Drawing insights from the sociology of expectations and recent studies on future visions in communication studies, this article traces and analyzes how Wired—a technology news provider and socio-technical vanguard whose vision is to uncover technological innovations—anticipated socio-technical visions of online ratings and reviews over two decades (1998–2018). The qualitative textual analysis of Wired’s coverage revealed two socio-technical visions, namely, promissory futures and problematic futures. The former embraced neoliberal discourses of consumer empowerment and accountability, whereas the latter entailed a pessimistic evaluation of the manipulation of online ratings and the potential of adopting online ratings beyond e-commerce platforms. The visions represented in Wired largely followed the logic of “technological solutionism.” This study affords opportunities for thinking about the role of popular media discourses and temporalities in shaping imagined futures of emerging technologies.

中文翻译：

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预期期货：构建《连线》中在线评级和评论的社会技术愿景

本文从期望社会学和最近对传播研究中未来愿景的研究中汲取见解，追溯并分析了 Wired——一家技术新闻提供商和社会技术先锋，其愿景是发现技术创新——如何预测在线评级的社会技术愿景和回顾了二十年（1998-2018）。对连线报道的定性文本分析揭示了两种社会技术愿景，即承诺期货和有问题的期货。前者接受了消费者赋权和问责制的新自由主义话语，而后者则需要对在线评级的操纵以及在电子商务平台之外采用在线评级的潜力进行悲观的评估。《连线》中所呈现的愿景在很大程度上遵循了“技术解决主义”的逻辑。