One of the most exciting aspects of the new research analyzing algorithmic culture is the manner by which portions of that research are increasingly routing around the slow, painful process of traditional academic knowledge production. This is not to say that the credentialing process afforded by peer-reviewed journals or university presses is irrelevant, but it […]
The Materiality of Algorithms
Culture Digitally the Podcast Episode 3: Conversations on Algorithms and Cultural Production
Hello everyone. We have a new episode of Culture Digitally the Podcast. It’s the third installment in a series that documents conversations among digital media scholars on issues relevant to the study of culture, digital media and technology. The discussion format is open and gives our readers the chance to hear our contributors thinking aloud. […]
Can an algorithm be wrong? Twitter Trends, the specter of censorship, and our faith in the algorithms around us
The interesting question is not whether Twitter is censoring its Trends list. The interesting question is, what do we think the Trends list is, what it represents and how it works, that we can presume to hold it accountable when we think it is “wrong?” What are these algorithms, and what do we want them to be? […]
On Moderation Algorithms
Here’s a quick thought that comes from my dissertation. It deals with Newsvine, one of the sites on which I did fieldwork, but it involves no inside knowledge of the site. It was originally posted on my personal site, but Hector’s recent comment interrogating the nature of algorithms inspired me to cross-post it. I’d also […]
Are Surveillance Capitalists Behaviorists? No. Does It Matter? Maybe.
In this post I want to pose and answer two questions: are surveillance capitalists behaviorists? And does it matter? Short answer: surveillance capitalists are not behaviorists, but behavioralists. Behavioralists are okay with guiding individual level behavior as long as it leads to higher-order system behavior that they think is useful; in other words, they have a different theory of freedom than behaviorists. Painting Silicon Valley engineers as behaviorists is no doubt politically useful (on which more below) but will it be persuasive when push comes to shove in the battle to regulate the digital economy? I try to untangle some of these contradictions below.