User-centric approaches in the digital information society: prospects, challenges and limits

Citation

Helberger, L.M.a.N. (2014), "User-centric approaches in the digital information society: prospects, challenges and limits", info, Vol. 16 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/info-07-2014-0031

User-centric approaches in the digital information society: prospects, challenges and limits

Article Type: Guest Editorial From: info, Volume 16, Issue 6

The evolution towards a digital society or knowledge economy has often revolved around economic and technological questions and the effects of national and transnational policies on European industry. Economic growth was and still is the focal point of most European policies. And while European policies are still revolving around the question of how to create optimal conditions for innovation and investment in European technologies and businesses, recent years have also seen increasing attention on the user as a beneficiary as well as an active player in the European Digital Information Society. Partly, this increasing attention on the user can be, at least at the European level, explained by the threatening signs of an accelerating Euroscepticism, and by the urgent need for a political charm attack, to win back the interest and trust of Europe’s citizens. Partly, however, it is also the insight that users are critical stakeholders and key players in the implementation of important public policy goals, be they in the area of Information & Communication Technology (ICT), the adoption of new information society services, data protection, the implementation of media pluralism or a competitive internal market for digital services and devices. As a recent study concluded: “users are the key for the next digital strategy. There is a pressing need in Europe to strengthen the user’s role and perspective in the Information Society” (Deloitte, 2010).

Recent developments in the area of consumer law and policy are an excellent example. Consumer law in Europe in recent years has experienced a shift from a language of protection to one of consumer empowerment and consumer sovereignty. Particularly on the level of European Union (EU) law, which harmonises to a substantial degree national laws in this field, consumer law is also seen as a means to consumer empowerment. The idea of a more powerful, active user is instrumental to the implementation of an adjunct political agenda of market progress, innovation and European integration (Everson, 2005; Wilelmsson, 2004). This was already evident from the title of the EU’s Consumer Policy Strategy for 2007-2013, which is “Empowering Consumers, Enhancing Their Welfare, Effectively Protecting Them”. The underlying concept of the consumer here was and still is that of a sovereign market participant and citizen who is an active driver behind the implementation of public policies, such as the development of the Internal Market[1]. This empowered consumer is also considered the motor behind competitive markets that are responsive to the needs and interests of European consumers (European Commission, 2010). Accordingly, an important objective of consumer law here is to protect the sovereign consumer’s “right to choice”[2] and to create the market conditions so that consumers can “vote with their purse”. The parallel with communications, media and ICT policy is obvious, where initiatives also clearly stressed the value of new technologies and business models to empower media users and give them more control over access to and use of services[3].

There is little doubt that the user is a central figure in the digital society. Active users are a source of creative inspiration and avid creators of cultural resources. Bloggers and citizen journalists reflect critically on the world around them and have become acknowledged sources of information. Most importantly maybe is the realisation that users constitute the demand side of the market, and the take-up and prospering of new services and applications, be it cloud services, the Internet of Things or smart cities and health applications, will depend crucially on their attractiveness and acceptability to users. This is also why the aforementioned study stipulates that:

There will be a move away from simply creating the conditions for market-based competition, to empowering and enabling consumers to become informed, competent, creative and critical users of converging technologies (Deloitte, 2010).

An emphasis on the importance of users as key actors in the European Digital Information Society is thus indeed also evident in the European Commission Communication A Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) in which citizens, users and businesses are the focal point of attention and in which the importance of users is evident in many of its actions and specific target goals.

This new focus on the user is not without its own challenges. To prevent the call for more user-centric policies and business models from becoming little more than attempts at political window dressing and social marketing strategy, new approaches to making policies and providing services are needed. This begins in the early phase of research and development for new technologies and services. Remarkably, the current ICT Horizon 2020 programme has placed a far stronger focus on the societal aspects of technology development, and the benefit to users and society. This is a good start, even though the challenge is now to take action to ensure that user and societal aspects are given early consideration in the R&D development circle. In other words, calling for more user-centric design is one thing, achieving it is another. Here lies a clear challenge for the European Union, in particular, as regards technologies such as the Internet of Things or cloud computing that have the potential to change profoundly the relationship between users, businesses and technology.

Finally, the call for more user-orientation can also sometimes conflict with established functions and goals for particular sectors. The media sector is a good example. Neither has the trend towards more user-centrism halted in the media, where modern technological developments that help to monitor, profile and target users is beginning to impact on operations in newsrooms (Thurman and Schifferes, 2012). However, where should the line be drawn between providing users with more personally relevant content and achieving the editorial mission of a periodical? While users are important players in the information society, catering for their interests needs to be weighed against other not necessarily less valuable interest and policy objectives.

Conceptualising user-centric design is also easier said than done. With the growing focus on the user and the proliferation of research into user acceptability, preferences and conditions of use, schematic models of “the user” are making way for the realisation that “users” means a multitude of very different individuals, all with different needs, preferences, levels of (media) literacy, willingness to actively engage and attitudes towards important (design) values such as privacy, security, democratic participation and fairness. Accommodating “the user” requires a far better understanding of which really is one’s target group. One user is not the other. This also means that today’s focus on user empowerment and the user as an active market player must not ignore the fact that there are, and will continue to be, also less-empowered users. A major challenge is to prevent those users who are less empowered, but also less profitable, less attractive, etc., from being left out. With today’s technologies of algorithmic differentiation and predictive modelling, this is a real danger (Turow, 2006; Hargittai, 2007). Some of the policy instruments that aim to “empower” the user can, furthermore, potentially empower some, while leaving out or even disempowering others. Transparency – one of the key regulatory tools in the regulatory toolbox of consumer empowerment – is an example. While transparency and consumer information must address the power asymmetries between buyers and sellers and ensure a level playing field, this is only true for those able or interested in reading and understanding terms of use and privacy policies (Wauters et al., 2013). A growing body of research, inspired by psychological and behavioural research, is also questioning some of the basic assumptions underlying the “empowerment by information and choice” approach (Zuiderveen-Borgesius, 2013; Acquisti and Grossklags, 2007; Ben-Shahar and Schneider, 2010; Bakos, 2009; Helberger, 2013). Finally, consumer empowerment as public policy must not result in a situation where users bear most of the weight of solving public policy conundrums, or mitigate the failure of traditional regulatory solutions, such as the difficulty of monitoring and enforcing laws online, the question of competencies in borderless markets and the difficulty of reaching agreement on arbitrary and “multi-stakeholder” policy subjects.

Users are the inspiration for a flourishing creative economy and they fuel the globalisation of information markets. In recent years, we have witnessed a strong and almost euphoric focus on the user as the possible source of many innovative and revolutionary projects as well as ideas and business models. This has reinvigorated interdisciplinary research on users in relation to digital media developments, government policies and industry strategies. This perspective is a substantive scholarly tradition in disciplines like science and technology studies (STS), innovation economics and consumer sociology. To further the emancipation of the user and to prevent user disempowerment, businesses, policymakers, civil society and academics grapple with the challenge of accommodating users’ interests and integrating a more user-centric perspective into their decision-making, technologies and research. This is not easy, and it can challenge professional routines, established research methods and familiar approaches to law and policy-making. It requires a better understanding of who “the user” actually is, what his/her different roles are and the measurable contributions he/she makes within the media ecosystem and of how this position can be strengthened. At the same time, user empowerment can turn into disempowerment. This happens when users become the plaything of complex digital systems, designed and applied to facilitate unfair business practices or objectionable forms of government surveillance.

It was around this idea and dichotomy, user empowerment and disempowerment, that the idea for the EuroCPR 2014 Conference was born.

The aim of the EuroCPR 2014 Conference, titled Prospects, Challenges and Limits to User-Centric Approaches in the Digital Information Society, was rather ambitious. It was to examine whether user-centric European information society policies are serving the interests of (European) consumers/citizens, whether the rhetoric of European information society policy is aligned with implementation, and how user-centric policies can better inform market practice and policy-making. Contributions to the conference also aimed at an understanding of what the contribution of users to our information society/economy is and how this can be integrated into research, business decisions and policy-making – especially in multi-stakeholder approaches. Briefly said, the 29th EuroCPR Conference focused on the user, a key actor and a key stakeholder in and of the European Digital Information Society.

Set-up of the special issue

This brief introduction should prepare the ground for an understanding of the importance of the topic at the 2014 EuroCPR Conference. The variety and the relevance of the many contributions the public had the opportunity to listen to and discuss at the conference has been interpreted as a clear sign of the timeliness of the topic and its importance.

After a blind peer-review, a total of six papers were selected for inclusion in this special issue. The selection was not an easy one, as all submitted papers reflected on and presented various interesting perspectives on the topic of the special issue. Finally, the papers that ended up in the journal span various disciplines and cover the range of themes discussed at the conference. These selected papers discuss: optimising transparency for users in social networking sites (SNS), user-oriented universal services for the EU information society, digital inclusion and user empowerment and disempowerment, industry and user perspective in digital Television (TV) innovation, a user-centric approach in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) toll/ticketing and, to conclude, capabilities and toolkits in public service delivery for participatory governance. They do so from different angles and perspectives including the legal, economic, political science and/or communication science dimensions as well as the sociological and anthropological ones.

The reader should also notice that the selected papers address, with different styles and emphasis, the initial questions of the conference: examining whether user-centric European information society policies are serving the interests of (European) consumers/citizens (this is the case in the paper by Wauters, Lievens and Donoso); whether the rhetoric of European information society policy is aligned with implementation (the papers by Batura and Mariën and Prodnik); how user-centric policies can better inform market practice and policy-making (the paper by Jennes and van den Broek); and, finally, understanding what the contribution of users to our information society/economy is and how this could be integrated into research, business decisions and policy-making – especially in multi-stakeholder approaches (the papers by Storm-Mathisen and van der Graaf and Veeckman).

Following the structure depicted above, this info special issue, User-Centric Approaches in the Digital Information Society: Prospects, Challenges and Limits, begins with the paper written by Wauters, Lievens and Donoso. The article aims to reflect on possible ways of optimising current ways of delivering information to make it more transparent to users. The authors refer to the benefits (and challenges) of employing more user-centred approaches to inform users in a more transparent way. The paper analyses individual as well as contextual factors (e.g. cognitive differences, time constraints and specific features of social networking platforms), which may have an impact on the way users deal with terms of use, privacy policies and other types of information provision typically made available on SNS platforms. The authors also discuss possible ways of improving current practices in the field and in particular the benefits (and challenges) of a user-centred approach that informs users in a way that is more meaningful to them. Finally, the article discusses how user-centred approaches can act as mechanisms for increasing transparency in SNS environments and how (alternative) forms of regulation could benefit from such an approach. Wauters, Lievens and Donoso believe that it is necessary to start focusing on users/consumers’ needs, expectations and values to develop visualisation tools that can help make law (more) meaningful to users/consumers, by giving them a better insight into their rights and obligations and by guiding them in making truly informed decisions regarding their online choices and behaviour. By looking at various techniques such as visual design and the timing of information, the article contributes to the discussion on how we can make people more aware of legal documents and actually read them. This paper is an innovative and timely contribution to this special issue, as it contributes to the debate on how governance of online spaces can be organised in a better way by taking an interdisciplinary approach which integrates law with behavioural economics and design research. It is worth mentioning that the article adopts an original and innovative perspective on the legal texts being used in online social networks with a strong interdisciplinary perspective.

The second paper, by Batura, investigates how the DAE can make use of universal service as a regulatory instrument created specifically to ensure a minimum of available and affordable electronic communications services within a competitive market. The paper uses systematic and comparative legal analysis of the EU’s universal service rules and contrasts them with Information Society policy measures. More specifically, Batura’s paper deploys the perspective of the EU Information Society policy to undertake a legal analysis of the current universal service regulation. Against this backdrop, it points out the obsolescence of individual elements of its scope and the logical deficiencies of the review mechanism. Its examination of the current universal service scope reveals several shortcomings and obsolete traits that prevent it from being effectively deployed by the DAE. Universal service currently focuses heavily on voice telephony, provided at a fixed location, and ignores the growing importance of other communications services and the societal and economic needs of quality of service and mobility. The paper reveals strong commonalities between the DAE and universal service at the level of objectives. However, due to heavy reliance on the measures stimulating supply-side, there are discrepancies in the mechanisms of their achievement. At the same time, an effective employment of the universal service instrument by the DAE is not feasible. In its current form, universal service does not correspond to the substantive requirements of the Information Society policy and needs to be reformed. The paper calls for additional empirical and theoretical research on the role and form of universal service in the Information Society and outlines the main issues for further research. Drawing on insights from communications studies and political science, the paper suggests the gradual introduction of access (connection) to a communications network as a core element of universal service. Batura’s article touches many interesting issues related to the theme of the special issue, and what may be of particular interest to the reader in this article is the discussion about the universal service concept.

This paper should be considered together with the paper by Mariën and Prodnik, as they both try to answer the question of whether the rhetoric of European information society policy and its current implementation are aligned. This third paper aims to highlight the main limitations of the emancipatory potential of digital inclusion policies and ICTs such as they are. The authors draw the readers’ attention to the fact that more and more empowerment is put forward as one of the main goals of digital inclusion. By applying user-centric and participatory approaches, assumptions are made, Mariën and Prodnik tell us, that individuals will be empowered and as such, will be re-included in society. These assumptions, however, tend to ignore the social, economic, political and technical conditions within which individual choices are made and within which individuals must inevitably act. Instead of attempting to narrow the existing social gap between class-divided societies, and of probing the limitations there are at the macro-level by questioning the wider social structure, digital inclusion policies tend to individualise problems that are, in fact, social in nature. This contribution therefore aims to identify the key causes of structural (dis)empowerment and how these resonate with digital inclusion. The article positions itself within the political economy of communication research tradition and aims to set the structural consequences of social inequalities, existing social hierarchies and power structures against the mechanisms of digital inequalities and the implementation of digital inclusion policies. By proceeding from a critical perspective, it aims to demonstrate the limitations of user-centric and micro-level approaches, while questioning their normative interpretations of digital empowerment which tend to be reductionist in their essence and instrumental in their aims. Mariën and Prodnik present in this paper, against the background of a critical and well-substantiated review of digital inclusion policies, a description of the limits of a narrow approach to digital inclusion along with a description of the limits of a market-oriented approach to Internet development which offers a very interesting perspective on the special issue’s topic. Also likely to be of interest in this paper is the (hidden?) call for a coordinated social and digital inclusion strategy on the government side, which, ultimately, is a call for better public policy.

The fourth paper, by, Jennes and van den Broek, focuses on how innovative strategies take users into account. On the one hand, the authors look at how the different stakeholders in the TV value network implement user behaviour. On the other hand, they focus on how users perceive traditional advertising and new advertising formats (e.g. personalised advertising and interactive advertising). The applied research method the authors have adopted is a combination of expert interviews with different actors in the TV sector and qualitative user research on viewers’ expectations of advertising and new advertising formats in a digital era. Jennes and van der Broek look at customer ownership, (inter-media) audience fragmentation and audience autonomy as important concepts in understanding innovation and strategies within the Flemish commercial TV sector and how user behaviour is implemented. More specifically, ad skipping (zipping) and second-screen applications are studied. In conclusion, the findings of the research are linked to relevant policy questions and challenges for audience members and actors within the television industry. The Jennes and van den Broek paper thoroughly examines the perspectives of all sides of the media and advertising industry, focusing on the expectations raised by the arrival of digital television techniques (e.g. interactive digital advertising and personalisation of advertising). In doing so, the authors provide the reader with an interesting picture of the power struggles emerging in the media industry as a result of enhanced technological possibilities, and the growing demand for audience autonomy. This is certainly an important and topical issue which will probably need more empirical research in the future.

As for the second and third papers, as well as the fifth and sixth, these should be considered as belonging to the same group, as they are all related to the issue of how users can contribute to our information society/economy and how this can be integrated in research, business decisions, policy-making, especially in multi-stakeholder approaches. The fifth paper, by Storm-Mathisen, discusses the prospects and challenges of RFID-based services from a user perspective. This contribution explores two cases of toll/ticketing RFID technologies – the mature AutoPASS (tolling on public roads) and the newly implemented Flexus/Ruter Travelcard (public transport) in Norway. The author’s methodologically triangulated approach is applied to trace the history of RFID implementation, comparing the assumed benefits of providers to the hands-on experience of users. The benefits assumed by providers were to a large extent shared by users in the case of AutoPASS, but to a low extent in the case of Flexus/Ruter travelcard. RFID applications are heterogeneous products with diverse and heterogeneous user groups. Vital to their success is the user’s experience of higher ease-of-use and added-value of RFID-based services in their everyday life compared to previous systems. Storm-Mathisen advises that further research needs to broaden perspectives and methodologies to better grasp the complex interplay of RFID, users and environment. This, she tells us, entails moving beyond the focus of adoption to study appropriations and how technology affects social practice. The article is relevant as RFID is currently in an extremely expansive phase in its usability – commercially as well as socially. Research on RFID is still scarce and fragmented with few contributions from social science, with most user perspectives tending to address the needs and concerns of businesses and industries rather than those of users. This paper deals with a relevant topic in today’s digital information society and offers an interesting comparative case study of two RFID applications from a user-centric perspective, framed conceptually by a domestication perspective and methodologically by an ANT approach involving a mixed-method study. This analysis is interesting because it reveals the differences in supplier and user perceptions of the way RFID applications become embedded in citizens’/consumers’ everyday lives. The author argues for greater attention to these differences to ensure that the benefits are maximised and the risks minimised.

The paper by van der Graaf and Veeckman concludes this special issue. This study is designed to yield insights into how cities can optimise citizen involvement in the co-development of citizen services, by providing the rights tools, knowledge and resources. The study was carried out by performing a case study analysis of the city of Ghent. The paper investigates how users are engaged in the development of mobile applications on a city-hosted platform. The authors show how public service delivery, related to the urban space, can be co-designed by the city and its citizens, if different toolkits aligned with the specific capacities and skills of the citizens are provided. The reader will understand why this specific paper concludes the special issue: it yields interesting insights for policymakers, city administrations and living lab practitioners into how participatory governance can become more inclusive for different skilled users. This last paper discusses an important and topical issue and offers a more practice-oriented approach to what according to many remains a largely theoretical discussion: how governments can co-create smart city applications together with users. Among the interesting conclusions of this paper is the insight that if the citizens are to be genuinely involved, then it is important to acknowledge the need for differentiation between users, including between those more and less skilled. This differentiation point is often overlooked by the current debate about empowerment, user created content and user participation.

Notes

1. Common Framework.

2. (Barents, 1990). Interestingly, Principle One of the EC’s Ten Basic Principles of Consumer Protection in the European Union is: “Buy what you want, where you want.” European Commission, Consumer Protection in the European Union: Ten Basic Principles, Brussels, 2005, online available at: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cons_info/10principles/en.pdf

3.See, e.g. recital 58 of the Directive 2010/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March, 2010, on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the provision of audiovisual media services (Audiovisual Media Services Directive) OJ L 95/1 (15.04.2010) or recital 32 of the Directive 2009/136/EC of 25 November, 2009, amending Directive 2002/22/EC on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services and Directive 2002/58/EC concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 on cooperation between national authorities responsible for the enforcement of consumer protection laws (on the role of comparison services).

Luciano Morganti and Nathalie Helberger

Luciano Morganti is based at Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, and Nathalie Helberger is an Ass. Professor based at Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Corresponding author

Luciano Morganti can be contacted at: mailto:luciano.morganti@vub.ac.be