[Commlist] Call for Abstracts - Hype Assessment Panel - 6th ETAC

Call for Abstracts - Hype Assessment Panel - 6th European Technology 
Assessment Conference (ETAC6)

Technology Assessment Goes Global

Abstract submission deadline: 9th of December
Submit your abstract at: (criticalhypestudies /at/ posteo.com)

Panel description

The burgeoning field of hype studies is ever-growing. This panel stems 
from a collective effort to create a unified approach named Critical 
Hype Studies that started during last year’s 4S/EASST conference. Hype 
is a topic that matters for TA as S&T trajectories, trust and 
expectations are severely impacted by overpromises and also affect 
assessment and political regulation of technology. With this panel we 
want to leverage collective experiences, to co-creatively build 
foundational structures and establish a TA and STS rooted, but also 
outer-disciplinary, set of perspectives.

Acknowledging that hype is a phenomenon intimately related to financial 
interest and political agendas that performs epistemic, behavioral, 
communicative, urbanistic, environmental and affective agencies, *this 
panel will have two aims: *

*(1) firstly, we want to present our current progress as a collective of 
researchers focusing on critical hype studies as part of our 
introductory presentation linking it to current TA debates; *

*(2) secondly, we aim to invite new contributions explore why hype 
should be assessed; what would be a possible programme for hype 
assessment; present possible hype cases to be assessed; and reflect 
about what kinds of methods can be designed to assess hype in order to 
inform policy makers and TA practitioners. *

Thus, we are particularly interested in insights considering how 
promises, visions, futures, imaginaries, expectations, narratives, 
fictions, and discourses come together in hype. Especially for TA it is 
important to assess what path dependencies and lock-ins they produce and 
how they should be addressed in order to guarantee democratic, 
sustainable and fair socio-technical societies. That is especially 
relevant when very local elites (i.e. Silicon Valley) are capable to 
activate hype cycles whose effects are global, but with local 
instantiations through regulations, investments, media outlets, 
discourses and affects ranging from hope to fear.

We welcome contributions that present historical analysis of hype and 
its consequences, as well as contemporary approaches addressing its 
possible performative effects in decision-making, public perception, 
innovation, policies, funding and in general the unequal distribution of 
attention, information, wealth and power. Our scope is global: Given the 
rising importance of global TA, political notions are present if 
(western) tech-hypes silence other global pressing issues of poverty and 
environment combatting.

Further, and in alignment with the theme of ETAC6, we are committed to 
explore how hype assessment, as an emergent TA practice, can be 
activated through advisory in different socio-political contexts; how it 
can engage different TA practices; or how hype assessment has already 
conducted in specific contexts close to TA.

Scholars with a background in STS and innovation studies, particularly 
those engaged in TA, studies of innovation, expectations, expertise and 
experience,transitions, and imaginaries, are especially invited. 
*Contributions from media studies, design studies, philosophy, 
cybernetics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis are also highly welcome, 
as we weave together multiple threads to formulate a comprehensive 
understanding of hype phenomena.
*

*Background:
*

Panel participants and attendees are particularly welcome into this 
forum, currently consisting of more than 30 hype researchers, where, 
together, we are assembling insights into a structured field. We 
envisage that by the time of ETAC6, we will have submitted a 
multi-authored position paper, offering a unified approach for hype 
studies, with definitions, related literature, methodological 
recommendations, and research agenda that followed from our initial 
meeting last year, that we will be willing to share in preprint form for 
discussion as a point of departure for an international hub and 
observatory for the critical study of hype as a sociotechnical 
phenomenon. Addressing hype assessment will be an opportunity to 
activate many of the conclusions addressed in the upcoming work and 
follow new avenues of research and action.


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