Mapping technology-harm relations: from ambient harms to zemiosis

This article develops a new approach to analysing the technology-harm nexus. The approach distinguishes between different technology-harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they contribute to bringing about. In this article, I focus on categorizing generative har...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wood, Mark A. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: Crime, media, culture
Year: 2022, Volume: 18, Issue: 4, Pages: 509-526
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Keywords:
Postphenomenology
Social Harm
Zemiology
technology-crime nexus
technology-harm nexus
Description
Summary:This article develops a new approach to analysing the technology-harm nexus. The approach distinguishes between different technology-harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they contribute to bringing about. In this article, I focus on categorizing generative harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they do to actors. Drawing together insights from zemiology, moral philosophy, postphenomenology, Stiegler?s technophenomenology, and Latour?s actor-network theory, I distinguish six generative harm relations: ambient harms, alterity harms, exclusion harms, interface harms, harm translation and zemiosis. Distinguishing between these generative harm relations helps us delineate the techno-sociality of a range of social harms, from gun violence and digital coercive control, to forms of oppression, inequality and immiseration (re)produced by algorithms.
ISSN:1741-6604
DOI:10.1177/17416590211037384