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THE LVN MIXTAPES: USING AUGMENTED AUDIOTAPES FOR STORY SHARING

Marc Exposito Gomez

B.Sc., La Salle - Ramon Llull University (2015)

Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences

at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 2019

Author Signature redacted

Program in Media Arts and Sciences August 2nd, 2019

Certified by Signature redacted

, Deb Roy Professor, Program in Media Arts and Sciences

Accepted by Signature redacted

MASSACHU~SJTTS INSTITUTE >TodMachover OF TKWLOG-- A emic Head, Program in Media Arts and Sciences OCT04O19

Ti LIBRARES

THE LVN MIXTAPES: USING AUGMENTED AUDIOTAPES FOR STORY SHARING

Marc Exposito Gomez

Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, on August, 2nd, 2019 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences

Abstract

In the course of this thesis, I present a novel listening medium aimed to increase the awareness of the local community through story dissemination. Supported by the growing collection of recorded conversations from the Local Voices Network (LVN), I propose to use augmented audiotapes and the culture of mixtapes to physically embody the stories and views of the community. The use of cassettes provides a medium for self-reflection, generates curiosity for exploration, and ultimately enables face-to-face interactions and social sharing. This thesis describes the process of designing, building, and experimenting with this participatory media. While a more extensive study is needed to draw firm conclusions, a first pilot suggests that this design can effectively deviate people's activities for a brief period of time in order to explore these stories. This work ultimately aspires to create a platform to bring under-heard community voices to the mass population effectively, and consequently improve today's public dialogue.

Thesis Advisor

Deb Roy Professor, Program in Media Arts and Sciences

THE LVN MIXTAPES: USING AUGMENTED AUDIOTAPES FOR STORY SHARING

Marc Exposito Gomez

This thesis has been reviewed and approved by the following committee member

Joichi Ito Signature redacted

Director, MIT Media Lab Professor of the Practice, Media Arts and Sciences MIT Media Lab

THE LVN MIXTAPES: USING AUGMENTED AUDIOTAPES FOR STORY SHARING

Marc Exposito Gomez

This thesis has been reviewed and approved by the following connittee member

1/ 1 ~ Signature redacted

Katherine Cramer

Natalie C. Holton Chair of Letters & Science Professor of Political Science University of Wisconsin-Madison

Acknowledgements

THANK YOU. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude towards my advisor, Deb Roy. Thank you, Deb, for the confidence placed on me and pushing me to give my best. I admire you, respect you, and I hope I can continue learning from you.

I want to thank my readers, Joi Ito and Kathy Cramer. They have been an excellent source of knowledge and discussions about democracy, public dialogue, and story sharing. I am fortunate to have you as my readers.

I am incredibly grateful to be part of a research group such as the Laboratory for Social Machines. Particularly, I would like to thank the following people: Andrew Heyward, Ann Yuan, Anneli Hersh- man, Belen Saldias, Bridgit Mendler, David McClure, Heather Pierce, Juliana Nazar6, Keyla Gomez, Maggie Hughes, Martin Saveski, Naz- mus Saquib, Peter Beshai, Prashanth Vijayaraghavan, Russell Stevens, and Sneha Priscilla.

Thank you Nabeel Gillani and Eric Chu. As the quote says, "Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them". I am looking forward to start working on new projects with you again, and drop them a few weeks later. Thank you Lauren Fratamico, Shayne O'Brien, and Tom~s Vega for your friendship and support.

Thank you Ivan Fernandez, Maitane Iruretagoyena, Xavier Benavides, and Jose Ramos. I consider you my family.

I am happy to report that I still have hair as I write these lines. This would not have been possible without the support and love of my partner, Vicky Zeamer. You inspire me and challenge me. Thank you for dealing with me throughout this process, and I am looking forward to our next adventures. Finally, this work is dedicated to my parents, Felix Exp6sito and Julia G6mez. Qui hauria dit que un noi de la Barceloneta acabaria al MIT? Tot el que s6c 6s grAcies a vosaltres. Us estimo. Contents

Today's Public Dialogue 15

The Needs And Complexities Of Being Heard 18

Bursting The Digital Information Bubble 20

Giving Voice to Stories And Under-Heard Communities 20

Disrupting The Public Space Through ParticipatoryMedia 22

The Power Of Audio As A Communication Channel For Storytelling 23

Reflecting On The Need For A Locally-Grounded Listening Medium 24

The Local Voices Network Mixtapes 27 Navigating Stories Through The Mixtape Creation Tool 27

Augmenting PhysicalAudiotapes 32 Designing A Locally-Anchored Cassette Player 33

Evaluation 42 Observationson the Mixtape Creation Tool 43 Observationson the LVN Cassette Player 44 Observationson the Shareability of the Cassettes 45

Discussion 46

Future Work 49 Bibliography 51 "COURAGE is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." WINSTON CHURCHILL IN THE COURSE OF THIS THESIS, I present a novel listening medium aimed to increase the awareness of the local community through story dissemination. Supported by the growing collection of recorded conversations from the Local Voices Network (LVN), I propose to use augmented audiotapes and the culture of mixtapes to physically embody the stories and views of the community. The use of cassettes provides a medium for self-reflection, generates curiosity for exploration, and ultimately enables face-to-face interactions and social sharing. This thesis describes the process of designing, building, and experimenting with this participatory media. While a more extensive study is needed to draw firm conclusions, a first pilot suggests that this design can effectively deviate people's activities for a brief period in order to explore these stories. This work ultimately aspires to create a platform to bring under-heard community voices to the mass population effectively, and consequently improve today's public dialogue.

Organization Of This Thesis

I start by discussing today's public dialogue and the needs and complexities of being heard. I will then present background work on social science, participatory media, and recording and dissemination of stories. Next, I will talk about the Local Voices Network (LVN) and its mission to record under-heard community voices through in- person group conversations. Then, I will explain the need to connect those voices to the mass population through physical means. Follow- ing, I will describe the design and fabrication of the LVN Mixtapes; a novel listening medium that uses augmented audiotapes for story dissemination. After that, I will evaluate the system and discuss the results and observations. Lastly, in the future work section, I suggest improvements and new exciting directions to evolve the work. Today's Public Dialogue

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE INTERNET, beyond its military use, promised a future where information can be quickly published, accessible, and organized. While these promises today are a reality, this was not always the case. In the early 90s, after the invention of the World Wide Web, the entry barrier to disseminating content on the Internet was somewhat high. A person who wished to publish content on the Internet needed to have the specific knowledge to create a website. Consequently, the stakeholders at the time were few and rather specialized; mainly digital newspapers and web portals. This paradigm, however, starting shifting in the early 2000S with the rise of Web 2.0. This web emphasized the participatory culture and supported, with ease of use tools, user-generated content. For the first time, the public dialogue also happened in the digital domain. This ease-of-use tools, mainly driven by web blogs, enabled users to generate and easily share stories of their day-to-day, ideological views, and even how-to tutorials. This democratization led to the creation of the first digital communities and the social web. These breath-living communities were generating and consuming content, as well as supporting each other; creating their digital ecosystem. These digital communities peaked with the creation of social networking platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, and easy access to the Internet through the evolution of smartphones. These platforms allowed users to publish multimedia content and quickly share it with their network. This low-entry barrier to social networking enabled the growth of users that quickly shaped according to the norms of the network. Facebook, for example, followed the Friend principle to create its network. These social structures imply that the stories and views shared by its users are kept private to external users. Other social networks, like Twitter or Instagram, became the opened-channels to spread ideas and opinions, as well as following personalities and lifestyles. Ultimately, the nature of these networks facilitates the construction of social groups with people that share similar interests. In some cases, these groups lead to ho- 16 THE LVN MIXTAPES

mophily', which has both positive and negative consequences. While 'Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, homophily helps encourage the formation of opinions, it can cre- and James M Cook. Birds of a feather: Homophily 2 in social networks. Annual ate - in extreme cases - echo chambers ; where users from the same review of sociology, 27(1):415-444, 2001 community exclusively interact with one another. 2 Nabeel Gillani, Ann Yuan, Martin Saveski, Soroush Vosoughi, and Deb Roy. Me, my echo chamber, and i: Intro- Media outlets also play a critical role in today's public dialogue. His- spection on social media polarization. In Proceedingsof the 2018 World Wide Web torically, traditional media outlets, such as newspapers and radio/tv Conference, pages 823-831. International channels, were the only source for citizens to consume information. World Wide Web Conferences Steering Ideally, these professional outlets provide a global, objective, and Committee, 2018 unbiased view of a matter. The reality, however, is different. As the world becomes more global and connected, the media is less global 3 by the day . Additionally, these outlets also tend to fall into specific 3 Ethan Zuckerman. Rewire: Digital buckets, most of the time based on political alignment, which con- cosmopolitans in the age of connection. WW Norton New York, NY, 2013 sequently generates a supporting fan base (tribe) that shares their content. The ideological divide, both supported by traditional media outlets as well as social networks, ultimately results in communication bubbles and segregation. Every person consumes and generates content through specific channels and following the social rules from their group. As a result, multiple people express their views through many different lenses. This diversity, for the public dialogue, is functional. It helps people to understand a matter broadly and form their own opinion. The problem, however, is when the quantity of this information is such that it becomes noise. While everyone can share their views, only a few have the support base (or fan base) to be heard. Moreover, those that are being heard might not be disseminating high-quality content. The anonymity and immediacy on social networks, in collaboration with non-digital outlets, facilitate the spread 4 of false news and hateful messages . It is difficult, then, to hear the 4 Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan truth, authentic, under-heard voices. Altogether, the health of the Aral. The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(638):1146-1151, conversation in today's world is toxic. This toxicity also translates in 2018 the non-digital world. In the US, the divide between ideologically- different citizens has increased over time. The political and cultural divisions that were shown between the democrats and the republics during the2016 presidential election are a great example. While the political disagreement is expected in these situations, the polarization shown by the politicians and their supporters resulted in the inability to establish a dialogue between the parties. There is a consensus among US citizens that the media and social networks had a critical role in this. Given this situation, professional journalists seem to be the last hope to cover all sides of a matter and bring ground truth to the public dialogue. However, research conducted on the2016 presidential election data from Twitter shows this is difficult. Most of the verified journalists in this network were exclusively following TODAY'S PUBLIC DIALOGUE 17

- which can be understood as covering - one particular presidential candidate. How can citizens have a non-biased, authentic source of information if traditional media outlets are only giving voice to a particular set of the population? This situation inevitably results in (i) people can not have a deep and diverse understanding of an issue; and (2) the unsuccessful voices trying to be heard might feel frustrated, lose hope, and seek a change.

Today's public dialogue demands a change; a new channel that fosters the listening of diverse stories as a means to a healthier public sphere. Something that is not susceptible to be destroyed by the power of social networks or media outlets. A solution that, rather than substituting current media, complements it both physically and digitally; before it is too late. The Needs And Complexities Of Being Heard

HUMAN BEINGSare social animals by nature. We need to be in the company of other humans and share our lives with them. If we were to scan a human brain through the use of a Magnetic Resonance Im- ager (MRI), we could identify nine different modules at the neocortex layer. One of those, the communication module, enables humans to socialize with other creatures through communication. Rollo May, an American psychologist, once said: "communication leads to community, that is to understanding and mutual valuing". Communication happens in two ways; a sender transmits a message to a receiver, who eventually transmits a response back. This principle, which seems to be easy to satisfy, is rather tricky in today's world. The notion of response is essential. A response implies the listening and analysis of the message and the subsequent delivery of an answer. The Paradoxof Choice5, a book written by American psychol- 5 Barry Schwartz. The paradox of choice: ogist Barry Schwartz, might give us a clue as to why it is harder to Why more is less. Ecco New York, 2004 feel heard or hear someone's voice. Schwartz argues that the more choices users have, the less attention people pay to them. The more is less principle can be extrapolated to our domain. The overwhelming amount of stories and views that humans receive from traditional media outlets and digital networks result in indifference. There is so much information that it becomes noise, and this poses a problem. There is strong evidence that hearing and being heard positively impacts the attitude towards members of groups with ideological conflict. In a controlled study6 , Mexican immigrants and White 6 Emile G Bruneau and Rebecca Saxe. Americans had an exchange face-to-face about the difficulties of life The power of being heard: The benefits of perspective-giving in the context in their society. In this experiment, Mexican immigrants shared their of intergroup conflict. Journal of stories ('perspective-giving') while White Americans tried to take experimental social psychology, 48(4): notes ('perspective-taking') accurately. Similarly, another controlled 855-866,2012 experiment had both people write an essay on the same topic without interacting with each other. Those who participated in the first experiment had a greater positive attitude towards the other, while the second group did not show any effect on attitude. In particular, 'perspective-taking' was most effective for members of dominant THE NEEDS AND COMPLEXITIES OF BEING HEARD 19

groups while 'perspective-giving' proved to be more effective for members of non-dominant groups.

While digital inventions have created new opportunities for communication, they have also built barriers in the digital as well as the physical world. The day-to-day interactions of users in digital communities shape their reality perception. These communities tend to be self-reinforcing groups with people that share similar interests and political views. This behavior can eventually lead to the formation of echo chambers and information bubbles, which limit the exposure to diverse views. This unintended consequence is sometimes unknown to users. Participants might not have the tools to self-reflect in their digital habits, neither the ability to identify polarization in their community. Curiosity, however, is essential to remove these barriers. This curiosity, or someone's internal state of uncertainty about a subject, can also engage exploratory behaviors that can lead 7 to learning . This desire to know more might help to burst their 7 Daniel E Berlyne. Curiosity and information bubble and learn different views from new and diverse learning. Motivation and emotion, 2(2): 97-175,1978 users. A naive approach to be connected with ideologically-different people is to establish conversations with the citizens in the physical communities. If digital spaces have increased the communication gap amongst users, can physical spaces reduce it? The urban space can heavily influence the dynamics of its habitants; its design can bring people together or push them apart. Alex Pentland urges to go outside "to rescue democracy" 8 . He argues that, while the physical 1 Alex Pentland. To rescue democracy, world is becoming increasingly segregated, it can also offer a solution. go outside. Available at http: // nautil.us/issue/41/selection/ The face-to-face interactions shape ideas and reduce political frag- to-rescue-democracy-go-outside mentation better than digital media. Pentland states that a productive (2019/07/10), Oct 2016 community dialogue can emerge by fostering mixed populations through the improvement of, for example, transportation services into and out of the neighborhoods. Public spaces, such as shopping centers, offer dispersed suburban populations "crystallization points 9 for suburbia's community life" . These spaces, which mix commerce 9 Lizabeth Cohen. A consumers' repub- with civic activity, fill a void in the day-to-day interactions of the lic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar america. Journal of Consumer community'. While these physical spaces might help diverse people Research, 31(1):236-239, 2004 co-live together, the presence of smartphones seems to isolate them. 10Victor Gruen. Introverted Architecture. Sherry Turkle, author of the book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power 1957 of Talk in a Digital Age, says: "what phones do to in-person conversation is a problem. Studies show that the mere presence of a phone on the table (even a phone turned off) changes the topics of the conversation. If we think we might be interrupted, we keep conversations light, on topics of little controversy or consequence. (...) Even a silent phone disconnects us"". Turkle also emphasizes the need for listen- "Sherry Turkle. Reclaiming conversation: ing: "here is another way to think about conversation, one that is less The power of talk in a digital age. Penguin, 2016 20 THE LVN MIXTAPES

about information and more about creating a space to be explored. You are interested in hearing about how another person approaches things. In this kind of conversation - I think of it as 'whole person conversation' - if things go quiet for a while you look deeper, you don't look away or text a friend".

Bursting The Digital Information Bubble

Several attempts have tried to raise awareness and provide some truth to a user's digital information bubble. Politecho2 , a Google 2 Sunny He et al. Politecho. Available at Chrome extension for Facebook, helps determine political bias gen- http://politecho.org(2019/07/10) erated by the news feed and friends on this network. Similarly, Read Across the Aisle3 visualizes the diversity of news sources a user con- ' BeeLine Reader. Read across sumes a day and invites participants to have a peek outside their theaisle. Available at http:// readacrosstheaisle.com (2019/07/10) information bubble. Other tools try to directly intervene in the digital network's timeline to provide different views and stories. Flipfeed, a Google Chrome extension for Twitter, replaces users' social media feeds with those belonging to users who hold different political views. Martin Saveski states that "putting one's self in the shoes of an outgroup member can reduce feelings of animosity towards that group"14 . The researchers hope this will result in the reduction of 14 Martin Saveski et al. Perspective- affective polarization on social media. taking to reduce affective polarization on social media. Working paper, 2019

Figure 1: Read Across The Aisle is a 01:32:01 Google Chrome extension that shows the cumulative political orientation of Aggregate bias a user's reading history. Credit: Read Across The Aisle Top viewed sites: Top sites

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Giving Voice to Stories And Under-HeardCommunities

Many stories are not heard because there is no one to listen to them. These authentic, locally-grounded perspectives are essential to the understanding of a community - at a small scale - and the nation - THE NEEDS AND COMPLEXITIES OF BEING HEARD 21

at a large scale. Some of these under-heard voices come from rural areas, where neither journalists or the media have access (or interest) to cover. Through the act of listening, Katherine J. Cramer discovers how rural communities in Wisconsin feel resentment toward the 5 big cities1 . Her semi-structured listening method, which consisted 15Katherine J Cramer. The politics of recurring meetings with local groups of people in their habitat, ofresentment: Rural consciousness in Wisconsin andthe rise of Scot Walker. focused on giving voice to those people and let the conversation University of Chicago Press, 2016 go where they would. These conversations uncovered a range of stories and perspectives that otherwise would not be public. These stories ultimately contribute to the understanding of the politics and communities in the US. Another initiative, the Local Voices Network, leverages this listening method and proposes to carry voice-recorded, small-group, in-person discussions led by conversation hosts 6 . 16 Cortico. The local voices net- This system, developed by the non-profit Cortico, aims to bring work. Available at https://lvn.org/ (2019/07/10) under-heard community voices to the center of a healthier public dialogue. Ultimately, these recorded conversations will be amplified by partnering with relevant stakeholders that wish to tune into the concerns of the community. Another independently funded organization, StoryCorps, aims to preserve and share humanity's stories through the recording of 40-minutes interviews with a friend 7 or a loved one1 . These conversations, which are also driven by 1 David Isay. Listening is an act of love: a StoryCorps facilitator, are held inside StoryBooths, small and A celebration of American lifefrom the StoryCorps Project. Penguin, 2007 publicly accessible recording studios located in public spaces, and MobileBooths, on-the-wheels recording booths that travel across the country. While every recording has a total length of approximately forty minutes, they only publish - and promote - short clips and 8 highlights. Finally, the Rising Voices18 initiative provides tools and 1 Global Voices. Rising voices. Available mentorship to local underrepresented communities that want to tell at https://rising.globalvoices.org/ (2019/07/10) their own digital story using participatory media tools.

Figure 2: Left: A Local Voices Network conversation; Right: A StoryCorps recording. Credit: The Local Voices Network; StoryCorps 22 THE LVN MIXTAPES

Disrupting The Public Space Through ParticipatoryMedia

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Figure 3: Top-left: The Truth Booth; Top-right: HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS; Bottom-left: Podcast But Outside; The public space has been the scenario of multiple intents to listen Bottom-right: You Are Here Network. - and hear - the voices of their communities through participatory media. The AgoraPhone'9 , a project developed at the MIT Media Lab, '9Kelly Elizabeth Dobson. AgoraPhone. places a communication sculpture (a periscope-ear-speaker shaped) PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002 that combines private and public social mores. AgoraPhone allows people to call from any phone to the sculpture and engage with the citizens in the community. This provocative computer-mediated communication can gather crowds around the sculpture and establish a multiple-people communication with the caller. This project, however, always requires the presence of the caller and the receiver. The 2 0 Truth Booth is a touring, portable, and inflatable installation that 2 Cause Collective. The truth serves to compile 2 minutes long video responses from the public. booth. Available at http:// insearchofthetruth. net (2019/07/10) This giant cartoon speech bubble with the word 'TRUTH' printed on the side, prompts the following question: "Everyone has their version of The Truth. What is yours?". This participatory installation has already compiled hundreds of videos with participants from THE NEEDS AND COMPLEXITIES OF BEING HEARD 23

all over the world, sharing their version of the truth. These videos are then shared on their website as well as the Youtube platform. A more provocative artwork, HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS, led by the actor Shia LaBeouf, mounts a camera on a public wall and gathers people around it to repeat the phrase as many times, and for as long as they wish 21. This artwork response to the election of the 4 5 th President 1 Tom Drayton. A silent shout: Meta- of the United States. While this project does not directly prompt new modern forms of activism in contemporary performance. 2019 stories, its visual effect reflects the feelings of a group of the population through physical and digital means. A different participatory experiment, which also mixes physical and digital elements, brings podcasts to the streets and pays participants $i to share their story This podcast, named Podcast But Outside 2, sets a foldable table with "Podcast But Outside. Pod- They cast butoutside. Available microphones in the street and invites pedestrians to participate. athttps://www.youtube.comh/ record both in audio and video, and the recordings are published on channel/UCYLvpRntVg6N-bBljSy2-Jw Youtube. Asof July 2019, the one-year-old Youtube channel has more (2019/07/10) than 14 k followers. Another participatory platform, this time for writ- ers and readers, places vending machine-like devices that dispense short stories for free inside public buildings. This on-the-go medium allows busy citizens to continue with their day as they consume a written story on a small printed paper. Finally, the YOU ARE HERE 23 project is an experimental journalism-distribution network that 23 Tow Center for Digital Journalism. ttp: plays location-specific audio pieces through the use of mobile phones. You arehere network. Available //youarehere.network!(2019/07/10) This project, in the form of a website, uses the wifi networks to geo- locate the user and suggest high-quality audio pieces that reflect the unique culture and history of the people, politics, and communities of the geographic area.

The Power Of Audio As A Communication Channel For Storytelling

Humans have been telling stories since the cave paintings appeared 35,ooo years ago. The society, as we know it today, could not have existed without their influence in past generations. These stories have been communicated over the years through different means as humanity and technology advances. From the visual paintings in the caves, the invention of writing, live performing, photography and videography, the radio, to the newest 3 D mediums such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR); the channels that humans choose to communicate stories change24 . Amongst all 4Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore. these channels, the simple yet powerful use of audio stands out as The medium isthe message. New York, 123:126-128, 1967 an efficient channel for storytelling. Audio narratives, as compared to others, do not require visual support. These narratives stimulate an area of the brain called the Insula that it mentally recreates the moment as if it was experiencing the event. A study conducted by communications professor Emma Rodero, showed audio productions 24 THE LVN MIXTAPES

with voice actors stimulate listeners' imagination more than a typical 25 "voice of God" narration . This means personal stories told by a 25 Emma Rodero. Stimulating the character helps listeners to empathize with it. Rodero continues: imagination in a radio story: The role of presentation structure and the degree "Audio is one of the most intimate forms of media because you are of involvement of the listener. Journal of constantly building your own images of the story in your mind Radio & Audio Media, 19(1):45-6o, 2012 and you're creating your own production (...) And that of course, is something that you can never get with visual media". The exclusive use of audio to communicate narratives seems to be on the rise with the democratization and popularity of audiobooks and podcasts. This popularity might be the result of a fast-paced society. People can passively listen to stories while they walk in the street, wait for the bus, or use the elevator. This multitasking, hower, does not always result in the proper communication of the story. Clifford Nass, a former psychology professor at Stanford University, states that "today's nonstop multitasking actually wastes more time than it saves (...) and might be having a negative effect on our concentration and 6 creativity"26. The power of audio as a communication channel for 2 Eyal Ophir et al. Cognitive control storytelling, then, happens when humans fully focus on the piece in media multitaskers. Proceedingsof theNationalAcademy of Sciences, 106.37: and empathize with the character. 15583-15587,2009

In parallel, the digitalization of audios is fueling the interest to return to older audio formats; especially the vinyl and audiotapes 27 . In 27 Dmitry Bogdanov and Xavier Serra. fact, UK cassette sales are at their highest levels for more than a Quantifying music trends and facts using editorial metadata from the decade. By the end of 2019, it's predicted 75,ooo tapes will be sold discogs database. In ISMIR, pages 89-95, only in that country28. Beyond their sound quality and the nostalgia, 2017 music aficionados are looking to own a physical embodiment of the 1Wired. The unlikely cassette comeback isn't over yet: sales are up in2019. piece. Cassettes, in particular, enable a sharing culture and promotes Available at https://www.wired.co. socialization through the tapes. The maximum exponent of this uk/article/cassette-comeback-sales (2019/07/10) culture is the creation of mixtapes 29; a compilation of audio tracks - 29 Marshall Thomas. The art behind the typically from multiple sources - recorded onto an audio cassette by tape. Marshall Thomas Axiom Blue Corp, a single person. These mixtapes represent self-expression from the 2014; Thurston Moore. Mix tape: The art of cassette culture. Universe Pub., 2004; creator, and they serve, when given to a listener, as a "gift that took and Marc Hogan. This is not a mixtape. thought, time, and intimate knowledge". They ultimately become PitchforkMedia. com, 22, 2010 pieces of art that foster face-to-face interactions and tell a story. These mixtapes can be about anything: from a summer celebration compilation to the best music for driving.

Reflecting On The Need For A Locally-Grounded Listening Medium

Our views of the world inform today's socio-political decisions. If these views merely provide from a subset of stories presented by biased communication channels, these decisions will inevitably be poorly made; and this has consequences. The gap between citizens keeps actively increasing by the lack of awareness in our communi- THE NEEDS AND COMPLEXITIES OF BEING HEARD 25

ties as well as the toxicity in the public dialogue. There is a need to speak, but also be heard. The digital communication channels, especially social networks, seem only to be useful for perspective-giving. While this medium technically gives voice to every user, only a few stakeholders are being heard; the rest of the voices get lost in the way. On the other hand, the ability to interact and establish a conversation with other people in the physical world seems to be a difficult task. Yes, we do interact with members of our community. However, do we get to have meaningful conversations with them genuinely? More- over, if the answer is still yes, are these people part of our network? How much exposure do we have to people and views that are not part of our day-to-day lives? The opportunity exists right outside our doors. Instead, we prefer to avoid these conversations and believe we are aware of our communities through the media we consume. There are intents to have citizen discussions in our cities and towns. While these discussions have an impact on the attendees, they do not scale. The meaningful ideas and exchanges that happen within four walls never get to reach other members of society. Thus, it does not matter how many people speak if no one is listening.

Cortico, a non-profit spinoff of the MIT Media Lab, is currently bringing community-oriented discussions to the next level. Their most significant effort to date, the Local Voices Network (LVN), aims to surface diverse stories and perspectives through small, in-person group conversations. This initiative, which plans to be present in every US community in the future, records the full conversation and uses artificial intelligence and media analytics to identify compelling stories. This effort, so far, has focused on perspective-given. Part of my work as a research assistant at the Laboratory for Social Machines is to ideate new tools that improve the health of the discourse in the public sphere. I believe that the growing collection of stories offers new and exciting opportunities for novel listening mediums; this means connecting these voices to the mass population. As necessary it is to identify citizens that are willing to speak out about their communities, as important it is to create opportunities for others to listen to these voices.

In this thesis, I explore the design space for a listening medium, grounded in the physical world, that aims to bring the LVN stories to the public. These recorded stories offer a delayed - or asynchronous - platform for listeners to explore local and non-local community voices. I am particularly interested in the intersection of physical and digital elements that can co-exist to support this listening effort. This participatory media project proposes to use augmented audiotapes 26 THE LVN MIXTAPES

and the culture of mixtapes to physically embody the stories and views of the community. The use of cassettes provides a medium for self-reflection, generates curiosity for exploration, and ultimately enables face-to-face interactions and social sharing. Some of the questions this work aims to answer are:

1. How can a listening experience grounded in the physical world raise awareness of the community through story dissemination?

2. How can LVN collaborators and listeners easily navigate through the growing collection of stories from the Local Voices Network? __ -4

The Local Voices Network Mixtapes

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IN TODAY'S WORLD, we have delegated communication means to the of the audio media that we consume circulates via digital mouth; most TRANSPORTATION the Internet. While the immediacy of this channel presents benefits for the listener, it also has unintended consequences that we might not fully understand yet. A consequence of this immediacy is the inability to self-reflect before listening to a story for the first time. This self-reflection process is essential to develop an opinion and increase VIOLENCE IN' self-awareness of the subject. The communication through physical means, however, provides enough friction to slow things down. It creates a necessary delay, especially in difficult conversations, to effectively think and empathize with the story. How can the physical and the digital positively co-exist in the design of a listening medium? WNDRUG ADDICTION

For this project, I am interested in the interplay of these two elements as a means to bring community-oriented voices to the mass popula- . tion. My idea is to create and evaluate augmented audiotapes as a medium, in the form of cassette mixtapes, to promote the listening of these stories. Supported by the growing collection of conversations from the Local Voices Network (LVN), I propose to digitally assign stories to the physical cassette. I believe this blend of physical with digital will (i) provide self-reflection before listening to the story, (2) generate intrigue to explore its content, and (3) enable r ~RF DABLE face-to-face interactions through social sharing. In particular, I want to use the culture of mixtapes to draw connections between stories and incentive listeners to participate. Accordingly, I designed and built a (i) mixtape creation tool, (2) augmented audiotapes, and (3) a locally-anchored cassette player. LVNLIFE IN BELMONT

Navigating Stories Through The Mixtape Creation Tool

Initially, a mixtape is a "compilation of favorites pieces of music, typically from multiple sources, recorded onto cassette tapes by Figure 4: A collection of the Local an individual". This project draws inspiration from this definition Voices Network Mixtapes. 28 THE LVN MIXTAPES

and describes mixtape as a compilation of stories, typically from different group conversations, assigned onto cassette tapes by an LVN collaborator. The compilation of stories onto one unit brings structure to unorganized - or unconnected - ideas. These stories, for this project, have origin in the conversations recorded by the Local Voices Network. Specifically, I use sixty-eight (68) conversations from Madison, WI, and Cambridge, MA. These hour-long conversations discuss topics from politics to life in the community Ultimately, these conversations give an intimate view of citizens' day-to-day lives; their concerns, hopes, and wishes.

LVN Highlights

There is an important work done by the content curators of the Local Voices Network to manually identify relevant and short stories within the hour-long conversations. These short snippets (~ 1-3 minutes length) called highlights are thought to be shared with external audiences through digital means, usually in the form of web embeddings. For instance, The Cap Times, a local newspaper published in Madison, WI, is currently using these highlights to generate new articles for their website. This is a highlight from a conversation hosted in Madison, WI:

"(...) and how like I don't go out often, but the last time I went out I just experienced just like this very violent atmosphere. There was this group of us, we're all black, we just walked in, but then within five seconds, security guard came in and was like, "You all need to get out right now." Like he just like physically grabbed us and pushed us out. We're all just like, "Oh, don't touch me." Jerking back because like you just don't put your hands on somebody you don't know, I don't care if you're a security guard. And just seeing like everyone just looking at us like we were like criminals, like we did something wrong (...)"

These self-contained and curated narratives are the perfect unit to tune into the communities. They are short enough that listeners do not lose focus along with the story. For this project, these highlights provide an excellent unit to generate mixtapes. The growing collection of highlights, however, poses a problem. How can LVN collaborators navigate the vast number of highlights, a total of seven hundred and thirteen (713) for this project, easily and efficiently? How can they draw connections between voices to create a mixtape?

Currently, the created highlights are internally published and accessible in a chronological feed. These stories, however, do not necessarily - or inherently - need to be presented in this way. Thus, I decided THE LOCAL VOICES NETWORK MIXTAPES 29

to design an experience that facilitates the exploration of highlights, encourages the connection of ideas, and enables the creation of audio mixtapes.

Highlights Figure 5: LVN's chronological feed of highlights. Users can follow the transcripts as they listen to the stories. All Highlights My Highlights Hearth Highlights *My Favorites Credit: The Local Voices Network

Showing 1-10 of 883 highlights

and I'll just go into my concerns for my community... 212 4 COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT -

Nasitta Keitae Heather talking about people in her neighborhood overemphasizing the perceived race of a potential criminal instead of the crime itself

SHeather and I'll just go into my concerns for my community is more somewhat personal in thatit's, there's no diversity at all. It's like the whitest town, the whole area, the whole north shore area. So it's not just my one town. And I worry. I do have the privilege of coming to Cambridge and working with everybody from all walks of lfe. I worry that my children won't have that opportunity and that they will grow up in a bubble, that's not what reality is. So that's a concern, and we recently had a situation, so again, in a small town, but like, reversed race

From Boston, MA 158 rostea by Parisa Parsa on jLu 28 2019 a 2.46 :m

k Play # Share Go to Conversation

Honestly, my concern is segregation and I feel like since... 1:07 4A COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT -

Nasit Keita -, (, qc Segregation In Madison

Steve: Honestly, my concern is segregation and I feel like since I've been living in Madison, I've lived in fourteen places that I can think of. The first apartment I livedIn, everyone that I could see In close proximity was white guys. And [inaudible] black guy that lived two hours away and everyone else is white. [inaudible] they're comfortable with me next door, but otherwise everyone was white. And you know, you look at our neighbors and near neighbors and

Visualizing All Highlights in the Mixtape Creation Tool

The mixtape creation tool is an interactive website that visualizes all audio highlights in a two-dimensional plot. Every individual highlight is represented by a circle that is colored based on the origin of the recording. For this project, there are seven hundred and two (702) highlights from Madison, WI (blue color) and eleven (ii) highlights from Boston, MA (green color). This data, which contains the audio file as well as the transcript for each highlight, was previously downloaded using the LVN API. In this visualization, the *>-1

30 THE LVN MIXTAPES

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Figure 6: Visualization of highlights on the Mixtape Creation Tool. distribution of the highlights is based on the text similarities of the transcripts. The closer two highlights (circles) are, the more textual similarities they have in common. Ideally, this approach would create clusters (groups) that are easily identifiable through human observation. For example, an isolated group of circles might refer to stories about racism or school. The reality, however, is that these stories do not exclusively fit into one bucket. Instead, these stories are somehow connected, and it is reflected in the visualization. These clusters are also attractive because they can connect similar stories from different origins. For instance, a user might discover a story from Boston similar to another story from Madison. While more data 0NancenyDudgeon-Monroe, Madison WI is needed to create better clusters, it is the first step towards this tool. I think my biggest concern would be there is a growing divide between people of color and white In order to find similarities between these highlights, the raw text people inthiscity becauseononehandthereare from the transcripts had to be converted into a mathematical repre- sentation that enables arithmetic operations. In this case, I used a Add to Playlist Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) to create a multi-dimensional vector for every transcript. This algorithm assigns Figure 7: A floating window with the audio and transcript appears when the a weight (statistical measure) to every word on the document based user hovers a circle (highlight). on its importance. This multi-dimensional vector can be reduced to THE LOCAL VOICES NETWORK MIXTAPES 31

only two components using a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA is a statistical procedure that uses an orthogonal transformation to reduce the dimensionality of a data set. This reduction to two components is needed to position the vector, represented with a circle, in the two-dimensional plot. The exploration of stories is also enhanced with the addition of a Google-like search box. This search box accepts input queries, such as "police and schools", and returns the top ten (io) most similar stories. This similarity is calculated using the cosine similarity, which returns a numeric value determining how similar the documents are irrespective of their size. Altogether provides a simple yet powerful tool to navigate the complete collection of audio highlights.

Finally, this tool supports the creation of mixtapes. The audio highlights (stories) can be added into a playlist as desired. In order to avoid the Paradox of Choice, the system limits this addition to three (3) stories per mixtape. Additionally, mixtapes can also contain a unique prompt (question) that the listening experience will use. This prompt is thought to be used after the playing of a story and aims to collect new voices (perspective-giving). Once a user creates a mixtape, it is assigned to a physical cassette through this tool. Internally, the system creates a JSON file containing the UID of the cassette, the title of the mixtape, the ids of the stories, and the unique prompt. This file is then stored in a MongoDB server and retrieved when a participant plays the cassette, as the following sections discuss.

Figure 8: Left: The search "kids and schools" results into a cluster of ten different audios; Right: Three audios and one prompt can be added to create a mixtape. 32 THE LVN MIXTAPES

Augmenting Physical Audiotapes

An audiotape, in this case, a cassette tape, is an analog recording format for audio recording and playback. In this project, I propose to augment the physicality of the cassette with the flexibility of the digital. These cassettes serve as an invitation to explore the stories of the Local Voices Network. They are, however, empty. There is not any analog audio recorded on the tapes. Instead, they incorporate a passive NFC tag that uniquely identifies the pieces and digitally play Ai.,' b the stories. As a result, these cassettes can only be read in a specific physical-digital player that will be thoroughly discussed in the next section. This low-cost augmentation (~ $1 per NFC tag), paired with the designed cassette player, provides the ability to create interactive experiences with the content. The emptiness of the cassette - or the inability to immediately play the audio in any traditional cassette player - aims to create enough friction to self-reflect on the story. If the mixtape is named "Racism in the community", the recipient of the cassette might think about the stories she or he might be listening to beforehand. These cassettes also serve as an access key to unlock the content. The cassette player is the door, and the tape is the key. This unique entry point can be helpful to provide some privacy to sensitive stories while still publicly promoting the Local Voices ut.. Network. I sometimes think about the musicians selling their CDs 0 in Times Square, NY. Could we have LVN collaborators giving away em U. __$ mixtapes in the street? It would be more exciting and appealing than a simple commercial flyer of the Local Voices Network.

The three outcomes of augmenting the cassettes are as follows:

1. Supporting comprehension. Listening does not always translate into understanding. Participants might have comprehension Figure 9: Process of augmenting an difficulties, speak a different language, or be hearing-impaired. audiotape with an RFID/NFC tag. The tag is then hidden under the LVN To this end, the audio will be supported with word-by-word cassette label. transcription.

2. Creating dynamic content. The content on a cassette tape might change over time as desired. For example, a mixtape named "Concerns in the Cambridge community" can play different stories as new concerns arise. This dynamism can incentivize participants to explore the cassettes periodically.

3. Extending stories. The cassette player can prompt the listener to give their perspective on a matter, adding a new story to the mixtape. THE LOCAL VOICES NETWORK MIXTAPES 33

Designing A Locally-Anchored Cassette Player

The augmented audiotapes serve as an invitation to use the cassette player. This physical device, which incorporates digital elements, aims to disrupt the physical space to bring community voices to the mass population. The holistic experience combines the mobility of the cassettes with the stillness of the player. I believe this creates an exciting dynamic similar to a breadcrumb trail. If we hand-off cassettes in the right setting, pedestrians will feel drag to find the device and play the mixtape. This section describes the design process and fabrication for this cassette player.

Hacking an Existing Cassette Player

I initially explored the idea of hacking an existing cassette player. I was drawn by the traditional aesthetics and internal mechanisms used to play tapes. This prototype envisioned a digital agent wel- coming the user, introducing the different stories, and prompting a question to collect new voices. I built the prototype by removing most of the internal components and installing: (1) Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ as the computer, (2) NFC reader, (3) small speaker as the audio input, (4) headphones as the audio output, and (5) push buttons as the interactive elements. The NFC reader, placed right below the insert, identified the cassette by its unique identifier. Then, the program retrieved the JSON file needed to download the audio stories and prompt for the mixtape. These audio files were hosted on an Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3 ), and participants could play them using the forward and back buttons. The record button was exclusively available after listening to a story, not before.

I first evaluated this experience during a Member's week event at the MIT Media Lab. I handed-off some mixtapes to visitors at the Laboratory for Social Machines and encouraged them to use the system. Participants showed interest in exploring the cassettes but had difficulties following the stories. The not so great quality of the recordings combined with the diversity of accents created a comprehension barrier in the listening experience. Participants were also open to sharing their stories but preferred the face-to- face interaction to do so. The presence of the digital voice much surprised participants and generated intrigued by how the system Figure 10: Early prototype of a cassette worked. Most of them were nostalgic about using this medium, player hacked with a Raspberry Pi and and some of them requested to bring a cassette home as a gift. The NFC reader. dimensions and position of the player did not bring enough attention to some visitors, who were captivated by other big screens in the 34 THE LVN MIXTAPES space. Finally, this prototype also required a WiFi network and constantly be plugged in to work correctly. Unfortunately, this was a critical point since I was interested in a standalone device that could be placed in semi-private and public spaces.

As Alan Kay once said, "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware". I believe it was needed to evolve the design and create a custom cassette player for this experience. This new device would improve audio comprehension and would draw the attention of people through its design.

Designing the LVN Cassette Player

I initially was inspired by Dieter Rams' work. Rams reflected on the importance of creating a piece that is honest, unobtrusive, and 3 innovative °. The Braun TP1, a 1959 portable record player, embod- 3' Dieter Rams. Ten principles for good ied these principles. However, what is the design principles for a design. bit. ly/QUk 4 gY, retrievedSept, 2012 listening medium?

The design of this project invites participation, supports sharing, and facilitates comprehension:

1. Inviting to Participate. The cassette player is thought to be used in semi-private and public spaces. How can pedestrians know they can interact with it? They need to feel invited and welcomed.

An early participant for the previous prototype said: "I did not Figure ii: Braun TP1 (1959), a portable know I could use the device because it seemed like someone record player. forgot it on the table". Thus, the position and direction of the system affect its perception. This prototype will be vertically anchored on a wall to show intention. The system also needs to give clues about its purpose. Headphones, for example, visually indicate the opportunity for listening. Finally, the device should strive for transparency. A traditional cassette player hides the tape internally while playing. Our device will expose the tape to generate curiosity and attract new participants.

2. Supporting Sharing. Whenever possible, listening experiences should also offer participants the opportunity to share new stories. However, it is not mandatory. This medium serves a listening-first experience, and we need to keep that in mind. Unfortunately, it is sometimes tempting, especially in the research field, to collect as much data as possible. Sharing is also embodied in the cassette tapes. They are playful elements that can be shared and moved around to invite new participants. THE LOCAL VOICES NETWORK MIXTAPES 35

3. Facilitating Comprehension. The diverse origin of stories, while fascinating and engaging, presents comprehension difficulties for some listeners. While there are many techniques to tackle this problem, our prototype will use a small display to provide syn- chronized transcriptions. However, the use of screens should not be overused; audio should remain at the core of the experience.

Beyond these design principles, the device should also provide a relative autonomy from an electrical outlet or a WiFi network. Altogether, it is a prototyping platform for new listening experiences.

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SLIDE A CASSETTE TO DISCOVER WHAT YOUR COMMUNITY IS SAYING 74 I

Figure 13: Final prototype for the LVN Cassette Player. THE LOCAL VOICES NETWORK MIXTAPES 37

Figure 14: The cassette player is designed to be placed vertically on a NB III wall. U

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Figure 16: The cassette player does not require a WiFi network or electrical ~II plug. IIU

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Figure 17: The location of the device can create serendipitous encounters for listening. THE LOCAL VOICES NETWORK MIXTAPES 39

Experience Walkthrough

The journey starts before using the device. The participant, who might have received the mixtape from a friend or an LVN collabo- SLIDE A CASSETTE TO DISCOVER rator, starts self-reflecting and exploring. This person might search WHAT YOUR COMMUNITY on the Internet what the Local Voices Network is, or even try to play IS SAYING ° ° - unsuccessfully - the audiotape at home. This friction is needed to generate curiosity, which will eventually lead to the use of the cassette player.

USETHE As the user finds the device, the screen welcomes the user by indi- HEADPHONES FOR BEST cating to slide the cassette into the insert. Similarly, a digital voice EXPERIENCE (digital host) introduces the experience as well. Once the device recognizes the cassette, the screen magically transitions to a loading screen. This screen is needed to download the audio stories, as discussed in the software implementation section. After this screen, Story #1: Dd Story#2:Laure Play Play the mixtape menu screen shows up with three different stories and the opportunity to share a new one. The author names labels the Story #3: Eva

stories in order to humanize the audio. Then, the screen transitions Play into a live word-by-word transcript while the story plays. The UI also provides a progress bar to indicate how long the story is. After completion of the story, or by the user's decision, the experience thinktat I like Madison becauseIfeelthatwell, we're not perfect, we have a ton of issues with suggests sharing a new story on the matter. If the participant decides implicit.bsandinstitutionalracism. I feellikewetry at least tobe self reflective and honest and confront to do so, the screen transitions into a recording screen that prompts those issues. We succeed and we fail, but we just the question of the mixtape (i.e., "Do you think racism is present in kppr yvinI" t'''wh'th' ntI 'rIwnv;hnvp your community?"). As a reminder, this question has been previously RETURN TOMENU set using the mixtape creation tool. The recording screen has a limit of four minutes, and it transitions back to the mixtape menu when the time is over, or by the user's decision. Finally, the experience can Doyouthinkracism is present inyour community? terminate at any time by removing the cassette from the insert. As the participant removes the cassette, the screen magically returns to 00:01 the welcome screen.

Sliding in and out a cassette is a simple yet powerful move. It sym- Figure 18: Screens for the experience. In bolizes the intent of the person with a system, the same way a person order (top to bottom): Welcome screen; Loading screen; Menu screen; Audio turns the key in the car to run the engine. The insert's transparency & transcript screen; Recording story helps other people to take a quick look at what a participant is screen. listening to. This transparency might cause a casual conversation between a listener and the people around. Finally, the tapes can also be brought home and serve as a conversation starter. 40 THE LVN MIXTAPES

Software Implementation

The phone runs an Android app that displays the user interface (UI), plays and records audios, and reads data from the Arduino board.

This app uses a web view for the frontend built with HTML5 , CSS, and Javascript. The website is hosted on a remote server on Heroku and loaded at launch time. The backend, which is built in Java using Android studio, is responsible for reading the messages received from the Arduino board as well as recording new audios. Both the backend and frontend communicate with each other through Javascript injections and callbacks. This hybrid solution provides a platform for quick iteration and experimentation.

When a user inserts a cassette on the device, the NFC reader detects its presence (a) and communicates the message to the phone (b). The app receives the unique identifier of the NFC tag and retrieves the JSON file needed to load the mixtape (c). This file is used to download the audio stories from the Amazon S 3 (d) and load the prompt. Once the app is ready, it transitions into the mixtape menu screen, and users can play different stories. The word-by-word transcription is possible with the data provided by the Local Voices Network. If a participant decides to record a new story, the audio is captured by the microphone and remotely stored on Amazon S3 (d).

Heroku MongoDB ------(c ) - - - - - (d) ------aAmazon S3 Web View Audio -+Smartphone (a ) --- ` ------M ic NFC Arduino OTG -(b)

Figure 19: Software architecture. THE LOCAL VOICES NETWORK MIXTAPES 41

HardwareImplementation

The cassette player uses an Android phone as the brain of the system. This smartphone provides multiple benefits such as interaction with the screen, internet connectivity, rechargeable battery, and USB On-The-Go (OTG). OTG is a specification that enables phones to read data from a USB device. In this case, the phone connects to an external microphone and an Arduino board. The microphone provides high-quality recording and the Arduino board, connected to an NFC reader, notifies the pressence of a cassette. Finally, the headphones can plug into the phone's audio jack.

While users can interact with the cassette player both horizontally and vertically, it is designed to be placed vertically on a wall. The device measures 7.5X 2-5 x 6.5" and weighs 1.6 lbs. The enclosure was divided into two pieces and can be stuck together with magnets. Initially, I was concerned with the influence of the magnetic field on the NFC reader but did not end up having any effect. These pieces were 3D printed using PLA and had a total printing time of 40 hours.

USB OTG Hub

Samsung Galaxy Adafruit Feather J7 Prime Huzzah

Audio Jack

Velleman NFC Reader Blue Snowflake Microphone

Magnet

Figure 20: Hardware components for the cassette player. Evaluation

The experience was only tested for two days due to time constraints. While a more extensive study is needed to draw firm conclusions, this first pilot already suggests some findings; as the following sections discuss.

Initially, the collaborators from the Local Voices Network were asked to create four (4) different mixtapes using the Mixtape Creation Tool. On the first day, the device was placed in the lobby of the MIT Media Lab. On the second day, the device was placed inside the elevator of the same building. The device was displayed for a total of three (3) hours each day.

The system recorded every user interaction in order to give answers to the following questions: VN. • How many people interacted with the system?

• How does the location affect the experience?

• How many people recorded their stories?

Additionally, the cassettes encouraged participants to bring the tapes home and share them with other people. These cassettes had a unique URL for people to learn more about the Local Voices Network and listen to a short story related with to mixtape.

Finally, I conducted behavioral observation from a nearby location. In some cases, when possible, I briefly interviewed participants after interacting with the experience. Specifically, I wanted to know: • What was the first thing they saw that got them interested in the Fiur 21 ui cset at h experience? inie ecrbs h eprine n

• What were their first thoughts when they saw the cassette? isiddscithepriencan • In an experience like this, are they more interested in listening or sharing? EVALUATION 43

Observations on the Mixtape Creation Tool

The mixtapes created using this tool were:

1. Perceptions of Race in Madison. This compilation contains stories about racism and segregation. Prompt: "Do you think racism is present in your community?".

2. Affordable Housing. This compilation contains stories about housing and salaries. Prompt: "Do you think the prices of the houses will go up or down? How does that affect you?".

3. Violence in Schools. This compilation contains stories about police, guns, and schools. Prompt: Have you ever experience any type of violence at MIT?".

4. Life in Belmont. This compilation contains stories about the day- to-day life in Belmont, a town in Massachusetts. Prompt: "How is Belmont different from Cambridge?". Figure22: An LVN collaborator exploring the stories.

Overall, this tool had a positive reception. One of the users reflected on the opportunity of serendipitously exploring stories and drawing non-obvious connections between topics:

From the conversations that I have previously observed, when somebody is talking about kids and schools, they are not only talking about these two things. These conversations have depth; they live in a complex dimension. They might start talking about kids and schools, but then it flows away into race and poverty. This visualization allows drawing this kind of connection, instead of labeling a story in a specific bucket.

Another user mentioned how important it is to have a Google-like search box as a starting point for exploration: "The visualization might be a bit overwhelming and confusing at first. However, once I found a good story, I can start exploring the ones nearby". This same user also remarked on the importance of introducing the story highlight: "It is sometimes hard to know what a person is going to talk about. I need to listen to the whole conversation or scroll the full transcript to have a sense of the story".

Finally, LVN collaborators were excited to have the opportunity to prompt a question to potential listeners. Most of them, however, wanted to ask multiple questions and felt limited by the tool. 44 THE LVN MIXTAPES

Observations on the LVN Cassette Player

During the2-days experiment, there were a total number of twenty- six (26) sessions, which resulted in twenty-two(22)played stories. The most played mixtape was "Violence in Schools" (12), followed by "Perceptions of Race in Madison" (7), "Life in Belmont" (5), and "Affordable Housing" (2).

The lobby of the MIT Media Lab

The lobby of the MIT Media Lab had a total of fifteen (15) sessions, where eighteen (18) stories were played. The majority of participants used the device at the time of leaving the building through the lobby. Once of the participants used the device for the first time and came minutes later with another person to use it again. Other people took photos of the device and the cassettes. In the follow-up interviews, participants mentioned the interest in the cassettes as the motivator to use the experience. A mother with two kids said: "I used to have audiotapes when I was younger. My kids have never used these cassettes, so I think it is fun for them to play with the experience".

Interestingly, there were zero stories shared. Some participants shared a concern with the data collection. However, they felt comfortable sharing their views with me when I personally asked them.

Inside the Elevator

The inside of the elevator had eleven (ii) sessions, but only four (4) stories played. Most of the people tried to interact with the screen before manipulating the cassettes. Participants were also more in- clined to properly use the system when alone in the elevator. Some participants also left the cassette inserted after leaving the elevator; which removed the decision-making process for future participants. In some of the follow-up interviews, participants mentioned they did not have the time to listen to the stories. These participants only had the time to slide the cassette and load the experience before leaving the elevator. In contrast, two different participants stayed inside the elevator for a longer time to listen to the stories.

Similarly to the previous location, participants did not feel drawn to share a new story. They mentioned they did not feel comfortable recording a personal story in such an open-setting. Figure 23: A participant in the elevator inserts one of the mixtapes. EVALUATION 45

Observations on the Shareability of the Cassettes

The experience also encouraged participants to bring the cassettes home as a conversation starter. Every time a participant took a cassette away, I replaced it with a new one. These cassettes had a unique URL for other people to learn more about the Local Voices Network and listen to a short story related to the mixtape. There were a total of eight (8) cassettes taken. From these eight cassettes, only one (i) person accessed the website for the "Violence in Schools" mixtape. This access happened six (6) days after the end of the experiment. Discussion

This thesis started with the promise of a new listening medium aimed to increase the awareness of the local community. Supported by the growing collection of community-oriented stories from the Local Voices Network (LVN), I wanted to explore the design space for a physical medium that brings these voices to the mass population. While a more extensive study is needed to draw firm conclusions, this first pilot already suggests some findings. Inevitably, these findings connect to the stories from the Local Voices Network, but they might extrapolate to other domains.

The use of cassettes as a tangible medium for stories seem to have a positive reception for both listeners and collaborators. The content curators from the Local Voices Network find on the mixtapes the opportunity to communicate a narrative through a collection of highlights. As one of these curators said, "these conversations have depth; they live in a complex dimension". The current single unit of highlights seems to be sometimes insufficiently to communicate this depth. Mixtapes, however, provide the possibility to combine diverse but related stories into a single unit. This narrative piece might include stories from different communities, opposite views on a matter, or the day-to-day life of a region. The created mixtapes exemplify these narratives: "Perceptions of Race in Madison", "Afford- able Housing", "Violence in Schools", and "Life in Belmont". While a larger experiment is needed, the interest in the narratives seems to be driven by the location of the experience. During the2-days experiment at the MIT Media Lab, the "Violence in Schools" mixtape was the most-played cassette amongst the others. Thus, the listening patterns might reflect the needs and interests of a community. Inter- estingly, the second most-played mixtape was "Perceptions of Race in Madison". Consequently, this medium succesfully inserts voices from one community (Madison) to a different one (Cambridge), something described as "cross-pollination" by the Local Voices Network. While the highlights are thought to be short and self-contained stories, DISCUSSION 47

listeners in this experience needed to have more context about its origin. Initially, these highlights were created to be embedded in a news article supported by the journalist's work on introducing the story. However, these cassettes do not provide context: the experience exclusively plays the audio and displays its transcription. How can these stories provide context without creating barriers for scaling the system? As I suggest in the future work section, I believe this medium can benefit from an intelligent digital moderator.

The vision of this project is to establish a network of listening spots anchored in the urban space. Thus, I was interested to see how different locations elicit different behaviors. A somewhat prominent location was the elevator. This spot was great at grabbing a captive audience that showed interest to use the system when alone in the elevator. However, the limited amount of time inside the elevator did not allow participants to listen to a story. If a person, however, is intrinsically motivated to listen to a story, she or he will find ways to make it happen. In this experiment, two listeners stayed inside the elevator for a longer time. In contrast, the lobby of the Media Lab seemed to be the perfect place for serendipitous encounters and face-to-face social interactions. Whether a single person using the device or a mother with her two kids playing with the cassettes, this location seemed to invite people to listen to the stories for a long time. I believe the openness of the semi-private space created enough intimacy and "anonymity" to make participants feel comfortable.

Interestingly, there were zero stories shared during this short pilot. When I designed this experience, I mentioned how this is a listening- first experience, rather than a speaking-first experience. This device proved to be effective for listening to stories rather than recording new stories. In the follow-up interviews, participants mentioned the unpredictability of the privacy provided by the device. However, all participants were comfortable sharing their views with me. I believe the human component for "perspective-giving" is critical for the recording of new stories. As much as we want to record new stories effortlessly - this means, using a standalone machine - humans beings are social animals. We need to be in the company of other humans to generate this sense of intimacy. Thus, I believe projects like the Local Voices Network or StoryCorps are essential and needed for story recording.

In conversation with Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab, he mentioned that "you cannot optimize your way to democracy". In today's era of information and digitalization, it seems every aspect of society 48 THE LVN MIXTAPES

needs to be optimized. This process, however, has consequences. The day-to-day decisions are silently influenced by third-parties that promise this friction-less life, which eventually leads to an effortless life. Unfortunately, this effort is important to develop critical thinking and increase self-awareness. Those individuals, the ones that think differently and are willing to challenge the status quo, are the ones who help advance society. In contrast, if society's thinking merely relies - or is supported - on external entities with potential interests, the future of democracy will be at stake. The physicality of this work, in collaboration with the collection of stories from the Local Voices Network, aims to slow down this process. The unoptimized playing of stories generates enough friction that when a participant finally listens to a story, it makes it personal. Citizens suddenly become advocates for their communities through the share of these cassettes. These under-heard voices are, then, finally heard. Future Work

IN THIS SECTION, I explain ideasand current work in progress for future versions of the Local Voices Network Mixtapes.

Intelligent Digital Moderation

I am planning on implementing an intelligent moderator that inter- acts with the user as she or he navigates through the stories. This entity, which can be named the metahost, has extensive knowledge of all the conversations and collaborates with the LVN hosts. It can provide context to a story and suggest new stories based on the user input. Similarly, this agent hopes to incentivize the recording of new stories. Future studies can also explore the impacts of this moderation as well as the tunning of the speech synthesizer.

Automatic Multi-language Support

I plan to automatically translate stories and generate new audio files to any desired language. For this, I will use translation services and synthetic voices to accommodate non-English speakers. I spec- ulate that state of the art on deep generative models will improve enough that listeners will roughly distinguish a machine-generated voice from a human voice. While this will hopefully lead to better comprehension rates, it has to be carefully studied as it might have unintended consequences; the subtleties of the voice, such as the emotion and intention, might disappear on this process.

Using the Smartphone as the Cassette Player

The reach of the stories will exponentially increase if the cassettes can be played through the smartphone. To achieve this, the NFC tags need to be read through the smartphone's built-in NFC reader. Moreover, this reading needs to happen on a website using web technologies - not a app. The notion of friction and self-reflection will still exist with physical cassettes. 50 THE LVN MIXTAPES

Tracing Out a Network

The use of cassettes also offers new opportunities in the field of social networks. A cassette can serve as a token that can be moved from person to person and cross cocoons. With proper identification, we can map a community network with this cassette.

Art Exhibit

I plan to create an artistic installation with hundreds of cassettes. Similar to a ball pit, I imagine kids and adults "swimming in the sea of stories". This exhibit can also enhance with lighting, speakers, and projections. For example, the light intensity and color can synchronize with the story.

Mixtape Creation Tool Integrated on the LVN App

I propose to integrate the story exploration tool on the official Local Voices Network website. This tool will help collaborators to search for stories and give structure to unorganized narratives and ideas. Additionally, I suggest creating an internal mixtape library where collaborators can see the created playlists. Bibliography

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