Amidst the ongoing anti-military protests in Myanmar since 2021, there is a noticeable research gap on ICT-supported activism. Generally, ICTs play an important role during political crises in conjunction with activists' practices on the ground. Inspired by Resource Mobilization Theory, I conducted qualitative interviews (N=16) and a qualitative online survey (N=34), which demonstrate the intersection between analog and digital domains, showcasing the ingenuity of the activists, and the rapid adoption of ICTs in a country that has experienced a digital revolution within the last few years. As not all people were able to protest on-the-ground, they acted as keyboard fighters to organize protests, to share information, and to support the civil disobedience movement in Myanmar. The study identifies, inter alia, the need for better offline applications with wider coverage in times of internet shutdowns, applications that cannot be easily identified during physical controls, and providing free and secure VPN access.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642279
Voice assistants’ inability to serve people-of-color and non-native English speakers has largely been documented as a quality-of-service harm. However, little work has investigated what downstream harms propagate from this poor service. How does poor usability materially manifest and affect users’ lives? And what interaction designs might help users recover from these effects? We identify 6 downstream harms that propagate from quality-of-service harms in voice assistants. Through interviews and design activities with 16 multicultural participants, we unveil these 6 harms, outline how multicultural users uniquely personify their voice assistant, and suggest how these harms and personifications may affect their interactions. Lastly, we employ techniques from psychology on communication repair to contribute suggestions for harm-reducing repair that may be implemented in voice technologies. Our communication repair strategies include: identity affirmations (intermittent frequency), cultural sensitivity, and blame redirection. This work shows potential for a harm-repair framework to positively influence voice interactions.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642900
Speaking out for women's daily needs on social media has become a crucial form of everyday feminism in China. Gender debate naturally intertwines with such feminist advocacy, where users in opposite stances discuss gender-related issues through intense discourse. The complexities of gender debate necessitate a systematic understanding of discursive strategies for achieving effective gender communication that balances civility and constructiveness. To address this problem, we adopted a mixed-methods study to navigate discursive strategies in gender debate, focusing on 38,636 posts and 187,539 comments from two representative cases in China. Through open coding, we identified a comprehensive taxonomy of linguistic strategies in gender debate, capturing five overarching themes including derogation, gender distinction, intensification, mitigation, and cognizance guidance. Further, we applied regression analysis to unveil these strategies' correlations with user participation and response, illustrating the tension between debating tactics and public engagement. We discuss design implications to facilitate feminist advocacy on social media. Content Warning: This paper contains discussions on gender debate that may include swear words and sensitive topics, such as sex, potentially causing discomfort.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642194
In a world where digital technology is omnipresent, North Korea stands as an outlier, with most citizens uninformed about its existence. This study explores the experiences of North Korean defectors as they transition to a highly digitally connected society—South Korea. Through 21 semi-structured interviews, we initially investigate the critical needs and challenges they encounter during their transitions. Then, we examine the role of digital technology as they adapt to the highly connected digital environment of South Korea. Our findings highlight that social media serves as a double-edged sword, providing the freedom to construct a desired identity while accentuating the gap between their real and ideal selves. This empirical research offers insights into how an underrepresented population navigates the digital landscape during life transitions, shedding light on the drawbacks and ways to better address their needs.
doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642892