Alexa, Affect, and the Algorithmic Imaginary
Addressing Privacy and Security Concerns Through Emotional Advertising
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Abstract
As millions of customers across the world invite digital voice assistants into their homes, the public debate has increasingly centered on security and privacy concerns connected to the use of the device. Drawing on Tania Bucher's work at the intersection between technology and everyday experience, this article proposes an understanding of an algorithmic imaginary of Alexa-enabled devices as explicitly nonthreatening in its ordinariness, positive potential, and gendered presence. As a case study, this article uses commercials for Alexa-enabled devices as a starting point: Instead of foregrounding the functionality and thereby the algorithmic intelligence underlying the voice assistant, these commercials focus on an affective potential as a narrative strategy to address privacy and security concerns. By connecting everyday interactions with emotional and empowering narratives, the way Alexa is portrayed as an embodied object functions as a balance to the equally public and publicized understanding of digital voice assistants as threats.
Contributor Notes
Linda Kopitz has studied at the University of Leipzig (Germany), and the University of Miami (USA), and holds a research master's degree in Television and Cross-Media Culture from the University of Amsterdam. Connecting her professional experience as a creative director with her research, she is currently working as a lecturer in Cross-Media Culture at the University of Amsterdam, where her main research interests are advertising and the intersection between technology and the everyday.