Coffee Meets Bagel: A.N.T and Rights and Terms of the App (Post 7) - Annabelle Spina

     Governance is enabled through standard Terms of Service and informally by encouraging users to behave in ways that align with the ideal forms of user Coffee Meets Bagel is targeted at. The platform through which the app is delivered acts as a governance mechanism, including app store terms or the legal status of the app's activity. When accessing Coffee Meets Bagel from the app store, you must agree to the rights and terms of the app. This means you may not run a copy of the app for your non-commercial purpose, and you may not copy the app. Coffee Meets Bagel has the right to update their agreement at any time, and they will do so by posting the revised agreement on the site or App Store. In terms of the Actor-Network Theory (A.N.T), the concept differentiates between intermediaries and mediators, either human or non-human. Intermediaries pass meaning along unchanged throughout a network of relations, while mediators are transformative – they alter the meaning of circumstances within a system (Herman, 2021). In the case of Coffee Meets Bagel, app user interfaces and functions can be understood as non-human actors that can be mediators. For example, this dating app can take a simple piece of information about a person, such as a love for the outdoors, and transform its meaning by adding a fitness-related emoji to the user's profile, implying healthiness due to the program's associations with hobbies. Another way of understanding the influence of non-human actors is by considering a technology's materiality and the affordances it extends. Attention to materiality identifies physical interactions encouraged by the app, such as how you either like or dislike users' profiles on Coffee Meets Bagel.


                                                                    Works Cited 


Herman, A. (2021) Social Media and Social Life [PowerPoint Presentation and Lecture]. https://mylearningspace.wlu.ca/d2l/home/400172

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Technological Determinism in Eighth Grade

 The film Eighth Grade watched in class clearly demonstrates what Baym identifies as anxieties produced by the digital age. Technological determinism and its effects can be seen to influence Kayla's life as she struggles to navigate both her social relationships as well as her online persona. According to Baym, she states that technologies have an "imprinting" effect that transfers essential qualities onto their users and their individual psyches (Baym 29). An example of this effect is the way in which Kayla was imprinted by her social media profiles as she became adamant and eager to practice her virtual confidence in real life. Furthermore, throughout the film, it is evident that keeping up social media profiles is a norm being practiced by Kayla as well as her classmates. It is important to these kids that they are posting regularly and interacting with each other online. The effects of digital technology can be argued to be imprinted on these characters as their virtu...
Read more

International Podcasts on Youtube

Hello everyone in CS371! My name is Matthew Spina and I would like to focus my first blog post around a podcast I typically watch on Youtube called The Fellas . The U.K based podcast, hosted by Youtuber's Calfreezy and TheBurntChip, has been running for almost a year amassing over 350,000 subscribers. They primarily discuss ongoing pop culture moments happening around the world to their past life experiences while also inviting guest's onto the show to provide deeper insights into their lives. For example, these guests could range from fellow Youtuber's to watch collectors and comedians.  The Fellas  podcast is also available on multiple platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify providing listeners with the ability to both view and listen to their weekly episodes.       The Fellas podcast is a great example as to how social media and social life can be intertwined while providing the ability to connect humans on a global scale. A primary example of this ...
Read more

BLOG POST 3 - Seif Amer

  In class we discussed the concept of media assemblages or media ecologies which are a collection of forms and practices that facilitate a specific media environment. A media ecology can be understood and analyzed by the use of three distinct articulations.  The articulation of focus is #3, which focuses on how the medium is brought to life, and how it is spread through a culture, community or society to best deliver the message. This means taking advantage of spatio-temporal concepts of media distribution, creation and consumption. What this means is that by spreading the message in a creative manner using space-biased media in a time where there is no internet to facilitate virality, you maximize the potential for your message to reach as many people as possible. This is what Martin Luther did with his 95 Theses collection . A book that discussed Luther’s issues with the church selling indulgences to finance the building they were using, and as a result may be considered di...
Read more