Hiding in plain sight
The rhetoric of bionic contact lenses in mainstream discourses
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12602102 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Isabel Pedersen (0000-0002-9317-0812, Ontario Tech University, corresponding author), Kirsten Ellison (0000-0003-3971-1195, University of Calgary) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 669-683 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-13 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1367-8779 • E-ISSN: 1460-356X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1367877915625234 |
| OpenAlex | W2234886942 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
This article explores and critiques mainstream speculative news surrounding personal technologies. We focus on news concerning bionic contact lenses, a hardware invention prototype by Google Inc promoted as a ‘future’ personal computing device. Technology is increasingly normalized and configured as inevitable through representations across consumer media outlets. In our analysis of a large corpus of online and print news coverage, we identify three rhetorical strategies that justify it as either a medical/assistive device within a discourse of health, or a device for transhuman enhancement within a discourse of transhumanism. Employing Roland Barthes’s critical theory of myth, we argue that the first medical justification obfuscates but ultimately promotes the second justification, transhuman enhancement. This transhumanist vision endorses enhancement and augmentation without an identifiable purpose or disclosure concerning how people as users might be affected in the future. New media are subtly promoted during invention; yet, their social function, implied ideologies, and commercialized agenda are rarely challenged. We problematize these omissions, and highlight the need for critical dialogue
Aesthetics · Art · Critical discourse analysis · Critical theory · Epistemology · Ideology · Literature · Mainstream · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical device · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Transhumanism · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Law · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|