Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrew Edelblum, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Dayton

“Sex sells” has been a mantra in marketing for decades. As researchers who study consumer behavior, we’ve seen plenty of evidence to support it: Attractive models and spokespeople have been shown to reliably grab attention, boost clicks and make products seem more desirable.

But our new research suggests that in a digital world full of influencers – trusted tastemakers with large online followings – being too attractive can actually backfire, particularly in the fitness space.

We call this the “beauty backfire effect,” and we put it to the test in a series of laboratory experiments.

We showed hundreds of study participants mock Instagram posts from fictitious fitness influencer accounts. The posts were identical in every way, except for one key difference: how attractive the influencer was. We judged this by asking independent raters to evaluate photos of real influencers ahead of time.

The results were striking: We found that extremely attractive fitness influencers – or “fitfluencers” – got fewer likes and follows than their moderately attractive peers.

Why? Because people viewed them as less relatable.

In fact, in one of our studies, people who saw an extremely attractive fitfluencer reported having lower self-esteem afterward. In contrast, seeing a moderately attractive fitfluencer gave some participants a small confidence boost, likely because the image felt more attainable.

Interestingly, the beauty backfire effect wasn’t as strong in other domains. When we ran the same experiment with finance influencers in the mix, appearance didn’t matter as much. That’s not entirely surprising, of course. For a financial coach, looks aren’t tied to credibility. Meanwhile, for a fitness coach, they’re central.

But the beauty backfire effect isn’t inevitable. In a final analysis, we explored whether self-presentation style could close the relatability gap.

When highly attractive influencers adopted a humble tone, sharing their struggles, training challenges or fitness plateaus, the engagement gap disappeared, we found. But when they adopted a prideful tone, boasting about their natural talent or exceptional dedication, the gap grew even larger.

This suggests that humility can be a powerful communication tool for influencers who might otherwise seem “out of reach.”

Why it matters

Fitfluencers depend on their appearance as a kind of credential. A sculpted physique signals expertise in health and wellness. But engagement isn’t just about how good someone looks on camera. It’s about whether followers feel they can connect with them.

This is where relatability comes in. Audiences connect with fitfluencers who feel like real, reachable versions of themselves. But extreme attractiveness does the opposite: It turns an attainable goal into an impossible ideal, and what should inspire instead alienates.

This effect aligns with classic social comparison theory. People judge themselves in relation to others. If the gap between self and fitfluencer seems too wide, comparisons become discouraging, not motivating. In other words, the more “perfect” the fitfluencer looks, the less followers believe they can realistically be like them – and the less likely they are to engage.

Social media platforms have been taking note. These days, TikTok, Snapchat and other outlets build their appeal on candid, authentic content over polished, airbrushed imagery. In this new landscape, perfection can be a liability.

Our research shows that extreme attractiveness might grab attention but can undermine connection, the true currency of the influencer economy. For brands and creators, the takeaway is clear: Success may depend less on looking flawless and more on sounding real.

What’s next

Our findings raise new questions about how beauty shapes influence online.

For instance, gender appears to matter. In a follow-up study, highly attractive female fitness influencers faced stronger backlash than equally attractive men, perhaps reflecting a broader social tendency to judge women’s looks more harshly. Future research could explore whether similar biases apply to other visible traits, such as race or disability.

The effect may also extend beyond fitness. Industries built around appearance – fashion, beauty or lifestyle content – could show the same pattern.

Finally, not all audiences respond alike. People new to fitness or younger users still forming their identities may be especially prone to negative comparisons with highly attractive fitfluencers. Understanding these differences could help creators and platforms foster healthier engagement online.

Justin Palmer contributed research for this article as an undergraduate.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The beauty backfire effect: Being too attractive can hurt fitness influencers, new research shows – https://theconversation.com/the-beauty-backfire-effect-being-too-attractive-can-hurt-fitness-influencers-new-research-shows-266722

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Vamsi Kanuri, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Notre Dame

When banks issue their defrauded customers refunds and successfully identify the perpetrators, fraud victims are 60% more likely to stick with their bank than customers that didn’t experience any fraud.

But if customers get their stolen money back but never learn who the perpetrators are, they are 40% more likely to take their accounts elsewhere than customers who weren’t defrauded.

That’s what my co-authors and I found by researching how customers respond when banks investigate fraud. I partnered for this study with Sriram Somanchi and Rahul Telang; I study marketing, and they’re information technology scholars.

We believe this pattern emerged because identifying fraudsters can signal competence and rebuild trust. But when no one is caught, even with a refund, customers are more likely to see the fraud incident as a lapse in capability and blame the bank itself.

We partnered with a major U.S. bank that shared five years of data covering 422,953 customers, including 22,953 who experienced a single instance of fraud.

These customers were victims of account-based fraud, meaning that perpetrators had surreptitiously siphoned away money from their accounts, often through various scams.

Every defrauded customer got a refund, but the perpetrators were identified only about 13% of the time. Our findings support what’s known as the “service recovery paradox”: When a business handles a problem well, its customers can become more loyal than if no problem had occurred.

Customers who had recently opened their bank accounts and those with few prior interactions with the banks were the most likely to leave if the perpetrators were never identified.

Customers in cases where perpetrators weren’t identified within the next three months – and who had opened their accounts years earlier and were more engaged with their banks – were more likely to stay put because they are more familiar with the bank’s technological capabilities and, therefore, are more likely to forgive the bank.

Our results suggest that when perpetrators are identified, customers can regain confidence in their bank’s ability to safeguard their accounts. When the fraudsters aren’t caught, they lose more trust instead.

Why it matters

Financial fraud is both costly and pervasive. More than one-third of U.S. consumers were targeted by attempted financial fraud in 2024, and nearly 40% of those attempts led to a financial loss. Total losses from defrauded consumers totaled more than US$12.5 billion in 2024.

Fraud can undermine confidence in banks and other financial service providers.

U.S. regulations generally require banks to issue customers full refunds whether or not the perpetrator of a fraud is caught. But when customers get refunds after being defrauded, it doesn’t automatically restore their trust in a bank or app.

What still isn’t known

We focused on fraud cases that the customers themselves reported. It’s unclear whether they would have responded the same way had their banks detected the fraud instead. Another open question is whether similar patterns hold for other debacles, such as data breaches that make customers’ personal information vulnerable to exploitation.

Vamsi Kanuri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Customers can become more loyal if their banks solve fraud cases, researchers find – https://theconversation.com/customers-can-become-more-loyal-if-their-banks-solve-fraud-cases-researchers-find-266185

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Nathan Fleshner, Associate Professor of Music Theory, University of Tennessee

In the opening scene of “It Might Get Loud,” a 2008 music documentary, musician Jack White appears surrounded by scrap wood and garbage. He hammers nails into a board, wraps wire around a glass Coca-Cola bottle as a makeshift guitar bridge, attaches a pickup, and plugs the contraption into a vintage Sears Silvertone amplifier – anything more modern or of better quality would never do.

White then uses his signature slide bar to play a distorted, electric riff on the rudimentary instrument. He declares, matter-of-factly, “Who says you need to buy a guitar?” and casually puffs a cigarette.

This scene of manufacturing innovation, crafting what is needed out of what is available, is a signature of The White Stripes, the influential rock band White co-founded in the late 1990s.

Drummer Meg White and guitarist/vocalist Jack White, originally Jack Gillis before taking Meg White’s name during their four-year marriage, make up The White Stripes. Hailing from Detroit, the band helped lead the garage rock revival, releasing six studio albums between 1999 and 2007.

Their recordings “Elephant,” “Get Behind Me Satan” and “Icky Thump” each won Grammys for Best Alternative Music Album. The White Stripes’ last televised performance together was “We’re Going to Be Friends” in 2009 on the final episode of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”

The band’s legacy of innovation has earned them a place in the Rock & Roll Hall Fame. They will be inducted in Los Angeles on Nov. 8, 2025, along with Outkast, Cyndi Lauper and Soundgarden.

As a professor who studies popular music as an expression of the human experience, I have written about a broad range of artists, from Townes Van Zandt and Maren Morris to Prince Paul and boygenius.

I find The White Stripes’ experiment in sonic complexity particularly impressive because it was created by just two performers. Their soundscape relied on instrumental and vocal manipulations of tone and timbre and on stylistic fusions of blues, folk music, garage rock and movements such as British punk and Dutch De Stijl art.

The White Stripes often expressed themes related to Detroit’s industrial struggle and innovation in their gritty, genre-bending sound and lyrical storytelling.

Battle between man and machine

Several songs directly reference Detroit icons. The jaunty 2001 single “Hotel Yorba,” which blends blues and folk while heavily featuring acoustic guitar, honors a Detroit hotel built in 1926. The music video was partially filmed outside the aging building, with indoor scenes filmed elsewhere.

Jack White said the band wanted to know more about the Hotel Yorba’s history but were chased out by an armed manager. In September 2025, the hotel was closed due to unsafe living conditions.

In contrast, the song “The Big Three Killed My Baby,” released in 1999, refers to Detroit’s major automakers at the time: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. Infused with a punk style, the song discusses the conflict between gas and electric engines. With a tone of anguish, it serves as a biting critique of these companies’ lack of creativity and, as the song states, the use of “planned obsolescence,” which intentionally limits a product’s useful life cycle. The close of the song reveals that what has truly been killed is the consumer’s common sense.

The White Stripes relied heavily on timeless, vintage equipment, disavowing technological advancements and heavy-handed production techniques. But even their primitive instruments are seen as a foe in the struggle between man and machine.

“I always look at playing the guitar as an attack. … It can’t be this wimpy thing where you’re pushed around by the idea, the characters, or the song itself,” Jack White said in a 2010 interview. “It’s every player’s job to fight against all of that.”

Likewise, spontaneity, lack of set lists and real-time creativity were hallmarks of their performances.

A 2002 live performance of “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” begins with brief, chaotic, distorted guitar-wailing and a single, powerful strike of bass drum and cymbal. The performance features a blues-infused rock riff and sweet vocal melodies with high-pitched repetitions and steady cymbal beats punctuated by bass drum and tom hits. That’s the raw, unfiltered, unmitigated, underproduced, auto-tune-avoidant intensity and artistic sound for which The White Stripes strove.

A sound forged by punk and blues

The White Stripes had many influences, including the Flat Duo Jets, who shared their instrumentation of drum, guitar and vocals, and similarly fused styles such as ’50s rockabilly and blues-inspired punk. They were also heavily ensconced in the Detroit garage rock and punk scenes, which included bands such as The Detroit Cobras, The Dirtbombs, The Paybacks and Rocket 455. Each act was unique in how it deployed its creative foundations, mainly a primal, raw, electric sound with consistent, pounding rhythms and edgy vocal timbres.

This sonic layering and stylistic fusion is carried on by many of the artists of Jack White’s Third Man Records in Detroit. The label’s satellite locations in Tennessee and England also connect The White Stripes to the blues traditions of the Mississippi region and the punk scenes of London.

Acknowledged delta blues influences included Blind Willie McTell and Son House, whose “Grinnin’ in Your Face” – Jack White’s favorite song – maintains a powerful simplicity echoed throughout many White Stripes songs.

A folklike acoustic sound is mirrored in The White Stripes’ tracks “You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket” and “It’s True That We Love One Another.” Similar acoustic simplicity is heard in “Your Southern Can Is Mine,” “Apple Blossom” and “This Protector,” which use imperfections of intonation, melodic repetition, prescribed harmonic structures and soulful sounds.

The harder edges of punk and garage rock are equally present in the opening riffs of the songs “Icky Thump,” “Blue Orchid,” “Fell in Love With a Girl” and midway through “Seven Nation Army.”

Meg White’s tom and bass drum pulsations – as recognizable and definitive of The White Stripes’ sound as Jack White’s electrified blues riffs – are heard in the openings of the songs “Jimmy the Exploder,” “Little Cream Soda,” “The Hardest Button to Button,” “Astro” and even “Seven Nation Army,” which became a popular sports arena staple.

More than a mere look backward, The White Stripes served as a catalyst of progress, raising the stature of the underground Detroit sound to the world’s stage.

Read more of our stories about Detroit and Michigan.

Nathan Fleshner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The White Stripes join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame − their primal sound reflects Detroit’s industrial roots – https://theconversation.com/the-white-stripes-join-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-their-primal-sound-reflects-detroits-industrial-roots-265469

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Robin Lin Miller, Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University

Protecting public health abroad benefits Americans.

In a globalized world, diseases and their social and economic impacts do not stay within national boundaries. Increased rates of untreated HIV in any part of the world increase the risk of transmission for U.S. citizens.

Changes made in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term to address the global HIV epidemic, however, may not keep Americans safe.

In September 2025, the U.S. Department of State announced its America First Global Health Strategy, a plan that aims to make “America safer, stronger, and more prosperous” by encouraging other governments to take responsibility for their citizens’ health and to promote U.S. commercial and faith-based interests. It includes the commitment to purchase and distribute the breakthrough HIV preventive drug lenacapavir for up to 2 million people – principally pregnant and breastfeeding women – in 10 countries heavily affected by HIV.

However, the plan does not ensure the most vulnerable will be able to access HIV care. It comes on top of eliminating billions of dollars of U.S. financial support to global health programs. And it undermines one of the most effective foreign assistance programs in U.S. history, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.

I have spent four decades evaluating HIV programs and have studied barriers to HIV prevention and care in the U.S. and in other countries. The Trump administration’s strategy not only reverses decades of progress toward international targets to end AIDS by 2030, I believe it also puts Americans at risk.

Disrupting PEPFAR caused global harm

In 2024, the U.S. supplied over 70% of donor government funding to end the HIV epidemic globally. Much of this aid was through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a suite of programs designed to expand access to prevention, testing and treatment.

Since President George Bush initiated the program in 2003, PEPFAR has saved an estimated 26 million lives. HIV deaths have declined by 70% since 2004, and new infections fell after the program’s inception. PEPFAR helped put the world on track to ending the HIV pandemic by promoting access to highly effective drugs, supporting community-led outreach and programs, and building health care infrastructure.

On Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that paused funding for all foreign aid programs, including PEPFAR. It shuttered PEPFAR-supported clinics and outreach programs, halted medical and supply shipments, and prompted mass layoffs of the global HIV workforce. It also dissolved USAID, which provided essential infrastructure for PEPFAR to do its work.

The Trump administration’s foreign aid pause disrupted access to HIV treatment for more than 20 million people worldwide and access to prevention for millions more. These actions are projected to cause 4.1 million additional deaths and 7.5 million new HIV infections by 2030.

The full extent of the damage will become increasingly clear with time.

Destabilizing HIV prevention and care

Legal pushback in the months following the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID allowed limited parts of PEPFAR to restart. However, access to HIV medication was explicitly limited to only pregnant and breastfeeding women. This strategy excludes prevention and care to the majority of people who are vulnerable to HIV infection.

The Trump administration’s new global HIV prevention strategy prioritizes preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission. About 120,000 children under the age of 5 were newly infected with HIV in 2024, or around 9% of the 1.3 million new infections that year.

However, 55% of new infections worldwide occur among “key populations,” a catchall term coined by UNAIDS and WHO. These include sex workers, people who use injectable drugs, men who have sex with men, transgender people, prisoners, and the sex partners of these individuals. These groups are considered “key” because of their heightened vulnerability to HIV infection and because ending the HIV pandemic cannot be achieved without their access to prevention, testing and treatment.

Stigma and discrimination, human rights abuses, criminalization and underfinancing of programs specific to these people’s needs are significant barriers to their care.

Loss of peer-to-peer support

In countries with legal and social environments that discourage vulnerable people from seeking HIV services, trusted and knowledgeable peers can be a lifeline.

PEPFAR used to fund services designed and implemented by the peers of vulnerable people. People from vulnerable communities were directly involved in ensuring their peers had access to appropriate HIV services and remained in care. They also directly shaped their countries’ national HIV plans.

The Trump administration’s new strategy favors pregnant and breastfeeding women and cuts out other vulnerable communities. It proposes funding government health care workers in lieu of peers without ensuring these workers will be adequately equipped to provide unprejudiced care. The plan withdraws support for community-led, nongovernmental organizations that bridge gaps in care and offer sensitivity training to providers.

Many people who are vulnerable to or living with HIV view government-run medical care with profound distrust and apprehension. Some participants in my own research have told me they would rather die than seek care in a government-run facility. They recount dehumanizing experiences in these facilities, including undergoing invasive procedures without consent and being openly humiliated. Health care workers have also violated patient confidentiality by disclosing patients’ sexuality and HIV status to family members, friends, neighbors, landlords or employers.

Fear of repercussions – arrest, violence, loss of housing and employment, and blackmail – further heighten fear of health care settings. Research has shown that many people living with HIV from vulnerable populations report encountering these forms of discrimination and stigma when seeking health care. Even more report being hesitant to seek care.

Faith-based organizations

The strategy shifts funds to faith-based institutions, citing potential financial support from tithes and donations as well as greater reach through faith leaders. However, research has shown that faith-based and government health care institutions evoke fear of stigmatization, mistreatment, arrest and denial of services among many who are most at-risk for HIV.

Conservative evangelical groups such as Family Watch International – a designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – have authored some of the world’s most punitive anti-homosexuality laws in countries such as Uganda, where HIV remains inadequately controlled. They also advocate for the scientifically debunked practice of conversion therapy and are leading actors in global movements against LGBTQ+ human rights, comprehensive sexuality education and reproductive health services.

HIV requires a unique response

Effectively addressing HIV requires more than providing supplies or medical treatment. Although treatments to manage and prevent HIV infection are highly effective under ideal conditions, these are not the circumstances of many people living with and vulnerable to HIV. Treatment is lifelong and needs to be taken regularly. Additionally, the epidemic is often concentrated in networks of people who face societal discrimination, making care retention and engagement difficult.

The Trump administration’s new global health strategy requires community health care workers to consolidate their work across four distinct diseases: malaria, polio, tuberculosis and HIV. However, very different populations are vulnerable to these diseases, and each has unique social, psychological and medical concerns and needs.

For example, malaria and polio primarily affect children under 5, but the former requires strategies to reduce the mosquito bites that transmit disease, while the latter requires childhood immunization. Meanwhile, HIV primarily affects adolescents and adults and requires interventions addressing sexual health and harm reduction.

Research and lessons learned over decades of global health work suggest that carefully tailoring prevention and care strategies to each vulnerable population and addressing their unique social, behavioral, structural and medical needs improves their effectiveness.

A healthy world makes a safe and prosperous US

The 55 countries that most recently benefited from PEPFAR may seem far from U.S. soil. But in an interconnected world, their epidemic is an American epidemic.

The Trump administration’s reversal of decades of progress on ending the HIV pandemic – and weakening U.S. leadership and humanitarian effort in the fight against HIV – has already led to thousands of deaths. Every new HIV infection will incur global economic and societal costs by draining labor capacity in high-burden countries while increasing health care and caregiving costs. This global insecurity and economic instability has precedents in the initial HIV crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ensuring people living with HIV worldwide receive appropriate treatment and care advances U.S. national security, diplomatic and economic interests. Ensuring that citizens in other countries enjoy good health permits their economies to thrive and America’s in turn. I believe a healthy world is a more prosperous, peaceful and stable world, to everyone’s benefit.

Robin Lin Miller has previously received research and evaluation funding from the U.S. Department of State, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Drug Abuse, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development, American Foundation for AIDS Research, Michigan Department of Community Health, Michigan AIDS Fund, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and the Health Services Improvement Fund.

– ref. HIV knows no borders, and the Trump administration’s new strategy leave Americans vulnerable – an HIV-prevention expert explains – https://theconversation.com/hiv-knows-no-borders-and-the-trump-administrations-new-strategy-leave-americans-vulnerable-an-hiv-prevention-expert-explains-264871

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rohan Grover, Assistant Professor of AI and Media, American University

When the Trump administration gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to a massive database of information about Medicaid recipients in June 2025, privacy and medical justice advocates sounded the alarm. They warned that the move could trigger all kinds of public health and human rights harms.

But most people likely shrugged and moved on with their day. Why is that? It’s not that people don’t care. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 81% of American adults said they were concerned about how companies use their data, and 71% said they were concerned about how the government uses their data.

At the same time, though, 61% expressed skepticism that anything they do makes much difference. This is because people have come to expect that their data will be captured, shared and misused by state and corporate entities alike. For example, many people are now accustomed to instinctively hitting “accept” on terms of service agreements, privacy policies and cookie banners regardless of what the policies actually say.

At the same time, data breaches have become a regular occurrence, and private digital conversations exposing everything from infidelity to military attacks have become the stuff of public scrutiny. The cumulative effect is that people are loath to change their behaviors to better protect their data − not because they don’t care, but because they’ve been conditioned to think that they can’t make a difference.

As scholars of data, technology and culture, we find that when people are made to feel as if data collection and abuse are inevitable, they are more likely to accept it – even if it jeopardizes their safety or basic rights.

Where regulation falls short

Policy reforms could help to change this perception, but they haven’t yet. In contrast to a growing number of countries that have comprehensive data protection or privacy laws, the United States offers only a patchwork of policies covering the issue.

At the federal level, the most comprehensive data privacy laws are nearly 40 years old. The Privacy Act of 1974, passed in the wake of federal wiretapping in the Watergate and the Counterintelligence Program scandals, limited how federal agencies collected and shared data. At the time government surveillance was unexpected and unpopular.

But it also left open a number of exceptions – including for law enforcement – and did not affect private companies. These gaps mean that data collected by private companies can end up in the hands of the government, and there is no good regulation protecting people from this loophole.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 extended protections against telephone wire tapping to include electronic communications, which included services such as email. But the law did not account for the possibility that most digital data would one day be stored on cloud servers.

Since 2018, 19 U.S. states have passed data privacy laws that limit companies’ data collection activities and enshrine new privacy rights for individuals. However, many of these laws also include exceptions for law enforcement access.

These laws predominantly take a consent-based approach – think of the pesky banner beckoning you to “accept all cookies” – that encourages you to give up your personal information even when it’s not necessary. These laws put the onus on individuals to protect their privacy, rather than simply barring companies from collecting certain kinds of information from their customers.

The privacy paradox

For years, studies have shown that people claim to care about privacy but do not take steps to actively protect it. Researchers call this the privacy paradox. It shows up when people use products that track them in invasive ways, or when they consent to data collection, even when they could opt out. The privacy paradox often elicits appeals to transparency: If only people knew that they had a choice, or how the data would be used, or how the technology works, they would opt out.

But this logic downplays the fact that options for limiting data collection are often intentionally designed to be convoluted, confusing and inconvenient, and they can leave users feeling discouraged about making these choices, as communication scholars Nora Draper and Joseph Turow have shown. This suggests that the discrepancy between users’ opinions on data privacy and their actions is hardly a contradiction at all. When people are conditioned to feel helpless, nudging them into different decisions isn’t likely to be as effective as tackling what makes them feel helpless in the first place.

Resisting data disaffection

The experience of feeling helpless in the face of data collection is a condition we call data disaffection. Disaffection is not the same as apathy. It is not a lack of feeling but rather an unfeeling – an intentional numbness. People manifest this numbness to sustain themselves in the face of seemingly inevitable datafication, the process of turning human behavior into data by monitoring and measuring it.

It is similar to how people choose to avoid the news, disengage from politics or ignore the effects of climate change. They turn away because data collection makes them feel overwhelmed and anxious – not because they don’t care.

Taking data disaffection into consideration, digital privacy is a cultural issue – not an individual responsibility – and one that cannot be addressed with personal choice and consent. To be clear, comprehensive data privacy law and changing behavior are both important. But storytelling can also play a powerful role in shaping how people think and feel about the world around them.

We believe that a change in popular narratives about privacy could go a long way toward changing people’s behavior around their data. Talk of “the end of privacy” helps create the world the phrase describes. Philosopher of language J.L. Austin called those sorts of expressions performative utterances. This kind of language confirms that data collection, surveillance and abuse are inevitable so that people feel like they have no choice

Cultural institutions have a role to play here, too. Narratives reinforcing the idea of data collection as being inevitable come not only from tech companies’ PR machines but also mass media and entertainment, including journalists. The regular cadence of stories about the federal government accessing personal data, with no mention of recourse or justice, contributes to the sense of helplessness.

Alternatively, it’s possible to tell stories that highlight the alarming growth of digital surveillance and frame data governance practices as controversial and political rather than innocuous and technocratic. The way stories are told affects people’s capacity to act on the information that the stories convey. It shapes people’s expectations and demands of the world around them.

The ICE-Medicaid data-sharing agreement is hardly the last threat to data privacy. But the way people talk and feel about it can make it easier – or more difficult – to ignore data abuses the next time around.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why people don’t demand data privacy – even as governments and corporations collect more personal information – https://theconversation.com/why-people-dont-demand-data-privacy-even-as-governments-and-corporations-collect-more-personal-information-262197