The Ethical Implications of HCI's Turn to the Cultural

Benford, Steve; Greenhalgh, Chris; Anderson, Bob; Jacobs, Rachel; Golembewski, Michael; Jirotka, Marina; Stahl, Bernd Carsten; Timmermans, Job; Giannachi, Gabriella; Adams, Matt; Farr, Ju Row; Tandavanitj, Nick; Jennings, Kirsty

Abstract

We explore the ethical implications of HCI’s turn to the ‘cultural’. This is motivated by an awareness of how cultural applications, in our case interactive performances, raise ethical issues that may challenge established research ethics processes. We review research ethics, HCI’s engagement with ethics and the ethics of theatrical performance. Following an approach grounded in Responsible Research Innovation, we present the findings from a workshop in which artists, curators, commissioners, and researchers explored ethical challenges revealed by four case studies. We identify six ethical challenges for HCI’s engagement with cultural applications: transgression, boundaries, consent, withdrawal, data, and integrity. We discuss two broader implications of these: managing tensions between multiple overlapping ethical frames; and the importance of managing ethical challenges during and after an experience as well as beforehand. Finally, we discuss how our findings extend previous discussions of Value Sensitive Design in HCI.

Citation

Benford, S., Greenhalgh, C., Anderson, B., Jacobs, R., Golembewski, M., Jirotka, M., …Jennings, K. (2015). The Ethical Implications of HCI's Turn to the Cultural. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 22(5), 1-37. https://doi.org/10.1145/2775107

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 1, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Aug 1, 2015
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2015
• Deposit Date: Oct 22, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 22, 2015
• Journal: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
• Print ISSN: 1073-0516
• Electronic ISSN: 1557-7325
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 5
• Article Number: 24
• Pages: 1-37
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2775107
• Keywords: Art, performance, ethics, uncomfortable interactions, discomfort, con- sent, withdrawal, boundaries, transgression, integrity, Blast Theory, Active Ingredient, Urban Angel, Thrill Laboratory, research in the wild
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/764143
• Publisher URL: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2814459.2775107
• Related Public URLs: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2775107
• Additional Information: © ACM, 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, v. 22, no. 5, August 2015. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2775107
• Contract Date: Oct 22, 2015