Graduation Year
2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
English
Major Professor
Lisa Meloncon, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Carl Herndl, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Meredith Johnson, Ph.D.
Keywords
Technical communication, usability, interface design, user-centered design, discrimination, marginalized, oppressed
Abstract
This thesis considers claims of discrimination and the interfaces that six platforms use as companies in the sharing economy.
In 2015, Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca, and an Svirsky did an experiment with Airbnb to test the discrimination of names that sounded distinctly African American. Before and after their findings, there were members of the community who claimed that they had been discriminated against, some suing the company for not upholding their anti-discrimination policy. This leads to the question of how is one able to discriminate against someone whom they have never met and lives thousands of miles away? What information do they have to hold against them? As a result, this thesis provides a rhetorical analysis of the interfaces of six companies of the sharing economy.
Scholar Commons Citation
Johnson, Taylor B., "Analysis of User Interfaces in the Sharing Economy" (2018). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/7174
