Author(s)

Paul Dourish: Professor at the University of California, specializing in informatics and human-computer interaction.

Genevieve Bell: Researcher at Intel Corporation and cultural anthropologist, explores the intersection of culture and technology.

Research Location/Institution

University of California, Irvine and Intel’s Interaction and Experience Research laboratory

Country

Based in the USA

Draws on British and American science fiction traditions

Date

May 15, 2013

Writing Style

Academic, critical

Publication

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Volume 18

Context

• The authors argue that science fiction does not only anticipate the future but also shapes it by providing the prototypes and cultural frameworks through which new technologies are understood.
• The paper performs a comparative reading of five "indexical" TV shows (Dr Who, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Blake’s 7, and Hitchhiker’s Guide) to highlight themes implicit in research literature.
• Images of Bureaucracy: SF shows how technological futures are managed through administrative structures, ranging from Star Trek’s frontier individualism to the "faceless bureaucrats" in British SF.
• Technological Breakdown: While some shows present optimized futures, others (like Blake's 7) feature persistent, mundane failures, reminding researchers that real-world infrastructures require constant maintenance.
• Governance and the State: The paper critiques the absence of "the state" in ubicomp discourse, using the concept of the "Federation" in SF to illustrate how technology is always embedded in regimes of power and governance.
• Cultural and social questions are not secondary to design; they are inherent in the "imagining" that occurs before a technology is even built.

Possible Biases

The analysis is based on a specific and selective collection of British and American television series produced between 1963 and 1989

Terminology

Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp): A research agenda focused on responsive environments and embedded computation where technology is integrated into everyday life.

Collective Imagining: The shared process by which communities use narratives and design to envision alternative futures enabled by progress.

Technological Liberalism: The assumption that technology can erase geographical, political or ethnic boundaries, which the authors argue can be a form of cultural distortion.

Alterity: The state of being "other" or different; in SF, this is often defined by a culture's relationship to (or rejection of) technoscientific humanism.