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Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2024-12
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Media & Communication
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http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10914
Abstract
This dissertation argues that the current preponderance of femme-styled AI voiceassistants (AI VAs) represents part of an evolving communication infrastructure which
reifies women’s voices as at once unique and universal in their helpfulness, while also
normalizing the invisibility and immateriality of their labor. To trace the evolution of this
gendered, sonic infrastructure, I conduct a critical discourse analysis with attention to
four key historical moments: the dawn of telephony and the concomitant American
“voice culture” obsession; the reign of the Bell Telephone Company, whose women
operators were trained to deliver “the voice with a smile”; the increased automation and
technological displacement of live operator service; and finally, the modern zeitgeist of
popular AI voices. In each era, I examine popular and official discourses surrounding the
role of women’s voices in telecommunications labor with special attention to corporate
communications from the AT&T Archive & History Center in Warren, NJ. Throughout
this analysis, I turn to Susan Leigh Star’s multi-dimensional definition of infrastructure to
consider how such discourses act as sites of “encoding and standardizing” which
naturalize women’s voices as “ready-to-hand” features of modern communication and
information systems. Moreover, I ask: when feminine voices become independent of
laboring bodies, where is power?
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