GREENWATCH

RQ1: What is the state of IoT in Europe, the United States, and China?

The first objective is to compare IoT in the three centers of the world economy and geopolitics that are driving its development, in order to identify variations of the basic concept of IoT across distinctive political economies and cultural traditions, with special reference to IoT in the green transition, which is being pursued by all three regions.

RQ2: What could green IoT be, according to imaginaries being articulated in politics, business, and arts?

The second objective is to explore the proposals and plans for IoT currently being developed by policymakers, entrepreneurs, and artists in the three world regions, in order to account for potentials and risks of IoT as a medium for the green transition.

RQ3: What ought green surveillance (not) to become?

The third objective is to tap public opinion regarding green surveillance in the three world regions, and to theorize the range of opinions with reference to philosophical traditions addressing human flourishing (eudaimonia), social justice, and environmental justice.

WP1: What IoT is – in Europe, the United States, and China

The first WP produces a baseline of information on the development of IoT as technology, institution, and practice in three world regions: Europe, the U.S., and China. The findings will inform, on the one hand, a comparative typology, complementing previous typologies of communication systems (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Jensen & Helles, 2023; Siebert et al., 1956). On the other hand, the findings serve as a factual frame of reference for subsequent WPs exploring what IoT could be and ought to become in the context of the green transition. Performed during the first year of the project, WP1 will be carried out as desk research relying on document analysis (Asdal & Reinertsen, 2022) of three main types of online and archival sources: product information from IoT manufacturers; legislation on IoT technologies, markets, and governance; and governmental and thinktank reports on the social potentials IoT, supplemented by perspectives contributed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (Goldenfein & Mann, 2023) and industry whistleblowers (Di Salvo, 2022).

WP2: What green IoT could be – perspectives from business

The second WP adds perspectives from business in the form of advertising and other strategic communication (Heath & Johansen, 2018) by the companies developing the components of IoT systems in the three regions, with special reference to green IoT, including available accounts of companies’ lobbying of state and international agencies regulating IoT.

WP3: What green IoT could be – perspectives from the arts

The third WP first examines existing artworks addressing IoT, and next explores potential design solutions embedding IoT in everyday social contexts, focusing again on green IoT. On the one hand, WP3 outlines an aesthetics of IoT in terms of its genres of communication (Miller, 1984) and its social contexts of use (Lull, 1980), relying on qualitative analyses of artifacts from the three world regions (Hogan, 2023). On the other hand, WP3 develops the so-called design fictions (Bleecker, 2009; Coulton et al., 2018) that enter into the fieldwork in WP 5 in each of the three world regions. (Please see WP5 for details on the design fictions.)

WP4: What green surveillance ought (not) to become – by the numbers

The GREENWATCH project relies on an experimental combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies to bring out the sort of value-driven controversies that historically have accompanied the introduction of communication systems such as IoT (Venturini & Munk, 2021). WP4 first conducts a quantitative analysis of public debate, broadly defined, on the social pros and cons of IoT in the green transition. Following a pilot study of available sources in each of the three world regions, WP4 will apply text mining (Feldman & Sanger, 2007), topic modelling (Sandhiya et al., 2022), and sentiment analysis (Thelwall, 2016) to purposive samples of legacy media, online fora, white papers, and position statements by business and civil-society associations, as well as the scientific literature. The analyses identify premises and arguments (Toulmin, 2003[1958]) in ongoing debates about IoT, including evaluative so-called nodal points pointing toward individual and collective decisions and actions (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).

WP5: What green surveillance ought (not) to become – in people’s own words

WP5 goes on to elicit qualitative reflections from citizens about the potentials and risks of green surveillance. The point of departure will be design fictions (Bleecker, 2009; Coulton et al., 2018), which include artifacts (tools, machinery, communication devices) as well as representations of the social practices and institutions associated with the artifacts. The fieldwork in Europe, the U.S., and China takes the form of future workshops (Jensen, 1990): 2-4 workshops for each design fiction about a specific social domain in each world region, in each case involving a small number of participants (5-8) in deliberation. Four domains of green surveillance are selected: agricultural labor, industrial production, urban transportation, and home energy use, thus retracing the human journey through agricultural, industrial, and urban-informational civilizations. The design fictions are developed during project year 2 in a collaboration involving postdocs 1, 2, and 3; a practicing artist; and a computer scientist (WP3). In the first half of project year 3, postdocs 1, 2, and 3 undertake fieldwork in Europe, the U.S., and China, documenting the future workshops in audio, text, and photos, and conducting preliminary data analysis during the second half of project year 3.

WP6: What green surveillance ought (not) to become – perspectives from philosophy

WP6 combines and consolidates the quantitative and qualitative findings from WP4 and WP5 to first arrive at a systematics of public perceptions of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of green surveillance (SWOT) (Weihrich, 1982). WP6 goes on to conceptualize public perceptions of the legitimate ends and means of the green transition in the terminologies of ethics and political philosophy – disciplines that address how humans may do the right thing (Sandel, 2009) as individuals, communities, and species. To classic questions of local and global social justice have been added issues of climate justice (Dooley et al., 2021) and environmental justice (Malin et al., 2019). The GREENWATCH project, in sum, will prepare the premises and arguments for scholars, policymakers, and publics to weigh the ethical dilemmas of whether and how to embrace green surveillance for human survival and continued flourishing (eudaimonia), and to engage the political choices in this regard that the green transition necessitates.