This presentation engages in the ways in which digital technologies are framed within Swedish popular media. Focus is particularly on the increasingly rapid consumption patterns of digital technologies and the short-term temporalities (see for comparison Adam 1998; Nixon 2011; Fortun 2014; Fitz-Henry 2017) that underlie these consumption patterns. Previous research has acknowledged industrialization and, what has been referred to as natural, or turbo, capitalism as constitutive to the creation of short-term temporalities, and this presentation adds to this, the notion of media. Investigating reviews and consumer advices of digital technologies in Swedish popular media, it is evident that computers, televisions, smart phones, cell phones, laptops and tablets are framed, not only as commodities and consumer goods, but as consumable goods, something that also implies their status as disposable. This however, remains under the radar, together with the geographically dispersed processes of managing digital technologies as they turn obsolete, the long-term processes of decomposition, as well as the toxins that are discharged in and through their physical remnants, and subsequently pollute ground, and surface water. This presentation argues that popular media representations of digital technologies matter, not only in the ways people imagine and use digital technologies, but also the way in which we think (or choose not to think) about their afterlife. Clearly, the afterlife of digital technologies is part of another temporality than the market-driven urge for the latest mobile phone model, the fastest computer, the thinnest flat screen, and/or the one with the highest resolution. The seemingly simple acts of exchange however, say little or nothing about the environmental impacts that follow. As the name implies, consumable electronics appeals to short-term temporalities; they are made to be consumed, and more importantly, disposed of when replaced by newer models. In sum, the agenda-setting function of popular media contributes to reinforcing the discrepancy, and hierarchization between different temporalities, something that is most perturbing, particularly in relation to digital technologies.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 36019549This presentation explores movements – in terms of national and international trade – of electronic waste (e-waste) and how these movements also determine the status of e-waste as a risk or as a resource. As such, it draws on interviews with representatives of companies in Slovenia and in Sweden. These companies – both publicly and privately owned – are part of different sectors: the mining industry, production and distribution of electrical and electronic goods and services, collection and/or management of electronic waste as well as reparation of obsolete electronics. E-waste distinguishes itself from other types of waste in that it contains complex material compositions: both hazardous components such as mercury, beryllium and brominated flame retardants, and valuable materials and metals such as gold and copper. Using the vocabulary of Kärg Kama (2015), WEEE adheres both to the logic of hazard and the logic of resource. The dual status of e-waste, as both risky and valuable makes it a rather complicated waste fraction to recycle, which also constitutes one of the reasons for this presentation’s focus on this particular fraction. The findings suggest that e-waste is considered a resource, only insofar, it is recycled within the economic system of EU, or other western countries. As the representatives of the different companies discussed spatial transferences of e-waste between EU countries and other western countries, e-waste was largely conveyed as a resource. Discussing spatial transferences of e-waste to countries outside of the EU/West on the other hand, its status as hazardous was emphasized. Saying this, e-waste is simply not transformed into a risk as it is transferred outside of the EU/West. Rather, the findings suggest that its status as hazardous actually serves to reinforce its status as a resource. This means that the status of e-waste as a risk is inextricably bound up with its status as a resource. Hence, in order for e-waste to be regarded as a resource, the understanding of its status as a risk needs to be potentially present. In sum, engaging in e-waste, as it is subjected to national and international trade, this presentation seeks to demonstrate the malleability of risk, or risk as (also) socially constructed. As such, space, it is suggested, is constitutive of the status of e-waste as a risk or a resource.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 36020061This presentation draws on a previous joint publication (Olofsson and Mali 2017) where focus was on the delay between the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the development of risk assessments and policy documents that regulate the development of these technologies. Noteworthy, while computers have been part of society since the mid 20th century, it is not until recently that risk assessments and policy documents regarding their material residues have been developed and put into force. This means that the advancement of ICTs, at least for the first twenty-five to thirty years, proceeded pretty much without critical interventions of their effects. The delay between the development of ICTs and the development of regulatory frameworks also differs from the regulations of other emerging technologies such as (green) biotechnology (genetically modified organisms [GMOs]), nanotechnology, and synthetic biology where regulations were/are developed in conjunction with, or even before the development of the technologies themselves. The current ambition is to further develop thoughts around the delay between the development of ICTs and the development of risk assessments and policy documents that serve to regulate the development of these technologies. As such, this presentation is a call for additional perspectives on how to transform critical thinking on this delay to practical impacts in current practices of policy making. While it might be difficult to pin down the effects that this delay had/has for the subsequent development of ICTs, we maintain the importance of taking into account, not only how and by whom risk assessments and policy documents are developed, but when they are developed in relation to the technologies that they serve to regulate.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 36019805