INVISIBLE LABOR FOR DATA: INSTITUTIONS, INFRASTRUCTURE, AND VIRTUAL SPACE

Americans are accustomed to a wide range of data collection in their lives: census, polls, surveys, user registrations, and disclosure forms. When logging onto the Internet, users’ actions are being tracked everywhere: clicking, typing, tapping, swiping, searching, and placing orders. All of this data is stored to create data-driven profiles of each user. Social network sites, furthermore, set the voluntarily sharing of personal data as the default mode of engagement. But people’s time and energy devoted to creating this massive amount of data, on paper and online, are taken for granted. Few people would consider their time and energy spent on data production as labor. Even if some people do acknowledge their labor for data, they believe it is accessory to the activities at hand. In the face of pervasive data collection and the rising time spent on screens, why do people keep ignoring their labor for data? How has labor for data been become invisible, as something that is disregarded by many users? What does invisible labor for data imply for everyday cultural practices in the United States? Invisible Labor for Data addresses these questions. I argue that three intertwined forces contribute to framing data production as being void of labor: data production institutions throughout history, the Internet’s technological infrastructure (especially with the implementation of algorithms), and the multiplication of virtual spaces. There is a common tendency in the framework of human interactions with computers to deprive data and bodies of their materiality. My Introduction and Chapter 1 offer theoretical interventions by reinstating embodied materiality and redefining labor for data as an ongoing process. The middle Chapters present case studies explaining how labor for data is pushed to the margin of the narratives about data production. I focus on a nationwide debate in the 1960s on whether the U.S. should build a databank, contemporary Big Data practices in the data broker and the Internet industries, and the group of people who are hired to produce data for other people’s avatars in the virtual games. I conclude with a discussion on how the new development of crowdsourcing projects may usher in the new chapter in exploiting invisible and discounted labor for data.

Playing for Real: Designing Alternate Reality Games in Learning Contexts

Alternate Reality Game (ARG) represent a new genre of transmedia practice where players hunt for scattered clues, make sense of disparate information, and solve puzzles to advance an ever-evolving storyline. Players participate in ARGs using multiple communications technologies, ranging from print materials to mobile devices. However, many interaction design challenges must be addressed to weave these everyday communication tools together into an immersive, participatory experience. Transmedia design is not an everyday process. Designers must create and connect story bits across multiple media (video, audio, text) and multiple platforms (phones, computers, physical spaces). Furthermore, they must engage with players of varying skill levels. Few studies to-date have explored the design process of ARGs in learning contexts. Fewer still have focused on challenges involved in designing for youth (13-17 years old). In this study, I explore the process of designing ARGs as vehicles for promoting information literacy and participatory culture for adolescents (13-17 years old). Two ARG design scenarios, distinguished by target learning environment (formal and informal context) and target audience (adolescents), comprise the two cases that I examine. Through my analysis of these two design cases, I articulate several unique challenges faced by designers who create interactive, transmedia stories for – and with – youth. Drawing from these design challenges, I derive a repertoire of design strategies that future designers and researchers may use to create and implement ARGs for teens in learning contexts. In particular, I propose a narrative design framework that allows for the categorization of ARGs as storytelling constructs that lie along a continuum of participation and interaction. The framework can serve as an analytic tool for researchers and a guide for designers. In addition, I establish a framework of social roles that designers may employ to craft transmedia narratives before live launch and to promote and scaffold player participation after play begins. Overall, the contributions of my study include theoretical insights that may advance our understanding of narrative design and analysis as well as more practical design implications for designers and practitioners seeking to incorporate transmedia features into learning experiences that target youth.

A Transformative Olympic Village: The Washington 2024 Post-Games Legacy

This thesis explores the Modern Olympic Games to strategically design an Olympic Village for Washington D.C. that plans not just to house athletes, but to provide a vision for the post-Games city. Through discovery of the spirit and meaning behind one of the world’s biggest events and analysis of various post-Games Villages, the proposed Olympic Village will innovate the future of Washington D.C.’s Southeast region. Study of existing mixed-use architecture, urban planning, and adaptation will help formulate an Olympic Village design. It is the intention that the Olympic Village, much like its athletes, will emulate the Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius,” meaning “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” The objective is to establish a village that allows for a faster turnaround in post-Olympic design, utilizes higher standards, and uses stronger applications to building a more sustainable city.