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- Convenors:
-
VASILEIOS GALANOS
(University of Edinburgh)
Andreu Belsunces (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
We invite a panel, and co-authored position paper, to establish a unified approach for critical hype studies, exploring hype transformations, methods and theories. We welcome, among others, scholarship on hype narratives, performativity, expectations, expertise, imaginaries, fiction and transitions.
Long Abstract:
The burgeoning field of hype studies is ever-growing, but what remains a challenge is its absence of a unified approach. The purpose of this call is to leverage collective experiences, to co-creatively build foundational structures and establish a robust field of critical hype studies. This panel will seek to explore dynamic transformations, implications, and theoretical underpinnings of hype.
We invite researchers and scholars interested in unravelling the complexities of hype as a multi-dimensional phenomenon that operates at sociotechnical, epistemic, psychological, transmedial, and environmental levels. Do you have insights into the intentional production of hype as a media and persuasion strategy or the unintentional emergence of hype driven by, or influencing, material, political and economic factors, as well as psychological, affective, and embodied ones? Are you examining the performative capacities of hype but are intrigued by its causal origins, stabilisation, or abandonment? If so, we welcome your contributions.
We are equally interested in case studies that chart hype narratives: abandoned hypes, troughs of disillusionment, and cases of incremental, unhyped progress of technology. We wish to explore and problematise deterministic narratives about hype cycles, the social and psychological processes engendering hype, and the consequent effects on both innovation and public perception.
Scholars with a background in STS and innovation studies, particularly those engaged in studies of expectations, expertise and experience, fictions, deep transitions, and imaginaries, are especially invited. Contributions from media studies, design studies, philosophy, cybernetics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis are also highly welcome, as we weave together multiple threads to formulate a comprehensive understanding of hype phenomena.
Our ultimate ambition is to create a forum where, together, we can assemble insights into a structured field. We envisage our final output to be a co-authored position paper, offering a unified approach for hype studies, with definitions, related literature, methodological recommendations, and research agenda.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Andreu Belsunces (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
Long abstract:
This paper aims to investigate the role of socio-technical fictions in technology hype. Socio-technical fictions are conceptualized as "things that make things," entities that actively contribute to technological development by bridging what’s instituted as facts with the imaginary realm and connecting the present to the future. While not necessarily illusory or false, these fictions are integral to the inherent uncertainty of emerging, future-oriented technological projects. Importantly, these socio-technical fictions often go unnoticed, becoming entwined in rational practices and engaging in instrumental actions, finding refuge under the umbrella of technoscientific legitimacy that potentially enhances their factual basis. These fictions are closely tied to promises, expectations, and anticipation.
As an indispensable component of socio-technical transitions, the performative capacities of these fictions are linked to aesthetic, epistemic, behavioral, and affective processes, making them an inherent part of the hype process. Among other functions, these fictions disrupt causal chains, operating as sources of creativity; they aid in making emerging phenomena intelligible, consequently attracting attention; they contribute to the creation of a sense of feasibility, shared expectations, and have subsequent effects on collective behavior. By opening new avenues of action, they generate novelty, stimulate imagination toward new possibilities, and create anticipatory affective intensity such as anxiety and desirability. Under felicity conditions, these fictions facilitate the actualization of ideas. However, when exaggerated, socio-technical fictions can become epistemically toxic and undermine the legitimacy of an emerging technological project.
Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Technological Assessment literature, this paper aims to provide granularity to the understanding of hype and its politics, using socio-technical fictions as a theoretical entry point.
Michelle Charette (York University)
Short abstract:
In this paper, I draw on fieldwork completed at professional digital health events to map the emotional landscape produced by innovation cycles. I ask: what is the emotional landscape of innovation, how does it compare to that of recipients, and what can be gleaned from these differences?
Long abstract:
There are three cycles involved in innovation: the initial period of visionary promise, moments of breakthrough and celebration, and periods of setbacks due to failures or fraud (Kitzinger 2008). These phases require and make possible different emotions. In this paper, I ask: what emotional landscape follows from innovation conceived in this way? I offer a preliminary answer to this question by way of case study.
Drawing on fieldwork completed at professional digital health events, I note and trouble the reification of these three phases and their corresponding moods. Visions and breakthroughs were colored by excitement, assurance, and pride. Failures were feared and often framed as that which must be avoided. Elsewhere, I have suggested that those who are on the receiving end of digital health technology are deeply ambivalent about health innovation, oscillating with ease between visions and failures via excitement and concern. How might innovation change if visions were framed as setbacks and setbacks were framed as breakthroughs? If visions were both exciting and frightening, and setbacks were worth celebrating, the emotional landscape of innovators would more closely resemble that of patients. I suggest ambiguating the innovation cycles and their affective registers by incorporating more diverse actors at the outset of vision-building. Furthermore, comparing the emotional landscapes of innovators and recipients of technology offers opportunities to note bad faith, exclusion, and preventable setbacks.
Maria T. Soto-Sanfiel (National University of Singapore)
Long abstract:
This study examines scientists' perceptions and use of scientific hype in media, revealing how they present breakthroughs and their concerns about public engagement (Caufield, 2018; Tiffany et al., 2022). Online focus groups (FGs) with 24 Quantum Physicists from an international research center were conducted, representing diverse backgrounds and career stages. Recruitment utilized a snowballing technique. Quantum physics, known for exaggerated claims or hype about quantum computing's potential, served as a rich context (Ezratty, 2022). The results of an inductive thematic analysis (TA) reveal scientists' acknowledgment of their role in generating science hype, consistent with prior research (Sumner et al., 2014). They adeptly tailor communication to diverse audiences, objectives, and visibility strategies within academic and organizational settings. The study reveals various emotions among participants regarding hype in science communication, an underexplored topic. Negative feelings are particularly directed at research institution marketing departments, with frustration, anxiety, and anger expressed about their role in hype generation. Frustration is especially pronounced among those attributing hype to broader organizational issues within academic funding systems. They express dissatisfaction with the pressure to tailor narratives to secure financial support, feeling disheartened about having to market their research, reflecting the profit-driven nature of contemporary science.
Furthermore, the study highlights cognitive dissonance among scientists regarding science communication hype. Despite acknowledging its negative impact on scientific integrity, scientists justify engaging in hype to secure funding or maintain visibility. This dissonance complicates scientists' attitudes as they balance awareness of negative consequences with the pressures and incentives driving their participation in hype.
Jascha Bareis (Institute for Technology Assessement and Systems Analysis (ITAS))
Long abstract:
Absurd hopes, analogies and expectations have been accompanying large-language models (LLMs) and their performances since 2021. Tech firms and their leaders strategically hyped (e.g. see Gates, 2023, or Future of Life Institute, 2023) - and criti- hyped (Vinsel, 2021) - chatbots like Chat-GPT or Bard.
Current policy approaches like the AI-Act, DSA or the US Executive Order rotate around proposals like labelling, pre-deployment red-teaming, and other security measures. However, in this paper I argue that instead of dealing with the regulation of synthetically produced content, regulators must regulate the knowledge and trust authority of LLMs and their providers. When television shows broadcast entertaining fiction, it is not a problem if viewers understand and treat it as what it is: fiction instead of reality. Similar counts for LLMs.
BigTech’s hyping of the LLM phenomenon powerfully informs us how speaking position and impression management in the public communication arena creates followership and influences trust in LLM’s synthetically created content (Bareis et al, 2023).
Policy makers must tackle the authority and credibility of knowledge production instead of fighting a lost battle of fact-checking and auditing rapidly increasing synthetical content on the web. I will dive into several policy recommendations such as classifying high risk providers instead of high-risk content as proposed by EU AI-Act, lobby-control and transparency registers, or narrative-codes of conduct in announcing tech-innovation for both BigTech and Policy-makers. In doing so this paper will demonstrate the power of trust and authority creation and its disregard in the current LLM policy debate.
Louis Ravn (University of Copenhagen)
Long abstract:
While the sociology of expectations, and hype studies in particular, have fruitfully highlighted the performativity of expectations and hype for technoscientific innovation, they have missed accounting for the role of boundary-work in constructions of hype. Boundary-work (Gieryn, 1983), a well-established STS concept, denotes the discursive acts by which certain technoscientific practices are delineated as scientific in opposition to others that are not. This perspective highlights that constructions of hype often entail both the valorization of one technoscientific innovation as well as the derision of another. To empirically demonstrate this dynamic, this paper draws on the example of the recently much-hyped technology of synthetic data, signifying artificially produced digital data which are increasingly used in the training of machine learning models. Mobilizing interview data and promissory materials, this paper shows that synthetic data hype is constituted through three different modes of boundary-work: first, stipulations of their epistemic superiority; second, disputes related to best synthetic data methodologies; and third, contestations regarding the attribute “fake”. The discursive hype around synthetic data, the analysis suggests, is significantly shaped by such dynamics of boundary-work. The paper concludes by suggesting that critical hype studies ought to attend to boundary-work practices as a constitutive dynamic in constructions of hype, thereby enriching existing perspectives on the rhetoric of hype.
Aodhan Kelly (Maastricht University Vrije Universiteit) Maximilian Rossmann (Maastricht University)
Long abstract:
Calling technology “hype” not only depicts changes of attention patterns in discourse but also contains a value judgement about the appropriate response, and language for the context, audience, and purpose. While it was initially unclear if the release of ChatGPT deserved further attention in higher education, the subsequent communications negotiated what features and metaphors to foreground and how to respond to a topic that has repeatedly been considered a hype. This presentation will disaggregate and review the attention patterns for different stories shared on university websites in the Netherlands.
The websites of the14 Dutch research universities and SURF were queried using a domain specific Google search query (e.g., “GPT3 OR GPT OR ChatBot OR ChatGPT OR GPT4 OR 'generative AI' site:wur.nl”). The documents in the corpus include, interviews, event announcements, reports, and instructions for students and educators. Data is pre-processed and analyzed in Python, using a dictionary approach that is informed by related literature. Findings include “the demand for the safe use of ChatGPT”, being the most prominent topic, with different suggestions to meet the challenges of assessing learning, detecting fraud, and supporting students. Other topics identified include bias & discrimination, job loss & change of academic life, privacy, the industry-university relationship, and relationships with AI. Distribution, intersection, and temporality of these topics are discussed at the background of the Dutch higher education system and the question of what a responsible response to futuristic communication and hype could look like.