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Paper short abstract:

Concept videos depict future scenarios of technologies in development. Analyzing videos from several companies as visual advertisements and design fictions, we see how companies strategically frame, raise and address privacy concerns about new products and services with multiple audiences in mind.

Paper long abstract:

Concept videos provide visual depictions of a technology still in the development or design stage by placing the technology in a fictional, yet plausible, future scenario. They provide an opportunity to see how companies frame new products and services by visually and narratively configuring relations between technological artifacts, users, non-users, law and policy.

We show how privacy concerns were framed, raised and addressed in concept videos depicting the Amazon Air Prime drone delivery service, Google Glass, and the Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality headset. We analyze and interpret the visual meanings of these videos by viewing them as both advertisements (Gillian Dyer 1982) and design fictions (Julian Bleecker 2009).

Analyzing how these videos frame future technologies' technical capabilities, human-technology interactions, people's behavior, settings and social context of use, reveals how companies conceptualized privacy concerns (if at all). The videos suggest compliance with (or violation of) social norms, laws, and regulations that protect privacy. The videos present a company's particular vision of the future; some videos present a more open ended, speculative view of the future, while others present a more certain, concrete, anticipated view of the future. We also note how a single concept video is framed with multiple audiences and stakeholders in mind, such as individual consumers, business customers, and U.S. regulatory agencies. These concept videos represent a particular company's framing of the future, but also allow for further discourses to explore and contest these futures.