What Do We Study When Studying Politics and Democracy? A Semantic Analysis of How Politics and Democracy Are Used in SIGCHI Conference Papers

Human-computer interaction scholars are increasingly touching on topics related to politics or democracy. We examine these through an analysis of all papers with the word “politics” (n = 378) or “democracy” (n = 152) in abstract, title or keywords. There is an increasingly use of these words within human-computer interaction. Researchers invoke these words with diverse levels of analysis in mind: the early research focused on mezzo-level (i.e., small groups), but more recently the work has begun to include macro-level analysis (i.e., society and politics as played in the public sphere), and a transition toward more normative and activist research is taking place. We bring these differences visible, examine how focus shifts may reduce how we engage with politics and democracy explore how human-computer interaction as a field orients itself to politics and democracy.