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Start Date
24-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
24-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
If the most insidious types of communications technologies are those that go unconsidered, then the mundane form of the notification is worth examining. This project builds a cultural history of smartphone notifications as an everyday sensation by exploring the historical division between church belltowers and carnival barkers. Belltowers have been considered massively affective means of structuring time for all who hear them, dictating holy time for those who hear it. Yet because the bell tower is one abstract tone it offers a great deal of space for resistance, and its attempted categorization of time often fails. On the other side of the spectrum lies the carnival barker, who frequently relied upon hailing passers-by based on their individually observable appearances. The carnival exists as a liminal space unstructured by society outside of both labor and the everyday, yet the affordance of the barker specializes in reaching one person at a time.
The push notification in the attention economy is a church tower in barker’s clothing. This church barker uses surveillant systems of datification to form a new sensation that is both personalized based on observation and classificatory based on the sender’s desire, continually broadcasting the holy time of neoliberal labor. By looking at the format of text message and email notifications, developments to the notification delivery systems in both iOS and Android operating systems, and considering the historical precedents for the push notification, we might make space to reinvent the oppressive systems of technology that surround and permeate our daily lives.
Of Bells and Barkers: Historical antecedents to cell phone notifications and reimagining the future
If the most insidious types of communications technologies are those that go unconsidered, then the mundane form of the notification is worth examining. This project builds a cultural history of smartphone notifications as an everyday sensation by exploring the historical division between church belltowers and carnival barkers. Belltowers have been considered massively affective means of structuring time for all who hear them, dictating holy time for those who hear it. Yet because the bell tower is one abstract tone it offers a great deal of space for resistance, and its attempted categorization of time often fails. On the other side of the spectrum lies the carnival barker, who frequently relied upon hailing passers-by based on their individually observable appearances. The carnival exists as a liminal space unstructured by society outside of both labor and the everyday, yet the affordance of the barker specializes in reaching one person at a time.
The push notification in the attention economy is a church tower in barker’s clothing. This church barker uses surveillant systems of datification to form a new sensation that is both personalized based on observation and classificatory based on the sender’s desire, continually broadcasting the holy time of neoliberal labor. By looking at the format of text message and email notifications, developments to the notification delivery systems in both iOS and Android operating systems, and considering the historical precedents for the push notification, we might make space to reinvent the oppressive systems of technology that surround and permeate our daily lives.
Bio
Andy Fischer Wright is a doctoral student in the Radio-Television-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin. Andy completed his BA with a double major with honors in Media Studies and English & World Literature from Pitzer College. In Spring 2020, he completed his master's thesis on the sociocultural implications of push notifications. Andy's research interests include continued work with push notifications, digital media, and cultural studies more broadly, and anything to do with the intimate collision between everyday life and information technology.