173 research outputs found
Digital inequalities in the aisles: the quantified individual
No full textJoseph Turow, Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, explores the increasingly important role of data collection and the quantification of the individual in one of our favourite activities – shopping. This post follows a special workshop convened by the Media Policy Project on ‘Automation, Prediction and Digital Inequalities’
The internet and the family : the view from parents, the view from the press (Joseph Turow)
No full textPierre Jocelyne. The internet and the family : the view from parents, the view from the press (Joseph Turow). In: Réseaux, volume 17, n°97, 1999. Internet, un nouveau mode de communication ? pp. 283-286
TV Publicity Outlets: A Preliminary Investigation
No full textTelevision’s worthiness as a source of information about contemporary culture has been evaluated time and time again by researchers. Yet systematic analysis of the nature and social role of information and interview programs is virtually non-existent, even though public relations practitioners have long utilized these programs as important publicity outlets. In this article, Joseph Turow and Ceritta Park describe their survey of “i & i “ programming, noting that this broadcasting category represents “a rich lode” of opportunities for public relations firms seeking an appropriate means of communicating their clients’ points of view
The internet and the family : the view from parents, the view from the press (Joseph Turow)
No full textPierre Jocelyne. The internet and the family : the view from parents, the view from the press (Joseph Turow). In: Réseaux, volume 17, n°97, 1999. Internet, un nouveau mode de communication ? pp. 283-286
Joseph Turow. The voice catchers: How marketers listen in to exploit your feelings, your privacy, and your wallet
No full text“Voice profiling is a gateway drug to a new era of hyper-personalized targeting,” (p. 227) Joseph Turow concludes in his book The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen in to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet. This crucial function of what Turow calls the “voice intelligence industry” explains the urgency of Turow’s most recent endeavor: a thorough examination of this industry which consists of different players, most centrally call center firms and the developers of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, the Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, and Samsung’s Bixby. The industry is united by its interest in using voice as another source for collecting biometrical data. Such voiceprints, as Turow figuratively puts it, are the “gold in people’s speech” (p. 192). In contrast to the face as another source for biometrical data, voice has received comparatively little public attention
Breaking up America advertisers and the new media world
No full textCombining shrewd analysis of contemporary practices with a historical perspective, Breaking up America traces the momentous shift that began in the mid-1970s when advertisers rejected mass marketing in favor of more aggressive target marketing. Turow shows how advertisers exploit differences between consumers based on income, age, gender, race, marital status, ethnicity, and lifesyles
The tradeoff fallacy: how marketers are misrepresenting American consumers and opening them up to exploitation
No full textNew survey results indicate that marketers are misrepresenting a large majority of Americans by claiming that Americans give out information about themselves as a tradeoff for benefits they receive. To the contrary, the survey reveals most Americans do not believe that ‘data for discounts’ is a square deal.
The findings also suggest, in contrast to other academics’ claims, that Americans’ willingness to provide personal information to marketers cannot be explained by the public’s poor knowledge of the ins and outs of digital commerce. In fact, people who know more about ways marketers can use their personal information are more likely rather than less likely to accept discounts in exchange for data when presented with a real-life scenario.
Our findings, instead, support a new explanation: a majority of Americans are resigned to giving up their data—and that is why many appear to be engaging in tradeoffs. Resignation occurs when a person believes an undesirable outcome is inevitable and feels powerless to stop it. Rather than feeling able to make choices, Americans believe it is futile to manage what companies can learn about them. Our study reveals that more than half do not want to lose control over their information but also believe this loss of control has already happened.
By misrepresenting the American people and championing the tradeoff argument, marketers give policymakers false justifications for allowing the collection and use of all kinds of consumer data often in ways that the public find objectionable. Moreover, the futility we found, combined with a broad public fear about what companies can do with the data, portends serious difficulties not just for individuals but also—over time—for the institution of consumer commerce.
 
Voiceprints, Bioprofiling and the Future: The Rise of the Voice Intelligence Industry
No full textProfessor Turow\u27s talks about the voice intelligence industry, a new sector of society that marketers are building to collect information about individuals from the ways they talk and sound. When you speak, “intelligent assistants” can draw inferences about you, using analytical formulas—algorithms—generated by machine learning techniques. The goal of the industry nowadays is to home in on individuals’ emotions, sentiments, and personality characteristics to help persuade them, often in real time. The goal in the not-so-distant future may be to home in on people’s weight, height, age, ethnicity, and more—all things scientists believe leak from your voice. The power that is giving marketers to model ways to discriminate among consumers and citizens—and to erode their freedom to make choices under the guise of giving them new ways to choose—is unprecedented and troubling. The ways it is permeating the population involves industrial strategies regarding seductive surveillance, the spiral of personalization, and the inculcation of habitus. The growth of the industry also raises questions of social policy that are barely being addressed
Open to Exploitation (Report): American Shoppers Online and Offline
No full text"A Report from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Television Entertainment and the US Health-Care Debate
No full textSome experts on the media say that entertainment can be more successful than news at providing insights into certain institutions, medicine being a good example. US television series that feature physicians as the central characters have been immensely popular. In the early series, dating back to the 1952 debut of City Hospital, the physician was an all-powerful hero working in a sparkling centre of healing, with medicine portrayed as a resource freely available to all. The programmes began to change in the 1970s. Plots centred more around the physicians\u27 personal problems than on the patients, but economic and health-policy issues were still rarely discussed adequately. In the end, what viewers come away with may lead them towards false expectations, and they may increasingly blame doctors for decisions that others make and enforce
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