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Augmenting justice: Google glass, body cameras, and the politics of wearable technology

Kevin Healey (Department of Communication, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA)
Niall Stephens (Department of Communication Framingham State University, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA)

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society

ISSN: 1477-996X

Article publication date: 30 October 2017

Issue publication date: 8 December 2017

1165

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to uncover the assumptions and concerns driving public debates about Google Glass and police body cameras. In doing so, it shows how debates about wearable cameras reflect broader cultural tensions surrounding race and privilege.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper employs a form of critical discourse analysis to discover patterns in journalistic coverage of these two technologies.

Findings

Public response to Glass has been overwhelmingly negative, while response to body cameras has been positive. Analysis indicates that this contrasting response reflects a consistent public concern about the dynamics of power and privilege in the digital economy. While this concern is well-founded, news coverage indicates that technologists, policy makers and citizens each hold assumptions about the inevitability and unvarnished beneficence of technology.

Research limitations/implications

Since this qualitative approach seeks to discern broad emergent patterns, it does not employ a quantifiable and reproducible coding schema.

Practical implications

The article concludes by arguing that grassroots action, appropriate regulatory policy and revitalized systems of professional journalism are indispensable as the struggle for social justice unfolds in the emerging digital economy.

Social implications

These debates represent a struggle over what and how people see. Yet public discourse often glosses over the disadvantages of technological change, which impacts who is able to amass social power.

Originality/value

This comparative approach yields unique conceptual insight into debates about technologies that augment ways of seeing.

Keywords

Citation

Healey, K. and Stephens, N. (2017), "Augmenting justice: Google glass, body cameras, and the politics of wearable technology", Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 370-384. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-04-2016-0010

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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