How to Do Things with Sensors

Forerunners: Ideas First

by Jennifer Gabrys

An investigation of how-to guides for sensor technologies

Sensors are increasingly common within citizen-sensing and DIY projects, but these devices often require the use of a how-to guide. From online instructional videos for troubleshooting sensor installations to handbooks for using and abusing the Internet of Things, the how-to genres and formats of digital instruction continue to expand and develop. As the how-to proliferates, and instructions unfold through multiple aspects of technoscientific practices, Jennifer Gabrys asks why the how-to has become one of the prevailing genres of the digital. How to Do Things with Sensors explores the ways in which things are made do-able with and through sensors and further considers how worlds are made sense-able and actionable through the instructional mode of citizen-sensing projects.

Forerunners: Ideas First
Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead

106 pages, Paperback

Published August 13, 2019

Reviews

[François]

Needlessly obtuse. I wish it anchored its lofty ideas to concrete examples, which I'm sure the author has. At times it reads like a humanities grant application. One of the best parts of it is its footnotes, which put together a great reading list.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads too far into the politics of literacy, but written well.