The Psychology of Privacy in the Digital Age

Privacy is a psychological topic suffering from historical neglect – a neglect that is increasingly consequential in an era of social media connectedness, mass surveillance and the permanence of our electronic footprint. Despite fundamental changes in the privacy landscape, social and personality psychology journals remains largely unrepresented in debates on the future of privacy. By contrast, in disciplines like computer science and media and communication studies, engaging directly with socio- technical developments, interest in privacy has grown considerably. In our review of this interdisciplinary literature we suggest four domains of interest to psychologists. These are: sensitivity to individual differences in privacy disposition; a claim that privacy is fundamentally based in social interactions; a claim that privacy is inherently contextual; and a suggestion that privacy is as much about psychological groups as it is about individuals. Moreover, we propose a framework to enable progression to more integrative models of the psychology of privacy in the digital age, and in particular suggest that a group and social relations based approach to privacy is needed

Empowerment/sexism: Figuring female sexual agency in contemporary advertising

This article argues that there has been a significant shift in advertising representations of women in recent years, such that rather than being presented as passive objects of the male gaze, young women in adverts are now frequently depicted as active, independent and sexually powerful. This analysis examines contemporary constructions of female sexual agency in advertisements examining three recognizable `figures': the young, heterosexually desiring `midriff', the vengeful woman set on punishing her partner or ex-partner for his transgressions, and the `hot lesbian', almost always entwined with her beautiful Other or double. Using recent examples of adverts, the article asks how this apparent `agency' and `empowerment' should be understood. Drawing on accounts of the incorporation or recuperation of feminist ideas in advertising, the article takes a critical approach to these representations, examining their exclusions, their constructions of gender relations and heteronormativity, and the way power is figured within them. A feminist poststructuralist approach is used to interrogate the way in which `sexual agency' becomes a form of regulation in these adverts that requires the re-moulding of feminine subjectivity to fit the current postfeminist, neoliberal moment in which young women should not only be beautiful but sexy, sexually knowledgeable/practised and always `up for it'. The article makes an original contribution to debates about representations of gender in advertising, to poststructuralist analyses about the contemporary operation of power, and to writing about female `sexual agency' by suggesting that `voice' or `agency' may not be the solution to the `missing discourse of female desire' but may in fact be a technology of discipline and regulation

Virtual hallucinations: projects in VJing, virtual reality and cyberculture

This paper discusses a variety of the author’s artistic projects exploring altered states of consciousness and computer art. First, the paper will provide a brief overview of previous creative works, which include compositions of electroacoustic music, interactive visualisations, and visual music films. These previous works use the concept of altered states of consciousness as a compositional principle, as explored in the author’s book Inner Sound: Altered States of Consciousness in Electronic Music and Audio-Visual Media (OUP 2018). Following this, a variety of the author’s recent creative work produced from 2016–2019 will be discussed. These works include: a series of paintings that incorporate computer graphics animations when viewed in augmented reality; VJ performances constructed using direct animation on 8mm film, computer graphics animations generated from code and audio-reactive effects; and Cyberdream VR, a virtual reality experience. These interrelated projects continue to develop the author’s artistic investigations into altered states, while also referencing work such as demo scene videos; cyberdelic imagery of the type seen on fliers from the 1990s rave-era; and the recent Internet-borne subculture vaporwave, which recontextualises the aesthetics of 1980s and 1990s ambient corporate music and utopian computer graphics to construct surrealistic dystopias

Young People, Consumer Citizenship and Protest: The Problem with Romanticizing the Relationship to Social Change

This article critically interrogates the assumption that young people operate at the ‘cutting edge’ of social change. Arguing that the ideological impact of consumption on young people’s everyday lives is such that young people are almost obliged to reinforce the status quo rather than to undermine it, the article considers the impact of young people’s status as consumer citizens. Using the London riots of 2011 riots as a means of briefly reflecting upon the degree to which young people are in opposition to the consumer society, the argument is made that youth researchers have tended to romanticize young people’s relationship to social change and that this is the result of their own sense of political disillusionment in what is essentially a consumer society

The emerging political economy of Humanity 2.0

'Humanity 2.0' refers to the title of my recent book (Humanity 2.0: What It Means to Be Human Past, Present and Future, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), in which I present humanity as historically poised to re-negotiate its sense of collective identity. There are at least five reasons for this, which are addressed in this paper: (a) the prominence of digital technology in shaping everyday life and human self-understanding; (b) the advances (both promised and realized) in biotechnology that aim to extend the human condition, perhaps even into a phase that might be called 'trans-' or 'post-' human; (c) a growing sense of ecological consciousness (much of it promoted by a sense of impending global catastrophe); (d) a growing awareness of the biological similarity between humans and other animals, reviving doubts about strictly naturalistic criteria for demarcating the 'human'; and (e) an increasing sense of human affection and sympathy migrating to animals and even androids, during a period when national health budgets are stretched perhaps to an unprecedented extent. The article is structured into two parts. The first part follows the humanistic implications of the claim that the computer was the innovation that most changed the human condition in the twentieth century. The overriding significance of the computer provides a gateway to our emerging sense of 'Humanity 2.0'. The second part focuses on the implications of Humanity 2.0 for welfare policy, concluding with a thought experiment concerning health policy. Here the basic point is that the ontological framework for conceptualizing the just liberal society is subtly shifting from the potential to the virtual as the normative benchmark of our humanity