Digital assistive listening devices6/29/2023 Footnote 1 Based on this theoretical perspective, assistive practices are comprised of the heterogeneous relationships and distribution of agencies between users/subjects and their media-specific, socio-technical, and material environment. The concept of “affordances” appears to be especially fitting here, since it draws attention to the mutual interplay of users, technologies, and environment. Our approach is based on Uexküll’s concept of the reciprocal relationship between environment and organism and on recent adaptions of Gibson’s concept of “affordances,” revised by the outcomes of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Science & Technology Studies (STS). Thus, in our examples, we focus on specific bodily practices and social, cultural, and medical discourses alongside technical operations exploring the co-constitutional processes between users with visual and hearing disabilities and assistive app technologies. In this paper, we are interested in the mutual relationships between users and their socio-technical and media environments. Yet, how can we conceptualize constellations between assistive apps or digital devices and users that do not prescribe to this dualism in advance, focusing instead on the mediated processes that generate such differences? Consequently, although such apps obviously do have a wide range of practical everyday benefits for some users, the preconditioned distinction between those to be assisted and the technology that provides assistance needs to be considered in the sense of a technological inscription of the ableism-disability-divide. This conceptualization of “assisting” or “enabling” technology bears two significant problems in terms of the concept of “participation.” With such a modeling of “handicapped” users, the difference between being “abled” and “disabled” is reinscribed and requires these users be first “excluded” in order to be then “included” by the assistance of the respective media technology. In other words, AT help provide particular persons “the life they would like to lead”. Consequently, these technologies can be regarded as exclusive to able-bodied persons. In the worst case-for example, in the case of impractical designs, overly complicated interfaces, or malfunctioning (and often expensive) software-however, these apps might be considered as hindering their users from profiting from contemporary media technologies. In the best case, such apps can be “enabler of participation”, assisting a growing number of users in actively participating in social, cultural, or professional activities and contexts. Research on “assistive technologies” (AT), especially “assistive apps,” mainly deals with the concept of “accessibility” by analyzing the corresponding design choices, interfacing options, practicability, or presumable physical or technological barriers. By and large, this contribution will provide crucial insights into the contemporary entanglement of algorithm-driven technologies, daily practices, and sensing subjects: the production of techno-sensory arrangements. Our analysis is interested in the reciprocal relationships between users and their socio-technical and media environments. We emphasize the significance of dis-/abling practices for manufacturing novel forms of hearing and seeing and drawing on sources like promotional materials by manufacturers, ads, or user testimonials and reviews. As hearing and seeing are key in this regard, we concentrate on two specific media technologies: ReSound LINX 2, a hearing aid which allows for direct connect (via Bluetooth) with iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, and Camassia, an IOS app for sonic wayfinding for blind people. Then, we present two case studies where we explore the relations between recent “assistive” app technologies and human sensory perception. This contribution will first review James Gibson’s concept of “affordances” and modify this approach by introducing theories and methods of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Second, the conventional distinction between user and environment requires a differentiated consideration. To approach the current technological manufacturing of the senses, two lines of thought are of importance: First, there is a need to critically reflect upon the concept of assistive technologies (AT) as artifacts providing tangible solutions for a specific disability. Against the backdrop of an aging world population increasingly affected by a diverse range of abilities and disabilities as well as the rise of ubiquitous computing and digital app cultures, this paper questions how mobile technologies mediate between heterogeneous environments and sensing beings.
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