Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture (IPEC) News Blog

Author: Kendall Belopavlovich

Now Streaming: Dr. Jason Archer on IPEC Presents Podcast 

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The third episode of IPEC’s monthly podcast is now streaming on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

Our guest, Dr. Jason Archer, discusses his research in human machine communication and haptics. Jason is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Technologies here at Michigan Tech. Jason serves on the executive committee of IPEC and leads our Human Machine Culture research area. This research area focuses on the developing dynamics between humans and machines — the ways humans and communicative machines sense and make sense of the world together, and the cultural impacts of those formations.

Together, we talk about our next sense-revolution: touch. Listen now!

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This Week’s IPEC Programming

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Dr. Jason Archer’s Guest Appearance on IPEC’s podcast streams tomorrow, November 7! In our third episode, host Kendall Belopavlovich and Jason discuss his research in human machine communication, haptics, and sensory studies. Check out our podcast page for more.

On Thursday, the Graduate Student Government will be facilitating a 3 Minute Thesis competition. The finals will be held from 6-8:00pm, November 9, at the Great Lakes Research Center.

Finally, Friday is set to see IPEC members Charles Wallace and Susanna Peters facilitate a Computer Science Colloquium from 3-4:00pm in Rekhi 214. This event is also available as a webinar. See the event page for more details!

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Featured Member: Jason Archer

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Jason Archer

Featured Member

This month, we’re featuring the work of one of the institute’s executive committee members, Dr. Jason Archer.

Jason is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Technologies, Director of Communication, Culture, and Media, and Human Machine Culture Research Area Lead for IPEC.

According to Jason, “I situate my research at the nexus of communication, media studies, science and technology studies (STS), and sensory studies, with emphasis on human-machine communication and haptics. I am currently working on projects related to human machine culture: robotic touch and sociality, surgical robotics and sociotechnical constructions of disability, and haptic holograms.”

Events

During this year’s 41 North Film Festival, Jason will be hosting a panel with Steven Walton and Charles Wallace after the screening of the film Time Bomb Y2K on November 2, 7:00 pm.

We’re excited to delve into Jason’s research in this month’s episode of the IPEC Presents Podcast, streaming on Spotify and Apple Podcasts November 7, at 6:00 am.

Human Machine Culture Research Area

The Human Machine Culture research area seeks diverse researchers interested in examining cultural debates about communicative machines (social robots, virtual agents, chatbots, and other AI entities), critiquing the culture of communicative machine development, investigating social practices arising from the integration of these machines into everyday life, and exploring the potential for novel artistic and expressive forms emerging through human machine configurations.  

The research area aims to establish connections between researchers of diverse disciplines, in areas of humanities, arts, sciences, and engineering to address the complexity and consequences of Human Machine Culture. 

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Social Media and Society Research Area Updates

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Photo by ALEXANDRE DINAUT on Unsplash

With a new year (and semester) on the horizon, the Social Media and Society research area lead Rich Canevez has envisioned an exciting research agenda that you can be a part of! Applying to join the research area is easy, with our new google form.

New Research Activities

Rich Canevez (research area lead) just conducted field research at the Toronto Ukraine Festival in September, collecting data and recruiting participants to share their thoughts on the use of religious iconography to support Ukraine’s resistance. 

This project will continue throughout the year until the summer of 2024, and will include coordinated work across Ukrainian communities in St. Louis MO and Cleveland OH in the United States.

Research Area Scope

The penetration of social and digital media into almost every facet of social and political life has come with it the re-construction and re-imagining of those processes and practices. Peace and conflict, truth and fiction, and the material and discursive aspects of life find new practices and conceptions within these spaces. Although built within the cyber-spaces of the Internet, the impact of social and digital media information is equally about the physical lived realities of our world as it is about the digital lives we lead.


The Social Media and Society research area sets an inclusive lens on the impact that trans-national exchanges of information have on political, social, cultural, and personal life. The evolution of political life alongside the Internet has created not just novel modes of engagement of these processes, but also created new dimensions of conflict and war that challenge our previous conceptions of how these phenomena play out. The evolution of social and personal life alongside the Internet has provided new spaces for communities to construct meanings and world-views relevant to groups and the self, for better or for worse. 

The types of projects we consider are how information and cyber-spaces interact with war and conflict, how disinformation and misinformation manifests and spreads through social media platforms, and more generally the range of emergent topics concerning the impact of trans-national information exchange on societies world-wide.

Vision for 2024

We will be continuing our current projects looking at cyber activism and resistance in the Ukrainian defense against Russian aggression, and exploring the discourses around COVID-19 disinformation while continuing to grow our research area and overall presence at Michigan Tech University.

It is our goal in 2024 to extend our reach even further throughout MTU’s departments and divisions given the broad and wide ranging contributions from different perspectives on campus that could help grow this area through collaborations across research, events, and pursuing funding opportunities.

We also are intending to more closely communicate the research support we can offer to both undergraduate and graduate students alike who could be interested in contributing to ongoing research efforts, or even starting their own. It is our hope that, in accomplishing these objectives, we can move towards establishing ourselves as a research and collaboration lab under the IPEC umbrella.

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This Week’s IPEC Programming

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Another Body (2023)

Join us at the 41 North Film Festival for two panels featuring our members!

Time Bomb Y2K: November 2, 7:00 PM

Following the film Time Bomb Y2K, there will be a panel discussion/Q&A with Steven Walton, Associate Professor of History, Charles Wallace, Associate Professor of Computer Science, and Jason Archer, Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Technologies.

Another Body: November 5, 3:30 PM

A panel discussion will follow the film Another Body, featuring Stefka Hristova, Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture; Susanna Peters, Social Sciences, Reid DeVoge, Public Safety and Police Services; and Laura Putwen, Academic and Community Conduct.

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Join an IPEC Research Area: New Form

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IPEC has five research areas

  1. Social Media and Society
  2. Human Machine Culture
  3. Justice and Security in Energy Transitions
  4. Ethics in STEM
  5. Algorithmic Culture

All of our research areas invite graduate students and faculty to join by filling out our new interest form. More information about each research area can be found on IPEC’s website.

The institute brings together a diversity of knowledge holders–faculty, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, staff, and community members–to collaborate on and engage in research and scholarship that responds to the emerging techno-social environment.

The institute supports members through activities, such as, but not limited to, identifying funding opportunities, helping researchers develop externally funded research proposals, assisting in the creation and management of multiple investigator proposals and project teams, assisting with post-award project management and compliance, providing seed funding to support research development, supporting research activities with awards, and providing opportunities to promote collaboration internally and externally.

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Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage Month Workshop Event

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Event Details

Thursday, November 30, 5:00-6:30PM in Walker 120A

Title

Guidance for (Land) Acknowledgements within Ojibwa Homelands

Abstract

Honoring Land and Life within Ojibwa homelands is the shared responsibility of all peoples, including Michigan Tech community members. In this November’s national celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage, we center the spotlight on the Keweenaw’s history and landscape to learn more about the original stewards, the Anishinaabe Ojibwa, and their long-held and contemporary practices, as they have done since time immemorial. In this workshop, we will engage participants in ways Michigan Tech community members can be active in our responsibilities to honor land and life. Specifically, we will share information and resources on local history and tribal nation communities, as well as how to practice acknowledging our place within the Keweenaw as informed and respectful community members. We’ll also hear from students, staff, and faculty about their experiences in practices of acknowledging, share stories of personal growth, and provide space to address participant thoughts and questions in a good way.  All are welcome to join this timely dialogue in celebration of Indigenous heritages and our shared commitment to Keweenaw lands and livelihoods.

Refreshments will be provided!

Sponsored by Institute for Policy, Ethics and Culture, Great Lakes Research Center, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the Van Pelt and Opie Library

Contact Kendall Belopavlovich, kybelopa@mtu.edu for more information.

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This Week’s IPEC Programming

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Join us for two events this week, co-sponsored by IPEC

  1. Cayuse Training will occur Tuesday, October 24 from 4:00pm-5:00pm in Library 242.
    • Cayuse is a platform for managing proposals, awards, technologies, inventions, conflict of interest, human and animal ethics and institutional bio- and radiation safety activities.  For more information, see Michigan Tech’s Cayuse Implementation site.
    • Questions about this training can be directed to IPEC director Stefka Hristova, shristov@mtu.edu.
  2. GSG Research Journeys will occur Thursday, October 26 from 6:30pm-7:30pm in the Writing Center (Walker 107).
    • Join the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture, and the Graduate Student Government today at the Writing Center (Walker 107) from 6:30pm-7:30pm to discuss research journeys. This event is perfect for graduate students who are looking to gain insight on all things research: funding, development, writing, and promotion. We hope to see you there! The Writing Center is located on the first floor of the Walker Arts and Humanities Building.
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Computer Science Colloquium This Friday: IPEC Member Charles Wallace

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Charles Wallace

Associate Professor Charles Wallace, Computer Science, will present a Computer Science Colloquium on Friday, October 13, 2023, at 3 pm in Rekhi 214 and via Zoom webinar. The title of the talk is, “The role of peer dialogue as disruptor in critical ethical analysis for computing students.”

Join the Zoom webinar here.

Talk Title

The role of peer dialogue as disruptor in critical ethical analysis for computing students

Abstract

The importance of dialogue in questioning assumptions and bringing new options and perspectives to light is well established in various areas of decision-making; what potential does it hold to enrich students’ critical thinking competencies in the context of ethics education? We examine student work in an ethics course for senior computer science and software engineering students. The course includes a series of exercises in critical ethical inquiry, implementing the iterative Ethical Cycle approach of van de Poel and Royakkers with reflection sessions where students exchange peer critiques. Through a qualitative analysis of two years of student work, we explore two questions: what kinds of critical issues do students acknowledge in peer dialogue, and how do students incorporate, or fail to incorporate, critical challenges into their work? We identify and categorize critical challenges that appear in student reflection statements, and we identify a number of patterns of critical engagement: ways in which student map the identifications of critical challenges to subsequent changes in later iterations.

Our results indicate that dialogue with others is generally an enriching component of students’ ethical inquiry, though not all students take advantage of it even when built into class exercises, and other students may adopt new ideas in a superficial way, failing to truly incorporate them into prior discussion. The results also suggest certain design changes of the ethical analysis exercises that can help students take greater advantage of insights from their peers: fostering greater interplay between peers through a single clearly identified topic; more defined scaffolding of peer discussions, prompting students to identify critical challenges from others; further scaffolding to remind students of the peer challenges raised earlier and ask them how (and whether) they wish to incorporate these new perspectives into their own work; and more discussion and modeling of how to truly incorporate new ideas in a robust way.

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