The application of probability and statistics to an ever-widening number of life-decisions serves to reproduce, reinforce, and widen disparities in the quality of life that different groups of people ...can enjoy. As a critical technology assessment, the ways in which bad luck early in life increase the probability that hardship and loss will accumulate across the life course are illustrated. Analysis shows the ways in which individual decisions, informed by statistical models, shape the opportunities people face in both market and non-market environments. Ultimately, this book challenges the actuarial logic and instrumental rationalism that drives public policy and emphasizes the role that the mass media play in justifying its expanded use. Although its arguments and examples take as their primary emphasis the ways in which these decision systems affect the life chances of African-Americans, the findings are also applicable to a broad range of groups burdened by discrimination.
Transformations in strategies of governmentality have been implemented around the globe through behavioral interventions characterized as 'nudges.' This article will focus on the implementation of ...these practices within geopolitical areas referred to as 'smart cities.' Specifically, the article will examine the impacts of technological developments on neuroeconomics and behavioral economics as foundational contributions to smart city governance. Given the resonance between several areas of governmentality explored by Foucault in the 1970s, and by an increasing number of theorists of late, this article sets out a program of research and policy analysis organized by a political economy of communications framework. As such, smart city governance will be identified and assessed in terms of the processes of commodification, spatialization, and structuration. Important concerns emerging from our assessment of the nudge as a governmental policy tool are the implications that this and related approaches to management of populations have for direct and indirect surveillance of people, places, and things. Information and communication technology is expected to play a central role here via its extension of surveillance through multidimensional analysis of massive transaction-generated-information, environmental and personal sensing, and what we have come to refer to as the big data that enable management by code from afar. The implications of these processes for groups within society, especially those already disadvantaged by poverty, segregation, and disregard, will be described and illustrated with examples from around the globe. The article will conclude with an articulation of public policy concerns, including those related to privacy and surveillance.
In the future systems of ambient intelligence will include decision support systems that will automate the process of discrimination among people that seek entry into environments and to engage in ...search of the opportunities that are available there. This article argues that these systems must be subject to active and continuous assessment and regulation because of the ways in which they are likely to contribute to economic and social inequality. This regulatory constraint must involve limitations on the collection and use of information about individuals and groups. The article explores a variety of rationales or justifications for establishing these limits. It emphasizes the unintended consequences that flow from the use of these systems as the most compelling rationale.
SSN Outstanding Achievement Award 2016Surveillance & Society Biennial Conference, Barcelona. This article is based upon a keynote lecture delivered at the Surveillance Studies Network Conference in ...Barcelona, April 22nd, and a public lecture delivered at The London School of Economics and Political Science, May 19th, 2016.
This article develops a more comprehensive understanding of data mining by examining the application of this technology in the marketplace. In addition to exploring the technological issues that ...arise from the use of these applications, we address some of the social concerns that are too often ignored. As more firms shift more of their business activities to the Web, increasingly more information about consumers and potential customers is being captured in Web server logs. Sophisticated analytic and data mining software tools enable firms to use the data contained in these logs to develop and implement a complex relationship management strategy. Although this new trend in marketing strategy is based on the old idea of relating to customers as individuals, customer relationship management actually rests on segmenting consumers into groups based on profiles developed through a firm's data mining activities. Individuals whose profiles suggest that they are likely to provide a high lifetime value to the firm are served content that will vary from that which is served to consumers with less attractive profiles. Social costs may be imposed on society when objectively rational business decisions involving data mining and consumer profiles are made. The ensuing discussion examines the ways in which data mining and the use of consumer profiles may exclude classes of consumers from full participation in the market-place, and may limit their access to information essential to their full participation as citizens in the public sphere. We suggest more ethically sensitive alternatives to the unfettered use of data mining.
The laws that condition the boundaries that separate the public from the private spheres shape our expectations of privacy. Public opinion helps to shape the development and implementation of those ...laws. Commercial firms in the information‐intensive industries have been the primary sponsors of public opinion surveys introduced into testimony as assessments of the public's will. Representatives of business and consumer organizations have relied upon the same industry‐sponsored surveys to frame their arguments in support of or in opposition to specific privacy policies. In the past 25 years, references to public opinion have been used to frame the public as concerned, differentiated and, most recently, as willing to negotiate their privacy demands.
Although prior studies have shown that African American smokers are likely to carry some of the genetic variants associated with smoking risk, additional research with African American smokers is ...needed to replicate these findings. Limited information is available on interest in participating in research to identify genetic risk factors for smoking among African American smokers; therefore, the goals of the present study were to describe intentions to participate in smoking and genetics research, and to determine factors that are associated with participation intentions. Subjects were 128 African American male and female adult smokers. Sociodemographic characteristics, clinical factors, attitudes about genetic testing, and intentions to participate in genetics research were evaluated during a structured telephone interview. Overall, 58% of respondents reported that they would be very likely to participate in research to identify genetic risk factors for smoking. Greater beliefs about the benefits of participating in medical research (odds ratio, 3.17; 95% confidence interval, 1.45-6.94; P = 0.004) and fewer perceptions of the limitations and risks of genetic testing (odds ratio, 0.90; 95% confidence interval, 0.82-0.98; P = 0.01) had significant independent associations with reporting a high likelihood of participating in this type of research. Recruitment messages and protocols that address the benefits of research participation, as well as concerns about the limitations and risks of genetic testing, may enhance African American participation in research on genetics and smoking.
This paper examines the problems and prospects for including meaningful indicators of intragenrational equity into the city based regional planning efforts unfolding around the globe. The central ...focus of the paper is on the challenges that environmental justice (EJ) activists face as they attempt to frame the problem of equity in ways that the general public would see as not only informative, but compelling. After reviewing examples of successful efforts to reframe debates about equity, the paper concludes with a discussion of a set of EJ concerns and indicators that have the greatest potential for capturing public attention and commitment despite mounting resistance to the use of redistributive policies in support of sustainability goals.
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