1.4.2 Relationship between Social and Human Capital: Trust in Technology VS Trust in Institutions
Maria Erofeeva
Project Leader
Project period
2020-2025
Context of Research Project within a Subject of Human Capital
The problem of growing trust in technology and the formation of new technocentric worldviews and practices has become especially relevant since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid technologization of all spheres of life (work, education, and leisure) has directly affected the everyday practices of Russians and how they perceive and talk about the technical mediation of social life. Recent studies (e.g. Gan, Greiffenhagen, & Reeves, 2020) have shown what role technological means of communication play in the process of transformation of worldview patterns and practices. In this study, the transformation of social institutions under the conditions of technologization will be investigated
Project Aim
Identifying stable structures of collective perception and interaction (frames, discourses, forms of talk) in the context of the technical mediation of social life
Project Objectives:
- Studying existing methods of macro- and microsociological research of the perception of technology and technically mediated interaction
- Developing a conceptual model for studying technological transformations using the theoretical resources of cultural sociology, frame analysis, conversational analysis, and science and technology studies (STS)
- Analyzing the new technocentric worldviews and technologized practices developed during the pandemic and the dynamics of the perception of technology
- Identifying the correlation between trust/distrust patterns of technological changes and the parameters of social and human capital
Key Findings
2020
The dynamics of the technology perception has been analyzed, as well as the distribution of new technocentric worldviews that developed during the pandemic
2021
The modern trends of modeling embodied virtual agents (avatars) in the field of studying human-computer interaction (HCI) have been considered, it has been shown that problems in interacting with Google Duplex arise due to inadequate robot prosody, which leads to a slow process of conversation completion. A review of the techniques (devices) used in narratives about technology has been carried out, and it has been shown how the ways of constructing such stories differ and change, and how the attitude to technology can be characterized on this basis
2022
A conversational analysis of interaction in an educational context using videoconferencing technologies has been carried out. This case shows how people adapt to a low-bandwidth communication channel. It has been demonstrated that the stable format of educational interaction of the IRE type (initiation, response, evaluation) remains, but undergoes significant changes: the interaction time increases significantly; there is uncertainty about the relationships between the elements of the sequence (initiation, response, evaluation).
An ethnographic study of the influence of technology and material artifacts on the socialization of children with mental disorders (autism) has been conducted. It has been shown that the formation of agency in children can be divided into several stages: firstly, the staff of the center localize interaction, creating a spatially and temporally limited environment with the help of heterogeneous actors; secondly, with the help of ritualized practices, coordinate the actions of all actors; thirdly, psychologists ‘erase traces’ of work performed by technical devices.
A study has been conducted on how the technical capabilities of Web 2.0 social networks create conditions and limitations for developing a collective understanding of a problematic situation. Based on discussion materials on social networks of the tragic incident in Odessa on May 2, 2014 (the death of people as a result of street fighting and fire), the dynamics of the discussion has been reconstructed from collective work on solving the mystery to sustainable knowledge reproduced in ritual commemoration
Publications
- Egorova A. I., Klowait N. How to Say Good-Bye to a Robot? The Matter of Conversational Closing // Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes. 2021. No. 1. P. 241–270
- Klowait N., Erofeeva M. A. The Rise of Interactional Multimodality in Human-Computer Interaction. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes. 2021. No. 1. P. 46–70
- Bardina S. ‘That’s What the Dream Says’: The Use of Normalizing Devices in Dream Reports // Discourse Studies. 2021
Conferences
International Workshop (School) The Impact of Technology on the Institute of Education (RU) (Moscow, Russia, November 29, 2021)
Atypical Interaction Conference 2022 (Newcastle University, UK, June 27-29, 2022):
Nils Klowait, Maria Erofeeva Atypical Interaction in Atypical Spaces
International Master Class (School) “Sociology of Things” (RU) (Moscow, Russia, October 13-16, 2022)