Publications by Tony Liao
As social media continues to evolve, some applications are experimenting with augmented reality (... more As social media continues to evolve, some applications are experimenting with augmented reality (AR) visualizations that can call up posts generated around the user’s precise location and overlaid on top of the physical place. Despite being publicly available, little academic research has looked at AR displays of social media in space. While the location has been studied with regard to social media posts, existing work has primarily examined the location as a collective topic or how to map those geographically at a macrolevel. While research studies into location-based games and neighborhood forums have more explicitly looked at the role of location as the mediator of information, they have not considered the overlay of social media posts or spatial AR displays. This study reports on data from a Layar channel called Tweeps Around, which augmented tweets posted around your physical location. The researchers manually cataloged tweets (N = 277) sent near one fixed location over several months and coded them for key themes. This study helps understand what content is generated from one place as well as some of the content implications of in situ AR tweets. Unlike Twitter feeds that are sorted by who you follow, Tweeps Around can call up strangers’ tweets by proximal location alone, which changes the potential audience of viewers, the risks of that content, and the user experience. Understanding these types of technologies can help build on our understanding of not only communication about places but also communication through places, and what social media may become in the near future.
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Despite the growing interest and use of virtual reality (VR) in American homes, there is a notabl... more Despite the growing interest and use of virtual reality (VR) in American homes, there is a notable gap in empirical studies that examine VR and children. This study identifies two important research concepts in children's research that have been studied across many types of media 1) reality distinction and 2) presence, and applies them to studying VR experiences. Taking a qualitative approach, 6 to 8-year-old children (N=29) participated in a VR experience as an extension of the children’s television show called Dino Dana. During the child’s VR experience where they swam in a pool with dinosaurs, we recorded a computer capture of what the child sees within the VR experience; and a video recording of the child in the VR headset and their behaviors during the VR experience. In addition, children responded to questions before and after their VR experience. We observed several behaviors of how children attempted to test and assess the reality of VR (e.g. holding their breath). Through interviews, we also found that children had certain presence experiences within VR that challenged their understanding of reality, where the dinosaurs were treated as real and evoked social presence. This study builds on our understanding of how VR might impact on young children and their perception of VR experiences, which have important implications for VR researchers, designers, and consumers.
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This article focuses on the role of past standards stories and how they are deployed strategicall... more This article focuses on the role of past standards stories and how they are deployed strategically in ways that shape the process of standards creation. It draws upon an ethnographic study over multiple years of standards meetings, discussions, and online activity. Building on existing work that examines how standards are shaped by stories, this study follows the development of Augmented Reality Markup Language and maps how the story of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) became the key story that actors utilized and debated to push for participation, agreement, and material development of the standard. The authors present several different ways the recurring HTML story was effective at various points in the process as a diagnostic tool, promissory future, empirical evidence, and confidence building measure. Understanding these strategic deployments serves as an empirical example of how recurring stories of the past can shape standards development. These mappings illustrate how standards can be built on past standards sociologically as well as technologically and also broadens our theoretical tools for understanding the importance of stories in the sociology of standards.
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As the field of mobile media studies continues to grow, researchers are focusing on new developme... more As the field of mobile media studies continues to grow, researchers are focusing on new developments and trends in mobile technologies. One of these areas that has been garnering interest is mobile augmented reality (AR) technologies. While much of the earliest research in AR was primarily focused on answering computer science and engineering related questions, social science and humanities scholars have started taking note of AR as perhaps the next major development in mobile media. Given that much of this research has been distributed across interdisciplinary lines and from many different theoretical perspectives, this piece identifies some early lines of media, communication, and social science research into AR and identifies key themes and areas of focus: AR users/nonusers, AR devices, AR content, and AR industry. By organizing these lines of research, this manuscript serves as a call for specific future areas of research, suggests new approaches that researchers could take to explore interrelationships between these areas, and advocates for the necessity of research that examines different levels (micro/meso/macro) of analysis within AR. The goal of this piece is to advance a framework that informs and motivates mobile scholars to consider and integrate AR into their research areas, at a moment where it is in the process of moving from science fiction to material reality, from blueprint to prototype, and from laboratory to homes, cars, workplaces, and pockets.
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This study examines the development of augmented reality (AR) technologies, utilizing theories li... more This study examines the development of augmented reality (AR) technologies, utilizing theories like social construction of technology (SCOT) and from the sociology of futures literature. While some have criticized SCOT for over-privileging certain social groups, drawing rigid boundaries between groups, and overlooking the role of power between them, this study addresses those critiques by conducting an ongoing mapping of the discussion surrounding AR. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation analyzing the discourse and development taking place at industry, standards, and academic conferences, this study explores a contestation emerging between two coalitions (mobile vs headworn) and how they are using future visions to negotiate the material design of the technology, the policies surrounding the technology, and stakeholder perceptions of the technology. The tactics these coalitions engage in reveal new components of stabilization, specifically deploying a “pre-stabilized ideal” to frame technological development. This case represents an instance where applying SCOT to an emerging technology helps us understand the technology itself while also building on and extending the SCOT model.
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In recent years there has been growing recognition that Field-Configuring Events (FCEs) play an i... more In recent years there has been growing recognition that Field-Configuring Events (FCEs) play an important role in connecting stakeholders, conferring authority to certain members, and shaping the organizing visions surrounding emerging technologies. While much of this work has examined the features of FCEs, the implications and outcomes of FCEs, and the coalescence of FCEs, this study contributes to our understanding of fields that are not converging, rather different stakeholders are actively creating and summoning new FCEs to assert authority. This case also examines the relationship between definitions and organizing visions, as the discursive and social contexts in which these boundaries are being contested. This study follows the emerging interorganizational augmented reality (AR) community, as a group that unites under the term AR but has been continually negotiating its meaning for decades. Through extensive participant observation at numerous global conferences and in-depth interviews, this study shows how various definitions originated and evolved, how new emerging artifacts have challenged definitions, how specific groups have coalesced around definitions, and the various ways that they are organizing at and across FCEs to contest these definitions. These findings of how discourse flows across FCEs contribute to our empirical understanding of the tactics that various actors engage in to draw symbolic, social, and material boundaries around a field, as well as how these debates and commitments ultimately shape the participants in the community and subsequent work that comes out of the community.
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Tse, J., Schrader, D., Ghosh, D., Liao, T., & Lundie, D. (2015). A bibliometric analysis of privacy and ethics in IEEE Security and Privacy. Ethics and Information Technology. (17)2, p. 153-163 The increasingly ubiquitous use of technology has led to the concomitant rise of intensified data... more The increasingly ubiquitous use of technology has led to the concomitant rise of intensified data collection and the ethical issues associated with the privacy and security of that data. In order to address the question of how these ethical concerns are discussed in the literature surrounding the subject, we examined articles published in IEEE Security and Privacy, a magazine targeted towards a general, technically-oriented readership spanning both academia and industry. Our investigation of the intersection between the ethical and technological dimensions of privacy and security is structured as a bibliometric analysis. Our dataset covers all articles published in IEEE Security and Privacy since its inception in 2003 to February 06, 2014 . This venue was chosen not only because of its target readership, but also because a preliminary search of keywords related to ethics, privacy, and security topics in the ISI Web of Knowledge and IEEE Xplore indicated that IEEE Security and Privacy has published a preponderance of articles matching those topics. In fact, our search returned two-fold more articles for IEEE Security and Privacy than the next most prolific venue. These reasons, coupled with the fact that both academia and industry are well-represented in the authorship of articles makes IEEE Security and Privacy an excellent candidate for bibliometric analysis. Our analysis examines the ways articles in IEEE Security and Privacy relate ethics to information technology. Such articles can influence the development of law, policy and the future of information technology ethics. We employed thematic and JK-biplot analyses of content relating privacy and ethics and found eight dominant themes as well as the inter-theme relationships. Authors and institutional affiliations were examined to discern whether centers of research activity and/or authors dominated the overall field or thematic areas. Results suggest avenues for future work in critical areas, especially for closing present gaps in the coverage of ethics and information technology privacy and security themes particularly in the areas of ethics and privacy awareness.
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Information, Communication, & Society, Dec 15, 2014
As mobile and wearable devices that enable digital content to be displayed over physical surround... more As mobile and wearable devices that enable digital content to be displayed over physical surroundings continue to develop, scholars are increasingly interested in these ‘augmented reality’ (AR) technologies. While much of the focus has either been on the technological development of these devices and their potential for changing user interactions, there has been less attention paid to the stakeholders and companies developing these technologies. This study examines developments in the industry itself, where companies are finding resources and structuring their businesses, and how this has created a momentum toward marketing and advertising. The intricate link between marketing and AR is one that has implications for how the technology is developing, what experiences are possible through the technology, and the future contexts in which AR is deployed.
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As augmented reality (AR) is becoming technologically possible and publicly available through mob... more As augmented reality (AR) is becoming technologically possible and publicly available through mobile smartphone and tablet devices, there has been relatively little empirical research studying how people are utilizing mobile AR technologies and forming social practices around mobile AR. This study looks at how mobile AR can potentially mediate the everyday practices of urban life. Through qualitative interviews with users of Layar, a mobile AR browser, we found several emerging uses. First, users are creating content on Layar in ways that communicate about and through place, which shapes their relationship and interpretations of places around them. Second, we found a growing segment of users creating augmented content that historicizes and challenges the meanings of place, while inserting their own narratives of place. Studying emerging uses of AR deepens our understanding of how emerging media may complicate practices, experiences, and relationships in the spatial landscape.
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The mobile social network Foursquare has gained popularity in the last few years among both users... more The mobile social network Foursquare has gained popularity in the last few years among both users and businesses. This article explores how the use of Foursquare changes and impacts people’s sense of place. Drawing on the work of Lofland (1998) on the social production of space, we argue that as new socio–spatial information (i.e., who checks in where) is introduced via the mobile social network, it can change the way people experience a place. Based on qualitative in–depth interviews with active Foursquare users, we explore person–to–person and person–to–place connections and argue that Foursquare promotes parochialization of public space.
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Baumer, E.P.S., Adams, P., Khovanskaya, V., Liao, T., Smith, M.E., Sosik, V.S., & Williams, K. (2013). Limiting, Leaving, and (re)Lapsing: An Exploration of Facebook Non-Use Practices and Experiences. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (SIGCHI). CHI 2013
"Despite the abundance of research on social networking
sites, relatively little research has st... more "Despite the abundance of research on social networking
sites, relatively little research has studied those who choose
not to use such sites. This paper presents results from a
questionnaire of over 400 Internet users, focusing
specifically on Facebook and those users who have left the
service. Results show the lack of a clear, binary distinction
between use and non-use, that various practices enable
diverse ways and degrees of engagement with and
disengagement from Facebook. Furthermore, qualitative
analysis reveals numerous complex and interrelated
motivations and justifications, both for leaving and for
maintaining some type of connection. These motivations
include: privacy, data misuse, productivity, banality,
addiction, and external pressures. These results not only
contribute to our understanding of online sociality by
examining this under-explored area, but they also build on
previous work to help advance how we conceptually
account for the sociological processes of non-use."
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While AR is slowly becoming reality, projections about the technology are divided. The direction ... more While AR is slowly becoming reality, projections about the technology are divided. The direction that AR will take, the form AR will come in, how it should be used and the societal impact it will have are all being contested. With emerging technologies such as AR, these debates occur in a mostly rhetorical space, as positions and visions of the future are advanced. Some of these are also negative visions, arguing against the technology. These communications, arguments, and positions are how the technology is made persuasive to those in and outside the AR community, but have yet to be empirically studied or understood. This study seeks to map out the rhetorical promises that are being made about AR. Through qualitative interviews with a variety of actors in the AR community, this study advances a taxonomy of technological promises, higher order principles that those promises appeal to, and finally the contested characteristic that can change the valence of the vision. This framework will help make the debate about AR clearer, and help people frame their discussions and debates about AR in a more productive way.
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Selected Papers of Internet Research
Mobile geotagging services offer people new ways to interact with and through urban space. In thi... more Mobile geotagging services offer people new ways to interact with and through urban space. In this paper, we focus on a mobile geotagging service called Socialight and the social practices associated with it. In-depth interviews and participant observation were conducted in order to explore how Socialight's virtual “sticky notes” were used in everyday life. Findings indicated how users communicate about place to help build social familiarity with urban places and communicate through place to allow users to create place-based narratives and engage in identity management. Such findings deepen our understanding of the social production of space and have implications for future location-based mobile services.
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Publications by Tony Liao
sites, relatively little research has studied those who choose
not to use such sites. This paper presents results from a
questionnaire of over 400 Internet users, focusing
specifically on Facebook and those users who have left the
service. Results show the lack of a clear, binary distinction
between use and non-use, that various practices enable
diverse ways and degrees of engagement with and
disengagement from Facebook. Furthermore, qualitative
analysis reveals numerous complex and interrelated
motivations and justifications, both for leaving and for
maintaining some type of connection. These motivations
include: privacy, data misuse, productivity, banality,
addiction, and external pressures. These results not only
contribute to our understanding of online sociality by
examining this under-explored area, but they also build on
previous work to help advance how we conceptually
account for the sociological processes of non-use."
sites, relatively little research has studied those who choose
not to use such sites. This paper presents results from a
questionnaire of over 400 Internet users, focusing
specifically on Facebook and those users who have left the
service. Results show the lack of a clear, binary distinction
between use and non-use, that various practices enable
diverse ways and degrees of engagement with and
disengagement from Facebook. Furthermore, qualitative
analysis reveals numerous complex and interrelated
motivations and justifications, both for leaving and for
maintaining some type of connection. These motivations
include: privacy, data misuse, productivity, banality,
addiction, and external pressures. These results not only
contribute to our understanding of online sociality by
examining this under-explored area, but they also build on
previous work to help advance how we conceptually
account for the sociological processes of non-use."