Summary:Access to and affordability of digital technology for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups is an ongoing concern in an Australian context, however the digital needs, issues and barriers for consumers who are homeless are largely neglected in this literature. This paper presents findings from a research project on mobile phones and the internet in the lives of people experiencing homelessness and engages with some key issues of digital exclusion arising in the context of a general shift in connectivity to mobile media and the push by the Australian government to reform service provision around these changes.The paper argues for the need to recognise the ways that life situations and circumstances of hardship, such as homelessness, factor into the patterns of mobile and internet connectivity, creating unique issues of digital access and equity. It argues for knowledge of these differences to inform digital delivery of government services and approaches to telecommunications policies and assistance programs, and puts forward a number of recommendations based on a study of 95 adults, families and young people experiencing homelessness which was carried out in Sydney and Melbourne in early 2014.
Smart voice assistants have become popular thanks largely to their default naturalistic female voices and helpful personae. In this article, we trace changes in robot voices in popular culture and explain how this history influenced the voice design of smart voice assistants. Our research draws on cultural analysis of Hollywood and international films, television and literature, and observations from our personal experiences with voice assistants. We argue that designers of devices like the Google Home and Amazon Echo inherited a cultural imaginary of alien and dangerous robots with artificial voices and personalities. Manufacturers leveraged techniques of modality, personae and invocation and pre-existing social connotations of the voice to create positive associations of these devices in the home. We conclude by arguing that smart voice assistants are new media innovations prepared for consumers through pre-domestication and represent an emerging regime of power and influence based on technologised voice interaction.
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