_*PrivacyBooth*_ is an experimental method of research creation to learn more about the future of privacy, digital culture, and the networked society.
We propose a small installation in the form of a _speaker’s booth_ which invites participants to share/tell a one-minute story about privacy and/or their perceptions and negotiations with digital privacy policy. *Be Public About Privacy!*
_*PrivacyBooth*_ is a stable structure built with a wood frame and completely free-standing. A Bluetooth enhanced camera mounted inside the box records one-minute after a participant pushes a button onscreen. Research ethics and informed consent information, as well as prompts are located inside the booth. Participants may share multiple stories. The booth provides information about digital privacy policy literacy, including creative commons licenses (i.e., CC BY SA NC) and information about alternatives to current digital privacy practices. Detailed information about how digital files will be used is included in ethical protocols. _Ultimately we seek to understand how people perceive privacy and negotiate with digital policies._
This project experiments with mixed-methods, including user-driven qualitative strategies and digital storytelling methods. Any participant contributions in_*PrivacyBooth*_ may be included in research, education, and pedagogical initiatives. Logged video may be integrated with other digital stories (Gubrium 2009; Cunsolo et al. 2013) to explore the role policies play in digital practices and negotiations. Stories may also be taken up in pedagogical initiatives aimed at fostering critical awareness about issues including commodification, surveillance, and intellectual property.
Storytelling has a long history of use in communication studies, English, history, psychology, and across art forms (Knowles 2004; Margolis and Pauwels 2011; Bates 2013; Garner and Scott 2013), and are linked to such issues as social justice, well-being, civic engagement, and social acceptance. Further, Noyse (2004) demonstrates how the use of digital tools complement other methods. Following Noyse, our use of video and audio illustrates a strong degree of reflexivity—by making participants’ bodies audibly, visibly, and viscerally present.
All stories are housed on a project website and uploaded to a digital repository at the University of Guelph library. Participant stories are clearly marked for public consumption via a Creative Commons license and assessed for detailed content, discourse, and semiotic analysis. Sánchez-Navarro & Aranda (2012) researched how digital media-making functions as tools for sociability, leisure, and informal learning; further, the tools people use are instruments for social relationships (Antheunis et al., 2009), identity management (boyd, 2007, 2014; Valkenburg and Peter, 2011, 2013), and potentially engender digital divides (Notten et al., 2009). The research team plans to assess contributions to understand how people perceive privacy and negotiate with terms of use and other digital policies.
According to Montgomery (2015), social networks have given people “an illusion they can control their privacy”. No matter what people tell pollsters, many of us share a great deal of private information online. _*PrivacyBooth*_aims to contribute to Shade and Shepherd's (2013) call for a framework of digital policy literacy that counters and resists the “often–cynical attitude" people display towards the exploitation of their private lives.
