Law and Order SVU

Work Title: Law and Order SVU
Medium: TV Episode
Episode Title: Spiraling Down
Year: 2011
Writer(s): Dick Wolf
"Original" Writer: Yes Writer(s): John Paul Roche
"Original" Writer: Yes Writer(s): Warren Leight
"Original" Writer: Yes Own work?: No
Summary:

A military colleague of Detective Amaro's wife reports his 14-year-old daughter missing. The detectives find the girl working as a prostitute under a possessive pimp. They quickly set up a sting operation to entrap Johns on rape charges with a minor, and arrest aging pro quarterback Jake Stanton. Detective Benson and ADA Cabot seek to make an example out of the football legend, but the case is thrown into chaos with the return of defense attorney Bayard Ellis, who questions Stanton's mental capacity after years of injuries on the field. (imdb.com)

Era/Year of Portrayal: present_day
Distinctive characteristics of the world in portrayal:

Life is no different than life in 2013.

Technology

  • Name of portrayed presence-evoking technology: Skype on a laptop
  • Description of the technology: Detective Nick Amaro and his wife, Maria have to interact through Skype as Maria is overseas on military duty. At the moment in which the two experience telepresence, Nick is sitting in an interrogation room using a mobile laptop computer to Skype with Maria who is in a military tent.
  • Nature of task or activity: Nick and Maria converse and proceed to get in an argument.
  • Performance of the Technology: The technology functions perfectly as there is no interruption in conversation or response lag. It serves the purpose of facilitating a long distance conversation.
  • Description of creator(s): Estonian developers Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn, Danish Janus Friis, and Swedish Niklas Zennström are all male young-middle aged developers of various technologies.
  • Major goal(s) of creator(s): They created Skype to "allow users to communicate with peers by voice using a microphone, video by using a webcam, and instant messaging over the Internet."
  • Description of users of technology: Detective Nick Amaro is a middle-aged male detective in the Special Victims Unit of the New York Police Department. Maria Amaro is a middle-aged female soldier.
  • Type(s) of presence experience in the portrayal: both
  • Description of presence experience: In Nick and Maria's argument, Maria says "I hate when you do this." Nick responds with "What's that?" and Maria says "I think we're having a conversation, turns out you're really interrogating me." There is no response lag and the two speak as if they are in front of each other.
  • User awareness of technology during experience: The two do not recognize the use of technology at all.
  • Valence of experience: The two initially find it pleasant as they are able to see and speak to each other, but as the conversation gets unpleasant, the experience does also.
  • Specific responses: They two both smile and laugh to exhibit excitement and happiness and later frown and shake their heads to show disappointment.
Long-term consequences:

The long term consequence is that this conversation starts a reoccurring issue with Nick and Maria. Over a series of episodes, it ends badly as Maria decides to leave Nick.

Other:

During this portrayal, it's almost as if the technology is not even there. As a viewer, you barely even notice it. The only thing that interrupts the viewers feeling of presence is the prominent "Skype" logo on the screen while Nick and Maria converse.

Coder name: Bria Moss-Wilkerson
Coder email: bmosswilkerson@temple.edu
Coder affiliation: Temple University