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This paper addresses the methodological gap that impedes the collection of empirical data on subjective experience. It describes a new family of methods for social science research (Subjective Evidence-Based Ethnography: SEBE). The methods are based on: first-person audio-visual recording with a miniature video-camera worn at eye-level ('subcam'); confronting subjects with these first-person recordings to collect their subjective experience; formulating the findings and discussing the final interpretation with the subjects. These procedures enable subjects to reconstruct and describe their psychological state at the moment of action, especially their goals, by reviewing films of their own activity recorded from their own perspective with subcams. These films provide situated records of actual activity in natural environments, without the need of an external observer. This approach, by providing both detailed records of actual activity and evidence-based accounts of the subject's own mental processes, supports grounded progress in ethnography, psychology, ergonomics, sociology and the social sciences in general. There are also applications for training and cross-cultural contacts. The techniques are described in sufficient detail for the reader to make use of them. Examples of applications are provided and limitations are discussed.

Transmission of human experience is essential for many purposes. It has two aspects: content and social relations. Digital technologies can solve some of the classic issues around the capture and transmission of human experience. Using these new technical affordances as a basis, this article presents a framework to capture and describe human activity and experience based on video and cooperative explicitation of activity trajectories with the subject, using a transition model inspired by the formalism of dynamical systems. The article also introduces this special issue, 'Digitize and Transfer', and gives an overview of its contents.

Digitization of society raises concerns about privacy. This article first describes privacy threats of life-logging. It gives the technically novice reader a quick overview of what information and communication technology (ICT) is currently preparing for society, based on state-of-the art research in the industry laboratories: ubiquitous computing, aware environments, the Internet of Things, and so on. We explain how geolocation systems work and how they can provide detailed accounts of personal activity that will deeply affect privacy. At present, system designers rarely implement privacy-enhancing technologies — we explain why, based on empirical research. On the other hand, users, while expressing concern, do not protect themselves in practice — we list reasons for this. The problem is complex because the very nature of identity and social relations works against protecting personal data; this is the privacy dilemma. At least two key mechanisms in the production of good interaction and in the construction of social status are based on personal data disclosure. Then we discuss the nature of privacy, based on field observation. Privacy loss can be seen as `losing face'. We detail this notion, based on a discussion of the notion of face, and especially the Asian social construct of `Chemyon'. We then propose a new, positive, definition of privacy as `keeping face'. This positive notion can be used to build constructive guidelines for enhancing privacy in systems design, compatible with the way designers perceive their role. These guidelines are presented in an annex, after a short conclusion that advocates a constructive — perhaps risky — role for social science in the construction of future information and communication technology. 1

The current digitization of society brings with it a series of new issues that challenge social science. This article describes the mechanism of digital projection (creation of a digital layer mirroring the physical world) by which society digitizes. In the three-layered leopardskin model of change described here (physical layer, representations and practice, institutions), the physical layer (here, information technology) is changing much faster than the two other layers: representations and institutions. This situation calls for a new stand from social research in these evolutions, a stand which is illustrated by the collection of articles that makes up this issue. A closer link to technology and a different relationship with stakeholders seem to emerge as a new action-research approach in the field.

La «subcam», caméra miniature fixée à hauteur des yeux, enregistre l'activité en vue subjective. Portée par des volontaires, elle permet d'analyser en détail sur le terrain des phénomènes comme la captation de l'attention, le lien entre déterminants internes et externes du comportement, l'intersubjectivité. On présente ici avec des illustrations empiriques les aspects techniques, méthodologiques, éthiques et théoriques, notamment les stratégies d'analyse, et la question de l'intersubjectivité et du «pacte psychosocial».

Une méthode pour mesurer les effets de réseaux dans la coopération scientiflque. Une méthode d'évaluation quantitative de l'évolution de réseaux scientifiques avec un bref questionnaire envoyé par courrier est présentée. Elle a été utilisée dans l'évaluation des programmes Science/Stimulation dans le cadre de la Communauté européenne (CE). Cette méthodologie est fondée sur la description comportementale des relations entre labos partenaires d'un contract CE aussi bien avant qu'après le programme. Les réseaux sont décrits par une "valeur moyenne" des liens entre paires dans le réseau. Des indicateurs quantitatifs, obtenus par des méthodes univariées et multivariées nous permettent de comparer la situation avant et après le programme et donc de donner des idées pour l'évaluation de l'impact d'un programme. Une forme de visualisation de l'évolution des réseaux avec une analyse multivariée est présentée.

A set of designer guidelines from the European Union offers the first step in building privacy-aware systems.

PurposeThis article aims to describe the effects of the communication style of the message sender (threatening or neutral), status of the sender (equal to or higher than the recipient) and the power relationship between sender and recipient (from the same department or not) on the blood pressure of the recipient of an e‐mail messageDesign/methodology/approachThe study was conducted under controlled laboratory conditions. The experiment was a mixed design, using both within and between subjects variables. The independent variable for the within subjects factor was the task that participants performed. There were three tasks: answering a questionnaire, reading a non‐threateningly worded e‐mail reprimand, and reading a threateningly worded e‐mail reprimand. Although the study used students as participants, the messages they received were from real people in a University College. Discusses the implications in the area of occupational health.FindingsDiastolic blood pressure was significantly higher (p<0.01) when recipients were reading the threateningly worded reprimand compared to reading a non‐threateningly worded reprimand. The effect of status on blood pressure was significant (p<0.05) but only for recipients in the same department as the message sender.Originality/valueThe results add to the evidence that communication style and status can have a direct impact on the recipient's physiological response.

We use automated textual analysis to compare Ronald Reagan's rhetoric with that of presidents Woodrow Wilson through Barack Obama, using their State of the Union speeches. We are able to assign statistical significance to the thematic content, and to depict spatially the shifting dimensionality in themes used by presidents. We find strong evidence for Reagan's usage of the civil religion rhetoric: over half (59%) of the discourse in his seminal and 48% in his State of the Union speeches focus on civil religion. We also find an apparent shift in modern presidential rhetoric, from themes concerned with (1) institutions, to ones focused more on (2) individuals, families, and children.

Les savoirs experts dans le monde professionnel sont difficiles à capter en raison de leur nature en grande part tacite (difficilement verbalisable). On détaille ici un ensemble de méthodes et techniques (capture numérique du geste en vue subjective et en vue externe; protocole de verbalisation guidé par les buts en situation; entretiens d'auto-confrontation et de reconstruction) qui permettent de récupérer ces savoir-faire en coopération entre l'analyste et l'expert-geste. Le protocole vise: (1) à reconstruire avec l'expert la logique intentionnelle du geste, son modèle mental; et (2) à le montrer au mieux au travers de la vidéo, pour que d'autres puissent le comprendre et l'internaliser à leur tour. Ce protocole de capture aboutit à la réalisation d'un support multimédia pour la représentation et la transmission du savoir-faire métier. L'approche s'inscrit dans une perspective de gestion des connaissances (approche globale, du point de vue de l'organisation, souci pédagogique), adopte une posture proche de celle de l'ergonomie (sympathie pour l'acteur, observation détaillée in situ), et utilise des théories et méthodes issues de la psychologie cognitive et de l'ethnographie numérique. Les principaux cadres théoriques mobilisés sont les théories de l'activité et de la qualité perçue.