Personal choices and situated data: Privacy negotiations and the acceptance of household Intelligent Personal Assistants

The emergence of personal assistants in the form of smart speakers has begun to significantly alter people’s everyday experi

When Citizens Are “Actually Doing Police Work”: The Blurring of Boundaries in WhatsApp Neighbourhood Crime Prevention Groups in The Netherlands

Neighbourhood watch messaging groups are part of an already pervasive phenomenon in The Netherlands, despite having only recently emerged. In many neighbourhoods, street signs have been installed to make passers-by aware of active neighbourhood surveillance. In messaging groups (using WhatsApp or similar communication apps), neighbours exchange warnings, concerns, and information about incidents, emergen

'CARE’ in social media: Perceptions of reputation in the healthcare sector

Guided by the growing importance of social-mediated organisational communication, this study examines how communication professionals within healthcare organisations perceive and respond to the impacts of social media on the organisation’s reputation. Although the healthcare sector finds itself in the midst of a (continually) transforming landscape characterized by large amounts of digital health (mis)information and an empowered ‘patient-as-consumer,’ little is known about how professionals in this sector understand the changes and respond to them. Moreover, much extant schol

Keeping an eye on the neighbours

Mobile neighbourhood crime prevention has become increasingly popular in the Netherlands. Since 2015, 7,250 WhatsApp neighbourhood crime prevention (WNCP) groups have been registered online, most of which are initiated and moderated by citizens. This entails a form of participatory policing aimed at neighbourhood crime prevention, which may provoke increased feelings of anxiety and interpersonal surveillance. Community police officers and citizens need to adapt to changed interactions and trust relations in the neighbourhood. This mixed-methods research examines both the mediation of messaging applications and its implementation by both citizens and police, indicating the tensions and negotiations around formal and informal ‘policing’

Intelligent Personal Assistants and the Intercultural Negotiations of Dataveillance in Platformed Households

The platformization of households is increasingly possible with the introduction of “intelligent personal assistants” (IPAs) embedded in smart, always-listening speakers and screens, such as Google Home and the Amazon Echo. These devices exemplify Zuboff’s “surveillance capitalism” by commodifying familial and social spaces and funneling data into corporate networks. However, the motivations driving the development of these platforms—and the dataveillance they afford—vary: Amazon appears focused on collecting user data to drive personalized sales across its shopping platform, while Google relies on its vast dataveillance infrastructure to build its AI-driven targeted advertising platform. This paper draws on cross-cultural focus groups regarding IPAs in the Netherlands and the United States. It reveals how respondents in these two countries articulate divergent ways of negotiating the dataveillance affordances and privacy concerns of these IPA platforms. These findings suggest the need for a nuanced approach to combating and limiting the potential harms of these home devices, which may otherwise be seen as equivalents