholarship. To structure this review, a thematic organizational pattern is followed, whereby the research is divided into sections representing the subjects for the topic, and the discussion is organized into these subjects.

2.1. Social Dimensions, Issues and Challenges of AmI (ICT) 2.1.1. Privacy and Security

AmI poses a multiplicity of vulnerabilities and threats in the context of privacy and security issues. The fact that AmI is designed to provide personalized services to users signifies that they are able to gather and store a large amount of sensitive information about users’ everyday interactions, communications, activities, behaviours, preferences, and so on. The risk is that this personal information will be disclosed to other sources, institutions and individuals (Punie 2003), and will be abused either accidentally or intentionally (Wright 2005). The more AmI knows about the user, the larger becomes the privacy threat.

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Also, as networks become ubiquitous and larger, so do security risks. When AmI is invisible and ubiquitous, when everything is embedded with intelligence, connected and linked (O’Harrow 2005), the threats will become even greater risks than they are nowadays (Wright, Gutwirth & Friedewald 2007). Thus, privacy and security issues constitute a crucial dilemma for the user and social acceptance of AmI.

Privacy Threats and Vulnerabilities

Privacy is probably one of the main issues that worry most people when it comes to technology use. The difficulty is that the threats to privacy multiply in the world of AmI where people can be expected to be under surveillance wherever they go due to the permanent and real-time monitoring of their behavior, which is the precondition of AmI operation (Wright, Gutwirth & Friedewald 2007). AmI technologies can facilitate monitoring and surveillance capabilities way beyond the current possibilities. Some argue that these capabilities might even mean the end of privacy (Garfinckel 2001). The temporal coverage, in addition to the spatial scope, of monitoring activities will be significantly extended in AmI landscapes: from pre-natal diagnostics data in hospitals, to activity patterns in kindergarten and schools, to workplace and senior citizens’ health; AmI has the potential to create a surveillance network that covers an unprecedented share of the public and private life (Bohn et al. 2004).

How it is possible to ‘ensure that personal data can be shared to the extent the individual wishes and no more’ is where the challenge lies (Wright 2005, p. 43). AmI service provisioning assumes the exchange and sharing of user personal information between different service providers and operators. Profiling and personalisation ‘is inherent in AmI and operators and service providers invariably and inevitably will want to ‘‘personalise’’ their offerings as much as possible, and as they do, the risks to personal information will grow’ (Wright 2005, p. 43). Another implication of AmI for privacy is when data aggregation companies put their vast databases/banks at the disposal of government agencies and law enforcement authorities for surveillance ends under the pretext of security. Not only corporate superiors and overzealous government officials but also marketing companies could make unpleasant use of the same information for commercial purposes that makes invisible computers so convenient (Crutzen 2005). Other privacy issues may be linked to leakages and theft of mass personal data (e.g. banking information). The conundrum is that privacy encroachments become inevitable with AmI due to the unprecedented extensity and velocity of information and the complexity of its control. With AmI

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orders of magnitude more personal data are expected to be collected than is the case today (Wright 2005). A world permeated with a myriad of networked computing devices raises issues concerning information control (Abawajy 2009).

Security Threats and Vulnerabilities

Security has always been an issue in the realm of technology, but will be greatly magnified in the world of AmI. The predominance of wireless technology in future AmI network is expected to create further vulnerabilities. With an internet of things, networks can possibly extend from inside the human body, through everyday objects surrounding and accompanying humans, to anywhere in the world; hence, potential implications for security breaches could be severe. The security of information - protection from unauthorized use and modification - conﬁdentiality and integrity (Stajano & Anderson 2002) needs to be reassured, even though people voluntarily pass information to a third party and are satisfied that the information will not be used to the extent of their wishes. Safeguarding security threats is difficult in AmI environments due to network convergence, possible conflict of interests between communicating entities, large number of ad hoc communications, and so on (Wright, Gutwirth & Friedewald 2007).

Dilemmas and Challenges

Of significance is addressing the balance between privacy and security. This is a core challenge for the future of AmI and a real dilemma as there is no easy solution to the problem. In fact, the trade-off between the two is unavoidable. In AmI, ‘an increase in security (in the sense of measures to ensure the safety of society) most likely will encroach upon our privacy’ (Wright, Gutwirth & Friedewald 2007, p. 57). As echoed by Wright (2005), the same profiling and data mining technologies, which are used to improve security, can be directed for surveillance.

While EU is well aware of the need to be sensitive to the privacy concerns of society, privacy remains the realm of computer scientists and designers that will develop and implement AmI. This is especially important assuming that in the rapidly evolving area of ICT, legislation lags behind technology development leaving what Moor calls a ‘policy vacuum’. Hence, in Europe, policymakers require safeguards (Wright 2005). However, these safeguards which aim to contain the risk posed by the

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threats and vulnerabilities of AmI (Wright, Gutwirth & Friedewald 2007) will never eliminate the risk (Wright 2005). What can be of greater certainty is that there is no certainty as to creating panaceas to the problems of privacy and security. Nonetheless, since AmI is an evolving technology, safeguards may provide a sort of assurance for users as long as they can take away their worries. Users need to feel safeguarded and have trust in AmI, as well as in those that develop and deploy it. This is of necessity for the user and social acceptance of AmI. Failure to mitigate the risks will have adverse implications. Without effective privacy protection measures, this world of AmI could become an Orwellian nightmare (Punie 2003; Bohn et al. 2003). Besides, privacy is a fundamental requirement of any modern society in the sense of people being given the freedom to control and decide what to do with their lives. The concern about privacy is part of a larger concern about control, about people having control over their own lives (Waldrop 2003).

2.1.2. Technology Invisibility and Autonomy - Loss of Control

One of the cornerstones of AmI is the adaptive and autonomous behavior of systems in response to the user. This is enabled by context awareness technology. Underlying this notion is the idea that technologies are able to recognize the user context and adapt their functionality according to that context (Lueg 2002). AmI aims thus to create active technology, mentally and physically invisible, integrated into human daily environments. The guiding idea of invisibility is that computer devices take care of the context people are in as part of their interactions, by recognizing context and responding to it autonomously. However, the adaptive and autonomous capabilities are associated with delegation of control to intelligent agents to execute tasks on their own authority and autonomy. In other words, AmI assumes everyday life to be dependent on intelligence embedded in its surrounding. This poses risks of lack or loss of control - the user’s sense of control decreases when the autonomy of the systems increases. A critical stance recognizes that users should control what is happening behind their backs and that technologies should be visible (e.g. Ulrich 2008; Crutzen 2005; Abowd & Mynatt 2000). Indeed, the autonomy of artifacts is limited (Bohn et al. 2004), and invisible interfaces are ‘inextricable linked with an intrusive way of communication and with black boxing the technology…’ (Criel & Claeys 2008, p. 59) Moreover, when the system reacts in a way that is opaque to the user, whether adaptively or autonomously, it may cause fear, as it can’t be controlled because the ‘off-switch’ is not within reach. People may get used to the effects of the technology, but the moment it ‘acts outside the range of our

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expectations, it will only frighten us because we cannot control it’ (Crutzen 2005, p. 225). Criel and Claeys (2008) argue that disappearing technology and lack of feelings of control exclude one another. They stipulate that without digital literacy, which plays an important role in the feelings of control and of fear, ‘and without feeling of control, people will stay frightened of technological changes regarding their individual lives and the society they live in’ (Ibid, p. 59) Feelings of fear for ICT and the fear of its evolution in society are related to feelings of locus of control and the meaning of ICT in everyday life (Claeys 2007; Criel & Claeys 2008).

Loss of control has implication for Issues of user acceptance of technology. It will be very difficult for technology to be accepted by the public, if it doesn’t react in ways it is supposed to react (Beslay & Punie 2002). Physical invisibility may harm acceptance because AmI is difficult to control (Punie 2003). This intractability is due to the loss of mutual interaction between technology and the user. Perhaps, the interface, an omnipresent interlocutory space, will lose its central stage as a mediator in interactions (Criel & Claeys 2008). In fact, this fundamental paradigm of AmI - technology disappearing from the user’s consciousness and receding into the background, is seen ‘as an attempt to have technology infiltrates everyday life unnoticed by the general public in order to circumvent any possible social resistance.’ (Bohn et al. 2004, p. 19) In this study, technology autonomy and invisibility relate to service provision pertaining to the social: healthcare setting, home in a networked society, social support systems and public services.

2.1.3. Digital Divide – Technological and Socio-Demographic Gaps

Digital divide is often mentioned when studying politics on the subject of social dimensions of technology. It commonly refers to a disparity between users as to either access to technology, knowledge of its use, or both. This technological connotation of the term has been criticized by many scholars. Digital divide is often described ‘in crassly reductive terms’, and this ‘instrumentally informed discourse on digital divide is a modernist tendency to unreflectingly categorize and compartmentalize complex socio-technological changes into one-dimensional social problems in a bid to resolve them through simple technological fixes’ (Parayil 2005 p. 41). In addition to the above connotation, digital divide entails socioeconomic and -demographic factors, such as income, education, gender, race, ethnicity, age, language and so forth. Disabled, unemployed and retired people are socially excluded of all kinds (Fitch 2002).

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The social entry tends to be awarded a highlight in the digital-divide discourse relating to developed societies. Indeed, In relation to AmI, technological gaps seem to be transient as access to technology is increasingly becoming affordable and the use of technology requiring minimal knowledge. Access to AmI is likely to improve given that it will permeate our everyday lives, and the AmI infrastructure, which is bound to envelop the majority of the people, will become more affordable for larger parts of society (Wright, Gutwirth & Friedewald 2007) As to the extent of technology use in everyday life, the majority of people are expected to be moderately computer literate (Ibid). AmI will require little skills and knowledge on the part of their users (Riva et al. 2003), thereby enabling more people to use its applications. The interaction with AmI should ‘not involve a steep learning curve’ for citizens (ISTAG 2001, p. 11). However, there will still be a proportion of citizens that will not have access to AmI applications and others that will have access only to basic rather than to more sophisticated systems, thereby excluding them from benefiting fully from the AmI environment (Wright, Gutwirth & Friedewald 2007). Also, in a society with wide pervasiveness of technology, ‘people who do not possess the knowledge to use AmI will be more seriously excluded than today’; moreover, AmI will still widen existing or creating new gaps, and serious concerns exist about the persistence of digital divides as to education, income, ethnicity, gender and age (Ibid).

There is a plethora of issues that need to be addressed and overcome with respect to how AmI should be designed to enable equal access, use and distribution of technology. To move away from stereotype user in design is a real quandary to tackle. Technology design reinforces existing stereotypes when targeting specific user groups. When applications are adapted for the particular likes, dislikes and needs of a particular target user group, they will less likely be appropriate for others (Norman 2005).

2.1.4. Design Process as Politics and Philosophy

User participation appears ubiquitous in the vision of AmI. The claim about user centrality in future design, however, remains at the level of AmI discourse, as it has been difficult to translate the guidelines underlining the approach to human-centered design into real-world action. Indeed, the social connotation of ‘user participation’ is partly lost as the term has been reduced from something social and political in content and conceptual in form to merely situated in some setting, thereby diverging from its

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origins - participatory design (PD). User participation as applied in user-centered-design UCD (a widely practiced design philosophy rooted in the premise that users must be at the center of design process) is similar but not identical to PD. In other words, although UCD approach involves consulting with the users, it is not fully participatory, as users are not fully involved in design process and thus don’t shape the decisions and outcomes of design solutions. Within user-informed design, the user is integrated at a certain moment and, within co-design, in a very early stage of the interface design process (Criel & Claeys 2008) In contrast, taken up more broadly, PD is described as a democratic, cooperative, interactive and contextual design philosophy. It ensures that users and designers are on the same footing and considered as partners, and sees user participation as a vehicle for user empowerment in various ways. Originated in Scandinavian tradition, culture and politics, PD draws authority from a very distinctive set of discourses of labor relations and social justice. Nordic welfare region is the birth place of the Scandinavian tradition of PD, where participation often is understood as a mean of democracy (Elovaara, Igira & Mörtberg 2006). Different political and non-political researchers focused on the development of specific techniques for involving users in design (for an overview see Bjerknes 1987). The political branch of PD evolved as computer scientists made common cause with workers instead of management when designing workplace information systems (Asaro 2000). PD works well because ‘it takes advantage of cultural logics and practices particular to the location in which it emerged’; different people come together to exchange knowledge, bringing ideas into the encounter and taking ideas away from it (Irani et al. 2010). However, the prevailing design approach to AmI technology doesn’t support full user participation, e.g. users contribute actively to the design process through shared design sessions. The widespread adoption of the concept ‘user participation’ does not mean that the original ideas on user participation are widely disseminated (Criel & Claeys 2008). In relation to UCD, the notion of user participation is, according to some critics (e.g. Carpentier 2007; Laclau & Mouffe 1985), seldom more than an empty signifier.

It is unfeasible to opt for full user participation; otherwise this would be costly and will complicate the matter further because the vision of invisibility of AmI doesn’t side with the idea of UCD. Placing the user at the centre of AmI design contradicts the view that AmI technology should be unobtrusive (ISTAG 2001). It is because of the adaptive behavior of technology that ‘design within use’ has, In AmI been circumscribed; designers are creating an artificial play in which they have given the active and leading role to the artificial subjects’ (Crutzen 2005, p. 224). They will always set the limitations on the design

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and use of AmI. The active explicit participation aspect is lost because users represent ready-made sources of data for the technology in the AmI environment (Ibid). A ‘good’ design is rather about making technological artifacts ‘which will not create disharmony or doubt in the life of its users’ Crutzen (2005, p.222) Hence, any viable design solutions must be put into a much wider perspective. It is though challenging to develop novel methods that allow the involvement of users at micro- and macro-level of their daily and social lives. Design must be informed by in-depth ethnographic and sociological studies of users (e.g. Crabtree 2002), although they can be so costly and time consuming for technology designers to take on board (e.g. Mankoff et al. 2003).

2.1.5. The Social Embeddedness of Technologies

Technology emerges out of particular cultural conditions. Constructivist worldview posits that technological development is a mutual shaping process where technology and society are simultaneously shaped. Marcuse (1999, p. 39, cited in Hemer & Tufte 2005) claims that technology ‘is a social process in which technics proper...is but a partial factor’. A technology is, like a text, constructed socio-culturally. Accordingly, it can ‘reproduce varying social values through its choice..., its informational and its undeclared presumptions’, as well as convey ‘ideological messages and prompt specific social behavior’ through its design (Hemer & Tufte 2005, p. 290). In this sense, speaking of the political dimension of technological design becomes legitimate (Ibid). The premise is that technology comes ‘to life through conflicting social processes and that the realized design of a technology becomes the platform for continuing struggle, where the design as such supports or suppresses different, essentially political, objective’ (Hemer & Tufte 2005, p. 291). It is thus relevant to engage with AmI technology as a political and social institution when looking at its actual properties in relation to, for example, public spaces, healthcare environments, social support systems, and networked homes. A critical social approach must seek to unmask the ways in which AmI design are predisposed towards certain social and political directions, by investigating how power relations are perpetuated via technological design, and to formulate normative perspectives from which a critique of such relations can be made with an eye on the possibilities for technological change – the design and use of AmI artefacts. The corollary of this conception when it comes to the examination of the transformational effects of AmI is that the envisioned technologies ought to be examined according to the favoritism they embody, the social behaviour they prompt, and the social values they undermine. This pertains to the issues discussed above, which carry

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with them social meanings and have social implications. In this respect, of particular concern for the critically minded evaluator might be in what ways AmI technologies promote, for example, adaptability or rigidity, autonomy or dependence, visibility or invisibility, and activity or passivity. In the context of the transformation of people’s lives, the results of such evaluations should be gauged against the aspirations of the European citizens that are to live in the world of AmI.

2.2. Positioning the Study in Relation to Previous Research

To find out what is already known in the area of AmI is a crucial step for this discursive research. I endeavoured to accomplish this step by reviewing the literature in a way to have an understanding of the existing body of knowledge, including where new research is needed; to create a ‘research space’ for my work and position it in the context of previous research; to produce a rationale for my study and justify its originality; and to frame the valid research aims, questions and methodologies for the study. That said no discursive research has been, to the best of one’s knowledge, carried out on the relationship between AmI and societal transformation, more specifically the potential of AmI in modernizing the European social model and shaping Europe’s future. This subject area thus deserves attention in research. Moreover, unlike previous studies, which tend to focus on a micro view of AmI, this study is oriented towards a macro view of AmI, of the involved institutions and ideologies. Additionally, in terms of social criticism, this study is methodologically and analytically distinctive in that it draws on two discourse analytical approaches: Foucauldian discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis, and employs a distinctive set of analytical tools based on these approaches. Conceptually, this study draws on Foucauldian theory and Critical Theory.

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Chapter Three

3. Conceptual and Theoretical Framework

Crucially, discourse analysis (DA) approach cannot be used separately from its theoretical and methodological foundations. This chapter presents the relevant theoretical models of discourse. As there is no unitary theoretical framework in DA, I include conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are closely related based on the perspective and the aim of this study. The typical vocabulary, drawing mainly on Foucauldian theory, features such central notions as ‘discourse’, ‘knowledge representation’, ‘power/knowledge’, ‘subjects’, and ‘social practice’, in addition to some familiar notions from CDA, namely power as control - mind control - and ‘interdiscursivity’. By focusing on these concepts, I devise a theoretical framework that critically relates discourse and society.

3.1. Foucauldian Theory of Discourse and its Relevance to the Study

AmI purports a birth of a new societal and computing paradigm that mirrors thought patterns, or rather epistemological field (what Foucault labels ‘episteme’). This concerns a configuration of social knowledge, or what is considered and valued to be knowledge in the European society, from episteme to episteme. This study is hence informed by the work of Michel Foucault, and the foundations for theory are found in his archeological and genealogical work. The discussion of discourse in Foucault’s work bares the most relevance for understanding and deconstructing scholarly texts. Thus, Foucault’s approach is adopted as a conceptual fit for this study rather than as a result of ‘hegemony of theory’.

3.2. Discourse and Related Concepts

Discourse has been used in varying ways, with different meanings in different contexts. In this study,

discourse is defined as ‘[A] group of statements which provide a language for talking about – a way of representing the knowledge about – a particular topic at a particular historical moment. …Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But since all social practices entail meaning, and meanings shape and influence what we do – our conduct – all practices have a discursive aspect’

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(Foucault 1972, cited in Hall 1997, p. 44). Foucault’s definition is about ways of seeing and social practice. In this line, Phillips & Jørgensen (2002, p. 1) state: ‘…underlying the word “discourse” is the general idea that language is structured according to different patterns that people’s utterances follow when they take part in different domains of social life...’ When a group of statements are ideological, discourse is described as a system of representation that is developed socially to reproduce a coherent set of meanings, which serve the interests of certain segments of society (Fiske 1987). Discourse (re)shapes and reflects social structures and is in a dialectical relation with social dimensions (Ibid).

The concept of discourse is central to Foucault’s notion of episteme and knowledge representation. According to Foucault (1970, p. xxii) episteme is the pre-intellectual space that determines ‘on what historical a priori, and in the element of what positivity, ideas could appear, sciences be established, experience be reflected in philosophies, rationalities be formed, only, perhaps, to dissolve and vanish soon afterwards.’ This implies that different periods of history constitute different epistemological fields (or systems of thought), which grounds knowledge and its discourses and hence represents the conditions of their possibility, co-existence and interaction within a particular epoch. Foucault also spoke of regimes

of truth which are supported by discursive formations and made true through discursive practices. Regime

of truth denotes, according to him, a society’s general politics of truth. Discursive formations are the regularities that produce discourses (Foucault 1972). They consist of institutional apparatuses and their techniques (e.g. rules, institutions, systems of thought, subjects, things), which are used to apply discourse to the social world. Discursive practice is seen ‘as an important form of social practice which contributes to the constitution of the social world including social identities and social relations. It is partly through discursive practices in everyday life (processes of text production and consumption) that social and cultural reproduction and change take place.’ (Phillips & Jørgensen 2002, p. 61)

3.3. The Representation of Knowledge, Episteme and Power/Knowledge

Two Foucault’s (1972) assertions serve as cornerstones for this study. The first is that knowledge, whether theoretical or practical, is essentially contextual and always a matter of episteme. The second is that a discourse of knowledge is a discourse of power as knowledge is an endeavor not only to order facts, social events and actions, but also to order human subjects according to a given centre. AmI discourse thus involves a play of power because no knowledge is for knowledge sake. However, although

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Foucault’s theories of discourse and power/knowledge are insightful, their totalising, omnipotent position lays too much emphasis on the Foucauldian paradigm for accounting for everything (Hobbs 2008).

3.3.1. Socio-Cultural and Historical Situativity of Knowledge

Foucault’s notions of knowledge representation and episteme relate to the constructionist premise that we are fundamentally cultural and historical beings and our knowledge about, and views of, the world are the product of culturally and ‘historically situated interchanges among people’ (Gergen 1985, p. 267). Foucault’s concern for discourse and discursive formations (of a particular society) helped to link culture to representation, and thus culture (and its relations of power) to scholarly texts. Representation denotes ‘the embodying of concepts, ideas and emotions in a symbolic form which can be transmitted and meaningfully interpreted’ (Hall 2003, p 10) in the context of cultural circuits that entail power and discourse processes. In terms of historical situativity, AmI discourse is relatively new; the term only entered the public mainstream in Europe in the late 1990s. It is established because social practices – institutionalized and socially anchored actions - relate to it in a structured way at this time of history. It emerged as the result of people’s daily making of history and is changing over time, can become more powerful or vanish. In relation to this,

Foucault assets,in his later work, thatseveral epistemes may co-exist and interact at the same time.

3.3.2. Statements and the Meaningful

A discourse denotes a coherent body or set of statements producing a self‐confirming account of social reality and making it true. For Foucault (1972), statement has a peculiar meaning: that which makes propositions meaningful. He investigates, in his archeological work, the rules that determine which statements are accepted as true and meaningful in a particular period of history. He asserts that discourse creates a network of rules as preconditions for statements to exist and have meaning. In other words, statements depend on the conditions in which they exist and emerge within a given discourse. He analyzes the conditions of existence for meaning to show the rules of meaning production in discourses, and he explores how truth claims emerge within different epochs on the basis of what is said. He adheres to the social constructionist premise that our knowledge about the world should not be treated as objective truths: mere reflections of the reality. They are rather products of discourse (Burr 1995). Truth is discursively constructed, and different systems of knowledge determine what is true and false

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and what can and cannot be said - investigated by Foucault (1972). Thus, there exist innumerable statements in AmI discourse that are not uttered, and would never be accepted as meaningful, and various forms of social actions become consequently unthinkable. All in all, the historical rules of AmI discourse determine what is possible to say and delimit what can be true and false. Foucault’s conception that discourses are ‘relatively rule-bound sets of statements which impose limits on what gives meaning’ is pursued by most contemporary discourse analytical approaches (Phillips & Jørgensen 2002).

3.3.3. Power as Productive, Constraining and Regulating

Discourses and their functions are ‘tactically productive and strategically integrative notions’ (Flyvbjerg 1992, p. 122), to draw on Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge. Foucault dissects the nature of power at length and concurs that it involves far more than simple force, viewing it as operating at all levels of society, and radiating around in a complex web of directions (e.g. Hall 1997). Understood as productive, power is, in common with discourse, ‘spread across different social practices’, and thus doesn’t belong to particular social actors with particular interests (Phillips & Jørgensen 2002). What makes power accepted is merely because ‘it traverses and produces things’, forms knowledge and produces discourse, and so on; ‘it needs to be considered as a productive network which runs through the whole social body, much more than as a negative instance whose function is repression’ (Foucault 1980, p. 19). Power should therefore not be understood as exclusively exercised in oppressive acts of particular social agents and structures, but may be enacted in the myriad of taken-for-granted actions of daily life. As an instance of the constitutive power of AmI discourse, it is difficult to imagine the information society of Europe without AmI. The power of AmI discourse provides the conditions of possibility for the future social. It additionally generates particular ways of understanding, constructing, and acting in the social world, thereby excluding alternative ways of talking and closing opportunities for social actions. From a Foucauldian point of view, discourses facilitate and limit, enable and constrain what can be said and what can be true and false by whom, when and where, as well as what can be done individually, socially and institutionally.

In addition, language contributes to wider social processes of power and leads to new forms of power in terms of the rationalities, mindsets and techniques which organize and control the experiences of the subjects and the possible field of actions of others in society. Foucault is concerned with the structures

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and relations of power that ‘govern’ the lives of those who live in the modern world (Danaher et al. 2000). This concern for governmentality ‘is useful in terms of exposing the power of systems of thought to regulate and control society...’ (Hobbs 2008, p. 14) In the context of this study, power is associated with AmI and politics (affairs and policies of EU) as social domains and the related institutional apparatus and their techniques (see above) that form the background of the discursive reproduction of power in such domains, which targets the citizens that are dependent on institutional power.

3.4. Power as Control - Mind Control

The social power of institutions or groups (e.g. ICT industry, ISTAG) is a central notion in critical work on discourse. One of the important symbolic resources that define the power base of an institution is access to, or control over, knowledge (van Dijk 1996). Having access to large-scale discourses, such as science, technology and politics, is a power resource, which can be used to control the minds and acts of people. Drawing on van Dijk (1998), people’s actions are controlled by their minds, so if dominant institutions are able to shape people’s minds, e.g. their views and beliefs, they indirectly may control their actions through persuasion and manipulation exercised by means of discursive strategies. This ability presumes, in the context of AmI, a power base of access to such social resources as knowledge, culture and various forms of scientific discourse and communication. Research and industry groups have exclusive access to, and control over, AmI as a scholarly discourse, supported by discursive formations of European society. By having control over this influential discourse, they are more powerful, and thus have the opportunity to shape the minds and actions of others. In mind control, there are different ways that power can be involved. The emphasis, in this study, is on manners associated with social cognition (Fiske & Taylor 1991; Wyer & Srull 1984): socially shared representations of societal groups and relations, as well as mental operations, such as interpretation, thinking and arguing, among others (van Dijk 1993). First, mind control entails people tending to accept beliefs, knowledge and views about the world via discourse from what they see as credible sources, such as scholars and experts (Nesler et al. 1993). Second, people may not be equipped with the necessary knowledge and beliefs that allow them to challenge the discourses they are exposed to (van Dijk 1998). In this analysis, the conditions of mind control are both contextual (they say something about European people in relation to AmI discourse) and discursive - structures and strategies used in the reports. Contextually based control stems from the fact that people represent text as well as the whole discourse; context features influence the ways dominated groups define the discourse in ‘preferred context

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models’ (van Dijk 1998). Discourse structures have impact on mental representations; topics correspond to the top levels of people’s mental models to influence what they see as the most important information of text (Ibid). However, there is a limit to ‘the formation and change of mental models and social representations’ as, with the intricacy of comprehension and the formation and change of beliefs, it becomes difficult to predict which text’s features will have which effects on the minds of people (Ibid)

3.5. The Implication of Power/Knowledge for Truth

The concept of power/knowledge has implications for the conception of truth. This concerns particularly how the link between knowledge and power can lead to the production of particular ‘truths’ about the human subject (McHoul & Grace 1993). Foucault asserts ‘that it is not possible to gain access to universal truth since it is impossible to talk from a position outside discourse... “Truth effects” are created within discourse.’ (Phillips & Jørgensen 2002, p. 14) Here, the concept of discourse may be given too much power. Foucault’s argument that discourse produces the meanings of objects and practices is an idea that makes a nihilistic proposition that nothing can exist outside discourse (see Danaher et al. 2000). Nevertheless, Foucault’s position is that meaning is never intrinsic or authentic, and there is hence no escape of social representation, and, as a result, ‘truth can never be captured and represented in its pure, multi-dimensional form by the limited symbolic constraints of discourse and the limited physical constraints of the medium.’ (Hobbs 2008, p.11) It is indeed by operating within the context of their role in society which values the public concerns that scholars claim that they impart truths; however, this role represents a discourse that influences the manner in which AmI scenarios for social transformation are represented by the scholarly texts, drawing on various discourses, with the scholars interpreting the so-called truth of such scenarios through particular discursive representations. Consequently, scholarly texts draw on the discourses that define and surround the AmI scenarios for social transformation being represented, and they are the symbolic results of a discursive practice. As such, scholarly texts as socio-culturally situated can make only a tentative claim to absolute truth. It then becomes fruitless to ask whether something is true or false, considering truth is unattainable; rather, ‘the focus should be on how effects of truth are created in discourse’ (Phillips & Jørgensen 2002, p. 14) Of import is thus to analyze the discursive processes through which discourses are constructed in terms of how they can give the impression that they represent true pictures of reality (Ibid).

A Critical Reading of the Scholarly and ICT Industry’s Construction of Ambient Intelligence for Societal Transformation of Europe