Social Protocols
Neeti Sivakumar
Advisor: Sharon De La Cruz
How does communication technology affect one’s ability to be vulnerable? The term vulnerable, within the scope of this thesis, addresses the willingness for reciprocity and self-disclosure. How do you choose to tell someone you love them: texting them a heart emoji, texting them you love them, sending a voice note, calling them, or telling them in-person?
Abstract
Through a series of experiments, Social Protocols examines how communication technology affects one’s ability to be vulnerable. In order to explore vulnerability, the project uses roleplaying, interactive web experiments, and re-enactment as methodologies to understand how medium and the message play hand in hand in shaping a conversation. This idea of embodied vulnerability can be seen through participants becoming a ‘performer’. Re-enactment offers the participant a chance to be vulnerable and reflect. Does the medium of communication change what we say and how we say it?
Is it possible to construct the perfect conditions for technology to mediate vulnerability? In order to structure my creative research, the experiments investigate physical space, digital identity, physical vulnerability, affordances of media, physical contexts, access, and time. The experiments, ‘A-Home-Page’, ‘DMs in Public’, ‘Algorithms of Care’, ‘Pillow Talk’, invite participants to reach a point of discomfort in order to choose whether to be vulnerable.
Technical Details
Websockets; WebRTC
Research/Context
The development of communication technology has primarily moved towards convenience rather than the quality of conversation. Of course, while there are a number of platforms that are outliers, like BeReal or Letterloop, our standard means of conversing remains the same.
Further Reading
Glitch Feminism by Legacy Russell
Whose Global Village by Ramesh Srinivasan
Imagining Feminist Interfaces by tendernet
An Illustrated Guide to Social Media by Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci and Ethan Zuckerman
The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser
New_Public's Substack
Ezra Klein's Podcast