Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of Alexa
Mainly, the scholarly debate on Alexa has focused on sexist/anti-woman gender representations in the everyday life of many families, on a cluster of themes such as privacy, insecurity, and trust, and on the world of education and health. This paper takes another stance and explores via online survey...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Communication and Social Robotics Labs
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Human-Machine Communication Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hmc/vol5/iss1/3/ |
| _version_ | 1797974491954937856 |
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| author | Leopoldina Fortunati Autumn Edwards Anna Maria Manganelli Chad Edwards Federico de Luca |
| author_facet | Leopoldina Fortunati Autumn Edwards Anna Maria Manganelli Chad Edwards Federico de Luca |
| author_sort | Leopoldina Fortunati |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Mainly, the scholarly debate on Alexa has focused on sexist/anti-woman gender representations in the everyday life of many families, on a cluster of themes such as privacy, insecurity, and trust, and on the world of education and health. This paper takes another stance and explores via online survey methodology how university student respondents in two countries (the United States, n = 333; and Italy, n = 322) perceive Alexa’s image and gender, what they expect from this voice-based assistant, and how they would like Alexa to be. Results of a free association exercise showed that Alexa’s image was scarcely embodied or explicitly gendered. Rather, Alexa was associated with a distinct category of being—the VBA, virtual assistant, or digital helper—with which one talks, and which possesses praiseworthy technical and social traits. Expectations of Alexa and desires regarding Alexa’s ideal performance are presented and compared across the two country samples. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T04:20:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-95cc1d9bef9f4d75aa71c421264fc57a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2638-602X 2638-6038 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T04:20:49Z |
| publishDate | 2022-12-01 |
| publisher | Communication and Social Robotics Labs |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Human-Machine Communication Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-95cc1d9bef9f4d75aa71c421264fc57a2022-12-30T16:59:07ZengCommunication and Social Robotics LabsHuman-Machine Communication Journal2638-602X2638-60382022-12-015759710.30658/hmc.5.3Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of AlexaLeopoldina Fortunati0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9691-6870Autumn Edwards1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5963-197XAnna Maria Manganelli2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2206-6655Chad Edwards3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1053-6349Federico de Luca4https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3644-2954University of Udine, ItalyWestern Michigan UniversityUniversity of Padova, ItalyWestern Michigan UniversityUniversity of Southampton, UKMainly, the scholarly debate on Alexa has focused on sexist/anti-woman gender representations in the everyday life of many families, on a cluster of themes such as privacy, insecurity, and trust, and on the world of education and health. This paper takes another stance and explores via online survey methodology how university student respondents in two countries (the United States, n = 333; and Italy, n = 322) perceive Alexa’s image and gender, what they expect from this voice-based assistant, and how they would like Alexa to be. Results of a free association exercise showed that Alexa’s image was scarcely embodied or explicitly gendered. Rather, Alexa was associated with a distinct category of being—the VBA, virtual assistant, or digital helper—with which one talks, and which possesses praiseworthy technical and social traits. Expectations of Alexa and desires regarding Alexa’s ideal performance are presented and compared across the two country samples.https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hmc/vol5/iss1/3/alexavoice-based assistantsocial representations of alexacross-cultural comparisonexpectationsdesires |
| spellingShingle | Leopoldina Fortunati Autumn Edwards Anna Maria Manganelli Chad Edwards Federico de Luca Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of Alexa Human-Machine Communication Journal alexa voice-based assistant social representations of alexa cross-cultural comparison expectations desires |
| title | Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of Alexa |
| title_full | Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of Alexa |
| title_fullStr | Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of Alexa |
| title_full_unstemmed | Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of Alexa |
| title_short | Do People Perceive Alexa as Gendered? A Cross-Cultural Study of People’s Perceptions, Expectations, and Desires of Alexa |
| title_sort | do people perceive alexa as gendered a cross cultural study of people s perceptions expectations and desires of alexa |
| topic | alexa voice-based assistant social representations of alexa cross-cultural comparison expectations desires |
| url | https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hmc/vol5/iss1/3/ |
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