Mediation in design for values

Abstract

Mediation is the claim that technologies have an impact on the way in which we perceive the world and on the way we act in it. Often this impact goes beyond human intentions: it can hardly be understood only in terms of “intentions of the user” or in terms of “intentions of the designer.” Mediation argues that technologies have “agency” themselves and then tries to explicate the way in which technological objects and human subjects form a complex relation and constitute each other. Designers should anticipate mediation effects and can use mediation to moralize technologies. However, questions can be asked about how far the moralizing of technologies is compatible with user autonomy.