Lаngdоn Winner's "Dо Artifаcts Hаve Pоlitics?" describes two distinct ways in which interfaces may have politics: "inherently political technologies" and "technical arrangements as forms of order". Define each of these two ways in which interfaces may have politics. Then, consider this hypothetical example: in a future in which humans have colonized the Moon and Mars, residents of these colonies push for independence and develop their own flags. Under pressure from the governments of countries that presently administer those colonies, Apple and Google do not add these flags as emojis to their catalogs. Determine if this scenario is an instance of an "inherently political technology" or of a "technical arrangement as a form of order", and justify your choice.
In "Distributed Cоgnitiоn аs а Theоreticаl Framework for Information Visualization", Liu, Nersessian, and Stasko argue for the use of distributed cognition as a framework for exploring information visualization. First, discuss what the authors mean when they say that distributed cognition should be used as a framework for exploring information visualization rather than as a theory. As part of your discussion, select and justify which one of Bederson and Shneiderman's ways in which these theories can be helpful to researchers and practitioners you think distributed cognition embodies: descriptive, explanatory, predictive, prescriptive, or generative. Second, from "On distinguishing epistemic from pragmatic action" by Kirsh and Maglio, Liu, Nersessian and Stasko reintroduce the idea of epistemic action. Briefly define both epistemic and pragmatic actions and state how they are different. Then, consider this scenario: a chess player considering her next move takes a bishop and, without removing her hand, places it on a new square, then pauses to consider the implications of such a potential move. She then moves the bishop back and repeats this behavior with a pawn. Finally, she puts the pawn back and repeats this behavior with a rook. She then puts the rook back, takes the bishop, and moves it into the spot she had previously considered, releasing the piece and completing her turn. Identify at least one epistemic action and one pragmatic action in this scenario.