Schooling Data Citizens - Data Citizenship Seminar Series Moray School of Education, Edinburgh, 9 February 2018

1. The Internet of Toys, the datafied
child, and the production of the
surveilled citizen
Giovanna Mascheroni
@giovannamas
Schooling Data Citizens – Data Citizenship Seminar Series
9th February 2018

2. Contents
1. Definition of the Internet of Toys
2. IoToys as media
3. IoToys, datafication and surveillance capitalism
4. Datafication of and in everyday life

3. IoToys

4. Toys-to-life

5. Dolls and pets

6. Robots & mechanical toys

7. Puzzles and building games

8. Arts-to-life

9. Outdoor toys

10. Health monitoring teddies

12. The Internet of Toys as media

13. The Internet of Toys as media
• From the double articulation
of media in everyday life to
the triple articulation of IoT
as media?

14. The Internet of Toys as media
• ICTs as:
• the artefacts and devices that
enable and extend our ability to
communicate;
• the communication activities or
practices we engage in to
develop and use these devices;
and
• the social arrangements or
organizations that form around
the devices and practices.
(Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2006, p.
23)
• IoToys as:
• material artefacts that enable
physical as well as connected play
practices;
• a combination of play and
communicative practices; and
• new organizational forms, namely
surveillance culture, datafication
and surveillance capitalism

15. The datafication of everyday life

16. The datafication of everyday life
Surveillance imaginaries “provide a
capacity to act, to engage in, and to
legitimate surveillance practices. In
turn, surveillance practices help to carry
surveillance imaginaries and to
contribute to their reproduction.” (Lyon,
2017: 829)

17. The datafication of everyday life
The power of surveillance capitalism:
1. structuring the opportunities that
individuals have access to, thanks to
the profiling and social sorting of big
dataset
2. normalising surveillance culture as an
everyday, diffused practice in which
social actors can, and are willing to
engage

18. Surveillance culture (imaginaries + practices)

19. Surveillance culture (imaginaries + practices)
It is possible that parents 'play' with the
health of their children (Pronatur 24, Austria)
Christmas is a time for presents, especially for
the youngest, but as parents we should always
consider what we are giving to our children, in
order to avoid exposing them to risks.
(Tomshw, Italy)

20. Surveillance culture (imaginaries + practices)

21. Surveillance culture (imaginaries + practices)
“These calculating children are
both calculated and metricized as
data traces, but also encouraged
to calculate about themselves
through encountering their own
data” (Lupton and Williamson,
2017: 8).

22. Datafication in everyday life

23. Conclusions
More empirical
(ethnographic) research is
needed as the basis for a
sociological critique of
datafication

24. Thanks!
giovanna.mascheroni@unicatt.it
@giovannamas