Empathic Media: The Case of Advertising

Tw @digi_ad

Andrew McStay, Bangor University

CPDP, Jan 2017

Paper http://tinyurl.com/jb49mac

Method:100+ interviews with data regulators, privacy-oriented NGOs, technologists, and a wide range of industrial and service sectors making use of technologies that claim to interpret emotions, intentions and first-person perspectives.

UK national online survey of citizens’ attitudes towards media technologies to understand citizen perspectives to assist in meaningful policy suggestions (n=2068).

Multi-stakeholder workshop to begin work towards ethical codes of conduct for employing empathic media.

Thesis: Our media technologies are progressively showing signs of empathy

THE STUDY (2014-ongoing)

OVERALL ARGUMENTS

o We increasingly ‘live with’ technologies that ‘feel into’ and are sensitive to human life in ways hitherto not seen.

o Empathic media provide opportunity for new aesthetic experiences that both draw upon information about emotions, but also provide new means of feeling into aesthetic creations.

INTEREST IN EMOTIONSo AIo HCIo Gaming/media ind’o Health agencieso Policeo Insuranceo Educationo Social mediao Sex tech

o Smart citieso UX testerso Market researcherso VR developerso Hardware developerso “Wearables” sectoro And more…

IN ADVERTISING: TWO APPROACHES

o In-house techniques: facial coding and biofeedback

o Out-of-home techniques: facial coding, but voice and biofeedback though wearables also explored

IN ADDITION TO INTERVIEWS, I ASKED PEOPLE IN THE UK (N=2000+)

Advertising agencies have developed outdoor ads equipped with cameras that scan onlookers’ faces to work out our emotions towards the ad.

If our reactions are not positive the ad changes itself to be more appealing. Which of the following best represents your feelings about this?

They said…

1. I am not OK with my data about me being collected in this way. (50%)

2. I am OK with data collection about my emotions in this way as long as the information is anonymised and cannot be associated with me, my email address, phone number or any other possible means of personally identifying me. (33%)

3. I am OK with data collection about my emotional state in this way and OK for this data to be linked with personal information held about me. (8%)

4. Don't know. (9%)

56% of 16-24s were OK with some form of emotion detection in DOOH advertising.

However, this should be tempered with the fact that only 13% are OK with having data emotions linked with personal data.

QU.

What are the privacy and policy implications of the proposition that data may be sensitive and intimate, yet not personal?