Popular Culture and New Media, The Politics of Circulation
Abstract
This book explores the material and everyday intersections between popular culture and new media. Using a range of interdisciplinary resources the chapters open up various hidden dimensions, including objects and infrastructures, archives, algorithms, data play and the body that force us to rethink our understanding of culture as it is today.
... Despite the important resonance of such questions in the social sciences (Fourcade and Johns 2020;Benjamin 2019;Beer 2017Beer , 2013Mackenzie 2015;Bucher 2012a), the algorithmic mediation of consumer culture has not yet been adequately considered in consumer and marketing research. Regarding online platforms and digital consumption, the consumer culture literature is conflicted on explaining the liquefying and empowering implications of digitalization on the one hand, and the potentially disempowering implications of a 'datafied' consumer culture and manipulative surveillance capitalism on the other. ...
... When the output of a computational process itself becomes embedded in the input of a new iteration, the algorithm is called 'recursive' (Beer 2013, 78-79). In the case of the algorithms embedded in online infrastructures, some scholars have stressed how such recursivity may have broad social and cultural implications (Hallinan and Striphas 2016;Beer 2013;Fourcade and Johns 2020;Airoldi 2022). Consider the case of YouTube videos as an example. ...
... In this sense, we view platform algorithms as non-human 'intermediaries' (e.g., Negus 2002) that operate in between the processes of production and consumption. This view echoes a number of contributions in the social sciences depicting algorithms as 'infomediaries' (Morris 2015) that increasingly substitute human intermediaries within digitalized markets (Hallinan and Striphas 2016;Beer 2013; see also Airoldi 2022). ...
This article conceptualizes algorithmic consumer culture, and offers a framework that sheds new light on two previously conflicting theorizations: that (1) digitalization tends to liquefy consumer culture and thus acts primarily as an empowering force, and that (2) digitalized marketing and big data surveillance practices tend to deprive consumers of all autonomy. By drawing on critical social theories of algorithms and AI, we define and historicize the now ubiquitous algorithmic mediation of consumption, and then illustrate how the opacity, authority, non-neutrality, and recursivity of automated systems affect consumer culture at the individual, collective, and market level. We propose conceptualizing ‘algorithmic articulation’ as a dialectical techno-social process that allows us to enhance our understanding of platform-based marketer control and consumer resistance. Key implications and future avenues for exploring algorithmic consumer culture are discussed.
... Their automated processes also obscure the interplay between human intervention and programmatic decision-making and the extent to which they shape algorithmic outcomes (Seaver, 2021). When and where they begin and end is impossible to locate as they recursively feed and fold back to themselves (Beer, 2013). Kitchin and Dodge (2011: 30) regard algorithms as both the producers and products of social processes as 'models analyze the world and the world responds to the models'. ...
... This regime of power that works from within and not over culture is defined by Lash (2007) as post-hegemonic power. Beer (2013) argues that algorithms enact power not through visible ideological work but through 'invisible infrastructural force'. It begins with algorithms' quantification of cultural artifacts and practices into 'computable abstractions', which are then repurposed into new categories and structures in understanding the world (Finn, 2017). ...
... It begins with algorithms' quantification of cultural artifacts and practices into 'computable abstractions', which are then repurposed into new categories and structures in understanding the world (Finn, 2017). Through its governance mechanisms, algorithms ascribe meaningfulness and value through the ways they grant visibility (Bucher, 2018), regulate circulation (Beer, 2013), and render relevance (Gillespie, 2014) to cultures and identities. They also demarcate the possibilities and boundaries of user agency by predefining choices and prescribing action (Cohn, 2019). ...
This article investigates algorithms and their construction of cultural taste through a socio-technical analysis of the Netflix Recommender System. I examined the key algorithmic processes in the intersection of its technological infrastructure, cultural processes, and social relations by employing Taina Bucher’s three methodological tactics for ‘unknowing’ algorithms. Drawing from media logic and computational logic, I propose the concept of ‘algorithmic logics’ to define the assumptions, processes, and mechanisms that govern the construction of taste within the Netflix platform. I identified these four logics of taste – datafication, reconfiguration, interpellation, and reproduction – and argue that they reappropriate old apparatuses of social control and generate new capacities in engineering cultural processes. Together, these logics transform algorithms from procedural to self-generative machines in the guise of algorithmic objectivity, user agency, and post-demographic experiences. Algorithmic logics function as an ‘interpretative schema’ in making sense algorithms in their entanglement with social actors, institutions, and infrastructures.
... Against a backdrop of increasing platformisation and personalisation, sociologists have considered how the relationship between taste, class and consumption might again be changing Beer, 2013;Prey, 2016;Prior, 2018;Webster, 2019;Wright, 2015). Whereas for Bourdieu (1984) social background plays an important part in the formation of taste, with our families, friends and schools exposing us to different ideas, values and cultural norms, music streaming platforms are employing big data analytics to make judgements about what music is relevant to individuals, tastes and lifestyles (Cheney-Lippold, 2011). ...
... Whereas for Bourdieu (1984) social background plays an important part in the formation of taste, with our families, friends and schools exposing us to different ideas, values and cultural norms, music streaming platforms are employing big data analytics to make judgements about what music is relevant to individuals, tastes and lifestyles (Cheney-Lippold, 2011). As such, Beer (2013) suggests that personalisation has the potential to detach the cultivation of taste from class-related socialisation processes, such as friendship networks and the consumption of the right type of broadcast media, while others raise important questions about who (or what) has the authority to make judgements about what counts as 'good' or 'bad' taste, influencing how hierarchies of taste are formed and related to class identities Bonini and Gandini, 2019;Morris, 2015a;Webster et al., 2016). ...
... Not only do music streaming platforms offer up the possibility for people to consume any style of music, they have the potential to shape how people consume it. Music streaming platforms open up possibilities for individuals to outsource the labour of music discovery and the 'soundtracking' of activities and emotions to the human and technical actors involved in personalisation (Beer, 2013;Burkhart, 2008;Morris, 2015a;Prior, 2018;Webster, 2019). Given the ongoing importance of culture to the formation and reproduction of class divisions in society (Friedman et al., 2015;Savage et al., 2013), it is important to consider if and how the affordances of the digital platforms through which millions of people now access and engage with recorded music are incorporated into how people reproduce class differences through what and how they consume music. ...
Not only do music streaming platforms offer on-demand access to vast catalogues of licensed music, they are actively shaping what and how it finds us through personalisation. While existing literature has highlighted how personalisation has the potential to transform the part that music taste and consumption play in the performance of class identities and distinction, little is empirically known about its sociological consequences. Drawing on 42 semi-structured interviews with a combination of key informants and Spotify users, this article demonstrates that personalisation is undermining opportunities to achieve social distinction by taking over the labour of music curation and compressing the time needed to appreciate music for its own sake. It demonstrates that those with cultural capital at stake – in the case of this study, young, (primarily) male cultural omnivores – experience personalisation as a threat, highlighting how particular claims to social distinction are being contested in the platform age.
... On the other hand, some scholars argue for a more profound transformation; namely, that the Internet, digital media, and social media platforms represent a democratising force capable of levelling the inequalities typical of traditional media usage (see Xenos et al., 2014), or stand for entirely novel ways of stratification, altering the whole logic according to which cultural and media consumption marks class (see Beer, 2013;Webster, 2019Webster, , 2020. Accordingly, first, digital environments and means of circulation produce a new "high-choice" media environment representing unprecedented breeding grounds for adventurous and "omnivorous" tastes (Beer, 2013;Prior, 2007;Wright, 2015). ...
... On the other hand, some scholars argue for a more profound transformation; namely, that the Internet, digital media, and social media platforms represent a democratising force capable of levelling the inequalities typical of traditional media usage (see Xenos et al., 2014), or stand for entirely novel ways of stratification, altering the whole logic according to which cultural and media consumption marks class (see Beer, 2013;Webster, 2019Webster, , 2020. Accordingly, first, digital environments and means of circulation produce a new "high-choice" media environment representing unprecedented breeding grounds for adventurous and "omnivorous" tastes (Beer, 2013;Prior, 2007;Wright, 2015). Second, online platforms and algorithms (e.g., via their recommendation systems) have become the infrastructures that increasingly shape "encounters with culture", in addition to the traditional taste communities based on individuals' sociodemographic position and offline interactions and networks (Beer, 2013;Webster, 2019Webster, , 2020. ...
... Accordingly, first, digital environments and means of circulation produce a new "high-choice" media environment representing unprecedented breeding grounds for adventurous and "omnivorous" tastes (Beer, 2013;Prior, 2007;Wright, 2015). Second, online platforms and algorithms (e.g., via their recommendation systems) have become the infrastructures that increasingly shape "encounters with culture", in addition to the traditional taste communities based on individuals' sociodemographic position and offline interactions and networks (Beer, 2013;Webster, 2019Webster, , 2020. Third, "amateur" or peer-produced reviewing in social media and other online platforms challenges the cultural authority of traditional criticism (Kristensen et al., 2018;Verboord, 2014). ...
In Nordic countries and beyond, there exists a lack of longitudinal, population-level research focused on sociopolitical polarisation and the proliferation of new online activities in the context of changing media usage. In this article, we examine media usage in Finland in 2007 and 2018. We use two nationally representative surveys (N = 1,388 in 2007 and N = 1,425 in 2018) to make comparisons over time and include a wide set of media usage indicators. Applying multiple correspondence analysis, we assess the impact of the proliferation of online activities on the structure of the space of media usage and examine whether the association between media usage and sociopolitical divisions has become more sharply pronounced. The results suggest stability of the structure of media use rather than dramatic change. We discuss these results by reflecting on the relatively strong persistence of “traditional” models of stratification in digital cultural consumption and media practices.
... The feedback cycle is in indeed recursive (Airoldi and Rokka 2019) because the algorithm powering these kinds of platforms produces recommendations based on 'my recommendations' , when I am asserting my dietary preferences and giving cues regarding my leisure activities. In this encoding and decoding loop, named recursive (Beer 2013;, algorithm and subject are fused in a machinic reciprocal learning. Acknowledging the dynamicity of this humanmachine relationship, Cheney-Lippold (2011) describes how algorithms construct fairly complex identities: such complexity certainly gets more refined and qualified. ...
... This process is recursive (Kitchin and Dodge 2011;Beer 2013;. Users decode texts, photos, video, etc., i.e. the outputs of the machine; users react to these stimuli and also share cultural objects, such as pictures, posts and other items. ...
Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms.
... YouTube creators and audiences include a range of communities of practice that support learning together by sharing content (Quennerstedt, 2013). One well-researched example includes the many communities of musicians who use YouTube to create and share performances as well as tips on technique (Beer, 2013b;Miller, 2011;Waldron, 2013). ...
... Tagging various YouTube videos with the keyword "Photoshop," for example, can not only mean different things to each video's creator, it can also be interpreted and sorted in different ways by a range of other social actors and technologies that engage with the video. Searching for a video using the keyword "Photoshop" produces millions of search results which can be further sorted according to view count, relevance, rating, and upload date using the platform's search features as part of the complex classificatory imagination (Beer, 2013a(Beer, , 2013b) embedded into YouTube's design. ...
By combining elements from theories of media practice, genre, and mediatization, I argue that perceiving, performing, and organizing skills are interwoven with media, and such interweaving has important implications for the practical politics of contemporary media practices. In the first section, I outline a conceptual framework for investigating mediatized skills by focusing on three interrelated factors: mediation, genrefication, and mediatization. In the second section, I apply this framework to a case study of YouTubing Photoshop. Through an analysis of the findings, I show how photoshopping can be understood as a mediatized skill in which various capabilities are performed with tools, technologies, and symbolic content that typify a certain kind of skill and skillful actor. In the concluding discussion, I argue that paying attention to mediatized skills can not only help to better understand what capabilities are valued in media practices that involve application software but also identify alternative genres that expand and diversify who and what digital media are for.
... Whilst the impact of the pandemic on cultural production has been given significant attention (Banks and O'Connor 2020;Banks, 2020;Comunian & England, 2020;Eikhof, 2020;Joffe, 2021;Kay & Wood, 2020), work on consumption has seen less attention (Roberts, 2020 on leisure time and NESTA 2020 notwithstanding). Indeed, 2020 seemed to be a moment where the abundance of culture, enabled by digital technology (Beer, 2013;Wright, 2011), might have become newly-accessible to a whole range of audiences in ways that were not possible in site-specific and synchronous contexts. ...
... These range from critics analysing the limitations of algorithmic recommendations by digital platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify (e.g. Beer, 2013;Wright, 2011), through to more general critiques of algorithmic decision-making (Noble, 2018), user experiences online (Carmi, 2020), and personalisation technologies (Kant, 2020). These more general critiques mirror concerns over the impact of digitalisation on cultural workers (e.g. ...
How did cultural consumption change during the Covid-19 pandemic? Whilst the impact of the pandemic on cultural production has been given significant attention, work on consumption has seen less attention. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by presenting a comparative analysis of two, nationally representative, surveys of cultural activity in England. The analysis demonstrates that, when cultural consumption moved online and to digital modes of delivery and engagement as a result of the pandemic, there was no discernible transformation in the stratification of cultural participation in England. The majority of the population, characterised by the absence of participation in formal, and often state-funded, cultural forms, saw no change to their patterns of engagement. Where cultural consumption did increase, this was among the small minority of people who were already highly engaged. This minority maps closely onto pre-existing inequalities identified by existing research on cultural consumption, in England and beyond. For cultural consumption and the stratification of taste, it seems that the ‘new normal’ of pandemic life was much like the ‘old normal’ of an art and cultural audience characterised by significant inequality.
... Such a perspective is particularly important to understand the effects of proliferation of VGI platforms, which cannot be dissociated from the emergence of a new economic logic built upon a data revolution (Kitchin, 2014;Kitchin & Dodge, 2014). New services have been created through these digital platforms in order to develop new products, promote innovation, or generate value, often through cocreation processes (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004a;2004b;Truong et al., 2012;Beer, 2013;Ramaswamy & Gouillart, 2010;Ramaswamy & Ozcan 2014). This has presented a new opportunity for firms to grow by integrating themselves into digital platforms and exploring the potentialities of the services that these can offer. ...
... Digital platforms establish ecosystems that connect firms with other economic actors (Truong et al., 2012;Beer, 2013;Ramaswamy & Gouillart, 2010;Ramaswamy & Ozcan 2014). This has led to what has been called the platform economy (Pasquale, 2016;Srnicek, 2017;Langley & Leyshon, 2017), in which the cocreation paradigm dominates the economy (Gouillart & Quancard, 2016;Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2014). ...
This article aims to provide a more detailed conception of the production of urban digital divides by VGI platforms in the context of the platform economy, through the articulation of the first (access and coverage), second (usage and skills) and third (outcomes) level of the digital divide. Our conceptual approach departs from a discussion of the geographical consequences of the different levels of the digital divide, focusing on their application to the study of VGI platforms, especially those working under the logic of the platform economy. We draw on a multi-level case study of the geographies of TripAdvisor and the geographies of restaurants or similar establishments in Lisbon, which comprised data analysis and interviews with restaurant owners, to argue that VGI platforms are producing urban digital divides that can only be fully detected through the triangulation of the different levels of the digital divide. They are not only producing different levels of territorial coverage in cities, but also different levels of usage intensity which have caused negative and positive outcomes for the firms associated. All these levels are spatially distributed, and such distribution is even more pronounced at a finer scale. We conclude that VGI platforms are producing a myriad of new forms of spatial divides that need more attention, given that the digital divide is present within the mechanisms designed by digital platforms. The vast and complex effects of such data engineering is best captured when all three levels of the digital divide are taken into account.
... This has resulted in a challenge to traditional distribution channels and a slowdown of advertisement revenues in the broadcasting market that was overtaken by Internet advertising (Lynch 2016). Along with their customized catalogues and recommendation systems designed by user databases and sophisticated algorithms, SVOD services have become an important production and distribution platform in television production, with interrupting existing stakeholders in the industry (Beer 2013;Wayne 2018). ...
... While such investment and production strategies aim to increase and maintain subscribers worldwide and to target niche audiences as a means of expanding the market, the "platform war" between SVOD pioneers and major incumbents reassures the power of distribution in cultural industries (Beer 2013). Such a fierce competition between traditional and new players in the SVOD market demonstrates that the model of vertical integration, referring to when a company controls "every stage of a media text's development, from production through distribution and sales (Havens and Lotz 2017, 22)," is still valid since market shares depend on the number of subscribers which is highly subject to the number of television series with exclusive distribution rights. ...
This study examines the dynamics of co-production between a global subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platform and a local producer. Based on a case study of “YG Future Strategy Office” co-produced by YG Entertainment and Netflix, it examines how various expectations of both companies are embedded in this series. On one hand, YG considers co-production as a means of promoting its artists for the global market which otherwise cannot be produced through pre-existing broadcasters. On the other hand, Netflix expects such co-productions to target the Asian market so that it can respond to the entry of incumbent media moguls into the SVOD market. While such co-productions seem to benefit both global platforms and local producers on the surface, however, this relationship may result in deteriorating the position of local actors as potential subcontractors considering the importance of distribution in the mediascape.
... This process is recursive (Kitchin and Dodge 2011;Beer 2013;. Users decode texts, photos, video, etc., i.e. the outputs of the machine; users react to these stimuli and also share cultural objects, such as pictures, posts and other items. ...
Today almost everything we do in our everyday life is datafied and fed into an algorithm, i.e. reduced to an input that recursive computational systems process and transform into behavioural models. How algorithms sort, classify and propose contents have a striking impact on how people make sense of the world and derive their sense of self. Despite their powerful social presence, however, algorithms remain mainly invisible to individuals, as well as difficult to examine for researchers. By drawing on auto-ethnographic diaries, prepared following a critical pedagogy approach, this contribution discusses the results of an empirical research that aim to analyse media consumption, content production and sharing practices on digital platforms, in order to shed light on how individuals relate to algorithmic media and how they critically reflect on their apparently innocuous daily online practices. In accordance with the results, we argue that users on digital platforms can be framed as algorithmic prosumers. Indeed, the consumption, as well as the production of contents on digital platforms are algorithmic practices that foster datafication and capitalist surveillance logics, with users feeding algorithmic media while they are contemporarily fed by them within a recursive loop. In this context, it emerges an individual whose subjectivity is strictly connected to and enacted by computational procedures.
... This process is recursive (Kitchin and Dodge 2011;Beer 2013;. Users decode texts, photos, video, etc., i.e. the outputs of the machine; users react to these stimuli and also share cultural objects, such as pictures, posts and other items. ...
Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms.
... The feedback cycle is in indeed recursive (Airoldi and Rokka 2019) because the algorithm powering these kinds of platforms produces recommendations based on 'my recommendations' , when I am asserting my dietary preferences and giving cues regarding my leisure activities. In this encoding and decoding loop, named recursive (Beer 2013;, algorithm and subject are fused in a machinic reciprocal learning. Acknowledging the dynamicity of this humanmachine relationship, Cheney-Lippold (2011) describes how algorithms construct fairly complex identities: such complexity certainly gets more refined and qualified. ...
Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms.
... More recently, humanities and social science scholars have begun to shine a critical light on recommenders to explore how they produce, reproduce and manage consumer desire (Drott, 2018) and individual subjects (Prey, 2018). Other critical research is concerned with privacy issues that surround recommenders (Perik et al., 2004) and with how such systems exercise influence over the culture we consume (Beer, 2009(Beer, , 2013Morris, 2015;Seaver, 2012). For example, the specific techniques Netflix utilizes to understand its users' tastes and to recommend content could impact the type of television programs and films that get produced (Hallinan & Striphas, 2016). ...
Our lives are increasingly mediated, regulated and produced by algorithmically-driven software; often invisible to the people whose lives it affects. Online, much of the content that we consume is delivered to us through algorithmic recommender systems (“recommenders”). Although the techniques of such recommenders and the specific algorithms that underlie them differ, they share one basic assumption: that individuals are “users” whose preferences can be predicted through past actions and behaviors. While based on a set of assumptions that may be largely unconscious and even uncontroversial, we draw upon Andrew Feenberg’s work to demonstrate that recommenders embody a “formal bias” that has social implications. We argue that this bias stems from the “technical code” of recommenders – which we identify as a form of behaviorism. Studying the assumptions and worldviews that recommenders put forth tells us something about how human beings are understood in a time where algorithmic systems are ubiquitous. Behaviorism, we argue, forms the episteme that grounds the development of recommenders. What we refer to as the “behavioral code” of recommenders promotes an impoverished view of what it means to be human. Leaving this technical code unchallenged prevents us from exploring alternative, perhaps more inclusive and expansive, pathways for understanding individuals and their desires. Furthermore, by problematizing formations that have successfully rooted themselves in technical codes, this chapter extends Feenberg’s critical theory of technology into a domain that is both ubiquitous and undertheorized.
... This particular method was chosen to capture the complex social nature of internet-based interactions and to enable the researchers to explore the new cultural formations that emerge online (Hine, 2015(Hine, , 2017. The "contemporary internet" has become a complex and multifaceted arena which both reflects and reshapes everyday life, subtly remodelled by the platforms which provide options for sociality and algorithms that circulate data and personalise online experience (Beer, 2013;Hine, 2015;Snee et al., 2017). Virtual ethnography was considered as it enabled the researchers to explore users' personal online experience in relation to their everyday offline reality and compare users' online and offline realities (Prajarto, 2018). ...
Media is an essential part of human life that characterises generations. Media consumption patterns have been used in defining and labelling various media generations such as the Radio generation, Screen generation and the current Net generation. However, not much is known on the role of the emerging media especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by the Generational Cohort Theory and latest Malaysian generational cohort classification, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating media consumption patterns across different generational cohorts in Malaysia. A cross-sectional survey was conducted involving 1,526 respondents and the results demonstrate significant differences between generations. The older generations, namely the Pre-Merdeka generation (71 years old and above) and the Merdeka generation (51–70 years old) rely more on traditional media like television, radio and newspapers compared to the younger generation. The younger generations such as the Reformist generation (31–50 years old) and the Internet generation (18–30 years old), are more adaptable to the latest media technologies such as online games, recreational apps, and online meeting apps. Due to COVID-19’s digital transformative impact, the older generations are catching up with the trend by using many emerging media such as social media and food delivery apps. The overall results indicate different media consumption patterns among different generations in Malaysia which could serve as valuable information for advertisers and marketers in planning suitable marketing strategies to effectively appeal to these generations. Ultimately, it can be used to define generations in Malaysia.
... This particular method was chosen to capture the complex social nature of internet-based interactions and to enable the researchers to explore the new cultural formations that emerge online (Hine, 2015(Hine, , 2017. The "contemporary internet" has become a complex and multifaceted arena which both reflects and reshapes everyday life, subtly remodelled by the platforms which provide options for sociality and algorithms that circulate data and personalise online experience (Beer, 2013;Hine, 2015;Snee et al., 2017). Virtual ethnography was considered as it enabled the researchers to explore users' personal online experience in relation to their everyday offline reality and compare users' online and offline realities (Prajarto, 2018). ...
As one of the most popular social media platforms in Indonesia, Instagram is used by millennials and Generation Z. Nonetheless, it is now common practice for a person to own accounts in more than just one social media platform. Hence, this raises the question regarding how Indonesian youths present their distinctive self in their Instagram accounts. This paper aims to analyse the identity construction of Indonesian youths on Instagram, as well as the space construction compared to other platforms they use simultaneously. The research was conducted using the virtual ethnography method to gain insights of not only what appears on the digital screen, but also the correlation with the users’ offline
reality and persona. Initial findings in this paper indicate that Indonesian youths tend to present a certain selected persona on screen. This persona is not seen as a separated fragment from their offline persona but rather embraced as a part of their whole self. However, the construction of identity and space in Instagram cannot be separated from the socio-cultural context, not only offline but also online. There are factors that tend to influence the space construction in Instagram as their personal showroom, a personal space to present their selected self.
... The livestreaming village represents a new social pattern closely related to algorithms, which demonstrates the possibility that algorithms can mediate and reorganize society, the economy, and culture. However, the power of the algorithm (Beer, 2013) lies not only in its impact on society but also in how people respond to the algorithm-that is, in the recursive force relations between people and algorithms (Bucher, 2017). Therefore, if an algorithm is taken as representative of a new technology embedded in modern daily life, this practical research on the livestreaming village as a new phenomenon seeks to explore the social opportunities facilitated by new technologies and create a dialogue surrounding rural social transformation in the era of mobile Internet technology. ...
This case study of North Xiazhu Village in China examines how algorithmic practices and the construction of physical and symbolical places mutually shape and constitute one another in the context of a new phenomenon: livestreaming villages. Such villages have emerged as a result of the widespread popularity of social media featuring algorithmic recommendations. Algorithmic practices—defined as users’ individual or collective strategies and actions in response to the algorithmic mechanisms that distribute traffic—have become key variables in the place-making of livestreaming villages. By analyzing how algorithmic practices are formed, implemented, shared, organized, and interwoven with place-making, this paper seeks to examine how the traditional village of North Xiazhu has transformed into a livestreaming village. Meanwhile, this paper seeks to broaden our understanding of the social opportunities facilitated by new technologies, recognizing the constitutive role of algorithmic practices in the making of places and communities.
... To understand digital capabilities already developed in several sectors, for the reconfiguration of digital activities, this article sought and identified in the literature the digital capabilities applicable to the education sector. We found studies that have addressed digital capabilities from various perspectives, such as the one by Khin and Ho (2020), who present building digital capabilities in industries; however there is a lack of articles and reviews that approach digital capabilities developed for the education area (Beer, 2013;Williamson, 2018). ...
O objetivo é mapear as capacidades digitais aplicáveis ao setor da educação. O método utilizado é revisão sistemática de literatura do tipo descritiva com análise bibliométrica. Os dados foram coletados nas bases Web of Science e Scopus, considerando o período de 1973 a 2021. Para sistematizar a base de dados foi empregado o software Vosviewer. A amostra selecionada é de 69 artigos. Os resultados mostram cinco competências digitais aplicáveis ao setor educacional: capacidade de aprimoramento digital; capacidade de desenvolver objeto de aprendizagem; capacidade de acessibilidade digital; capacidade de desenvolver plataformas dominantes e capacidade de digitalização dos processos. O estudo contribui para teoria em dois momentos, primeiro ao indicar os principais estudos sobre capacidades digitais aplicáveis ao setor educacional e segundo o avanço na ciência na elaboração de agenda de futuras pesquisas. Com relação à contribuição gerencial, as capacidades mapeadas podem ser utilizadas por gestores de instituições de ensino e contribuir para o melhor desempenho na transformação dos processos digitais das empresas deste setor.
... 22). Además, afirma Lupton que en esta sociedad digital se ha pasado de un modelo jerárquico de poder (con estructuras fijas) a un poder basado en la comunicación, un modelo horizontal, líquido y vivo y, lo que es más importante, un poder que, gracias a las tecnologías, vigila, lo ve todo y lo sabe todo de sus ciudadanos (Beer 2013;Best, 2010;Featherstone, 2009). Un poder cada vez más sutil, imperceptible, como diría Lash (2007), un poder invisible e incluso al que se someten los ciudadanos de manera voluntaria. ...
Esta obra "Redes sociales, influencers y marketing digital en el patrimonio his- tórico-artístico. Un reto de la sociedad postdigital", tiene como finalidad dar respuesta al papel de la comunicación en el patrimonio cultural. Para ello, se plantean interrogantes, reflexiones y aportaciones teóricas que hacen referencia al papel de consumidores-prosumidores, la proyección de la comunicación digital, la ética y la mediación patrimonial, las políticas culturales, el marketing 4.0 en la empresa patrimonial, la marca digital, el branded content y los influencers.
Todos estos temas ayudarán a profundizar en la necesidad de la comunicación y el marketing para la correcta gestión patrimonial y amplificación del impacto cultural, económico y social.
Esta publicación es el resultado de investigaciones y reflexiones desarrolladas por docentes de la comunicación y la educación en distintas universidades e instituciones españolas.
... Recommendation applications have been shown to play a predominant role here. The main concerns are diminishing diversity (Nguyen, Hui, Harper, Terveen, & Konstan, 2014), the algorithmic shaping of culture (Beer, 2013;Hallinan & Striphas, 2016) and the social power of algorithms (Rieder, Matamoros-Fernandez, & Coromina, 2018). Again, there has been no clear empirical evidence for this hypothesis, but rather studies qualifying this risk (Nguyen et al., 2014;Nowak, 2016). ...
... Despite positive responses to Internet development, some scholars also express their critiques of the overwhelming use of it. Beer (2013) stated that this contemporary Internet had become a complex and multifaceted arena that both reflects and reshapes everyday life. Therefore, the effective use of the Internet in research should be studied thoroughly, but, still, the Internet can be seen as a mark of transformation for the development of digital methods in social and humanities research. ...
Unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic entails uncertain conditions, which lead people to seek alternative solutions to make activities running accordingly. Limited movements due to travel restriction and health protection confine people’s activities, including the research process. Postponing research activities is arguably not the best solution for scholars, mainly while conducting data collection. In social and humanities research, researchers mostly undertake data collection through field studies and face-to-face communications prior to the pandemic. Social distancing procedures, however, encourage people to avoid close contacts and cancel visit plans. Thus, researchers are necessary to find an alternative method during uncertainty situation. Digital research method (DRM) seems to be a plausible way to keep research ongoing, although the implementation of that method in the developing countries’ research activities, compared to the developed countries, remains lagging behind. This research aims to position DRM amidst the pandemic situation and show possibilities in using this method as an alternative in the developing countries by taking Indonesia as a case study. Results show that to make DRM works in Indonesia, some requirements need to be fulfilled to meet academic standards, and whether relevant or not the research topic applies to be processed utilizing digital method are also essential to be considered.
... Ana ekranda yer alan her program seçimi, programda yer alan karakter türlerinden programın nasıl son bulduğuna kadar akla gelebilecek tüm meta veri noktaları için kullanıcı tarafından paylaşılan (programlara ilişkin puanlama ve izleme geçmişi gibi) verilerin toplanarak işlenmesine dayalı filtrelemesine ve filmlerin manuel kodlanmasına dayanan karmaşık hesaplamaların sonucudur. Bu da doğal olarak Netflix'i kültür, filtre balonları ve büyük veri politikaları gibi veri tespiti hakkındaki tartışmaların tam ortasına yerleştirmektedir (Pariser, 2011;Boyd ve Crawford, 2012;Beer, 2013). ...
... To cite a single example, Adrian McKenzie (2005) used the notion of circulation in vague terms to address the fact that the creation of meaning has not been as central as patterns of circulation through software versions, distributions and reconfigurations in the case of the Linux operating system. David Beer (2013) introduced the notion of cir-culation in a more forthright way, as a starting point for an analysis of intersections between popular culture and new media. He suggested that our understanding of popular culture in the digital media realm should not be archived without a consideration of the ways in which media as objects and infrastructures influence this circulation. ...
The concept of "digital circulation", together with the idea of 'social life of digital things', is highly evocative. Yet science and technology studies have not addressed it in depth to date. This introduction looks at the major converging dimensions examined in the papers in the first part of a special issue focusing on the notion of digital circulation. Specifically, if fo-cuses on digital circulaton's material ontology and on the infrastructures that sustain the processes of circulation, seeing them as pivotal points in theoretical considerations aimed at bridging science and technology studies, media and communication studies and other neighboring fields. This introduction also provides an overview of the articles that make up this issue of Tecnoscienza.
This paper shows how the capture and circulation of data about social lives are enabled through digitalisation and market logics and practices. Drawing on Australia's new Consumer Data Right, a state-led initiative that creates access rights to personal data, we distinguish between market promises and the translation of market models in actually existing markets and regulatory frameworks. ‘Life's work’ is brought to market through promises to fix the problems of essential service markets by harnessing data. We argue that the Consumer Data Right is underpinned by a more ambitious vision to create future markets that transcend individual sectors through aggregation across the economy. These visions are silent on how the data, which cannot be owned and therefore cannot be commoditised, is capitalised. We show the Consumer Data Right's discursive, administrative, regulatory and technical aspects through which the previously hard-to-penetrate spaces of the home and everyday life become enrolled in circuits of value, both present and future. This involves technical standard setting by state agencies for accreditation, consent and approval processes; discourses of trust and calculative devices to promote consumer control; and weak de-identification and deletion requirements that grant data an afterlife beyond the original agreed use. This paper calls for greater attention to the enabling role of the state in digital markets as a counterbalance to the focus on the state's regulatory and constraining role. We argue for a more staged approach to market-making analysis to show how the state lays the market foundations that can then be deepened through practices of intermediation and capitalisation by private firms.
Netflix’s status as a personalised service has been central to its business proposition and brand. However, recent changes to include community-based metrics within the user interface – such as the 2020 addition of a national top 10 feature – denote a shift in corporate strategy from personalisation to communal discovery. This article uses a critical communications and media industry studies approach to consider both the data being produced by the top 10 ranking and the broader industrial function of the list, especially within a longer history of audience measurement.
Web tarayıcılarının gelişimi arama motorunun tanıtımı derken sosyal
ağların ortaya çıkışıyla birlikte yeni iletişim teknolojilerinin birey ve
toplum üzerindeki etkisine yönelik tartışmalar giderek artmıştır.
Bireylerin gerçeklerden ziyade kendi duygu ve inançlarına uygun olan
bilgileri kabul etmeye eğilimli olmaları bu tartışmaların başında yer
almaktadır. Dolayısıyla hakikatin önemini yitirdiği bu çağa vurgu
yapmak için alanyazında “hakikat sonrası çağ” kavramı
kullanılmaktadır.
Hakikat sonrası çağ kavramına yönelik tartışmaların yanı sıra sosyal
ağların hayatımıza girişiyle birlikte algoritmalar üzerine de pek çok
görüş ortaya konulmaktadır. Algoritmaların bireylerin sosyal ağlar
üzerinde daha önce gerçekleştirdikleri beğenileri, paylaşımları vb. gibi
hareketlerinden yola çıkarak beğenebilecekleri seçenekleri karşısına
çıkarması ve bir süre sonra bireysel ve toplumsal düzeyde birtakım
kutuplaşmaların daha da güçlenmesine sebep olduğuna dair görüşler
mevcuttur. Bu durumun, bireylerin gerçeklerden ziyade duygu ve
inançlarına uygun olan bilgilere yönelme eğilimi de göz önünde
bulundurulduğunda, bireylerdeki düşüncelerin daha da derinleşmesine
ve karşıt görüşler arasındaki kutuplaşmaların daha da artmasına hizmet
edeceği düşünülmektedir.
Gerçekleştirilen alanyazın taraması ışığında bu çalışmada, öncelikle
“hakikat sonrası çağ” kavramı ve “yankı odası etkisi” kavramlarından
bahsedilecek ve kavrama yönelik tartışmalara yer verilecektir.
Ardından We Are Social Raporu (2022)’na göre en çok kullanılan ilk üç sosyal ağ içerisinde olan “Facebook”, “YouTube” ve “Whatsapp”,
yankı odası etkisi bağlamında ele alınacaktır. Son olarak ise yankı odası
etkisine dair farkındalık oluşturabilmek adına neler yapılabileceği
üzerinde durulacaktır.
Dijital teknolojiler tarihimizdeki birçok yenilikten çok daha hızlı ilerlemiş ve iletişim süreçlerinde kesintisiz enformasyon akışını sağlayarak medya araçlarında bir dönüşüm yaşanmasına yol açmıştır. Bu dönüşümün önemli çıktılarından biri dijital yayın platformlarıdır. İçinde bulunduğumuz çağda, çevrim içi içerik akışı sağlayan dijital yayın platformlarının baskın içerik tüketim biçimlerinden biri haline geldiği görülmektedir. Dijital yayın platformlarının, geleneksel televizyon yayıncılığının bir uzantısı olduğuna dair tartışmalarla birlikte izleyicilerin geleneksel televizyonun yanı sıra bu platformları da kullandığı, buna paralel biçimde içerik tüketim pratiklerinin de bu süreçte farklılaştığı görülmektedir. İlgili alanyazındaki çalışmalarda geleneksel televizyonların bireysel ve kitlesel olarak kültürü şekillendirmede önemli araçlar olduğu yönünde tartışmalar yer almaktadır. Yeni medya araçlarının gelişimiyle ise birçok çalışmada bu araçların popüler kültür bağlamında ele alındığı görülmekte ve kültürün üretilmesinde, tüketilmesinde ve dolaşımında önemli bir etkileyen olduğuna dikkat çekilmektedir. Bu çalışma, dijital yayın platformlarının popüler kültüre etkisini Netflix orijinal dizisi Squid Game bağlamında incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Netflix’in dijital yayın platformları içerisinde önemli bir yere sahip olması ve en çok izlenen dizilerinden birinin Squid Game olması nedeniyle bu örnek üzerinden konu incelenmiştir. Belirtilen amaç doğrultusunda öncelikle dijitalleşme kavramı, medyanın dönüşümü, dijital yayın platformlarının gelişimi ve izleme pratiklerinde yaşanan değişiklikler açıklanmıştır. Ardından Netflix’in bir akış hizmeti olarak özelliklerine detaylı biçimde değinilmiş ve kültür üretim ve tüketim süreçlerinde yeri tartışılmıştır. Ayrıca Türkiye’den ve dünyadan örneklerle Squid Game’in popülerliği ve gündelik yaşama yansımaları ele alınmıştır.
In the current mediascape, streaming services have fundamentally changed the ways in which spectators consume audiovisual media. Moreover, they have contributed to the creation of a new kind of viewer that I would like to call the spectator-interface—that is, a human-digital hybrid that is constituted through the different process of browsing, watching, and migrating in consuming audiovisual media. This article outlines the main attributes of the spectator-interface while connecting this type of subject to other kinds of digital users. First, it analyzes the behaviors of streaming users within the realm of algorithmic culture. Second, it links these practices with the re-configuration of the digital users’ memory. Third, it connects the apparent infiniteness of streaming catalogues with the elimination of wait time and various processes of continuous consumption. Finally, it studies the double dynamics of catalogue customization and binge-watching that anchors how the spectator-interface accesses and consumes content within the streaming scenario.
'Vanlife’ is a term utilised on social media sites, including YouTube, to denote images and videos that represent a lifestyle centred around long-distance travel using converted vans. The Vanlife phenomenon demonstrates the potential for networked culture and storytelling to combine to create emergent spaces, fostered not only by individual digital media objects but also the connected digital networks they occupy. In this article I ask how digital media practices are used by Vanlife travellers in order to construct such emergent spaces, and what the characteristics of these spaces might be. This investigation has a particular focus on the capacity for the creative practices used to tell visual stories online to combine representations of ‘real world’ experiences and environments, with the individual and communal desires, rhetoric and, at times, fictions, of the burgeoning Vanlife alternative lifestyle. Taking a netnographic approach (Kozinets, 2002), and guided by Henri Lefebvre’s trialectic model of space (1974), I conduct analysis of a set of Vanlife YouTube videos and explore the construction of different layers of spatiality as well as the productive tensions that arise between these. As Vanlifers undertake and document their freewheeling travels, their production of spaces serves to establish the unending road trip as a viable alternative lifestyle. Vanlife videos also work to formulate new cultural and aesthetic dimensions for the areas their creators explore, destabilising and redefining the meanings of the spaces, experiences and communities its travellers encounter. Equally, the idealised spaces of Vanlife are themselves disrupted by jarring intrusions from the external world and its everyday problems, a tension that further illustrates the continually negotiable nature of spatial meanings and highlights the role digital media might play in accentuating and accelerating this fluidity.
The expanding use of algorithms in society has called for the emergence of “critical algorithm studies” across several fields, ranging from media studies to geography and from sociology to the humanities. In the past 5 years, a consistent literature on the subject has developed. Inspired by these studies, we explored the ways digital traces may be employed for auditing algorithms and find evidence about algorithmic functioning. We focus on the analysis of digital traces through search engines and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). We present four cases of how digital traces may be used for auditing algorithms and testing their quality in terms of data, model, and outcomes. The first example is taken from Noble’s (2018) book Algorithms of Oppression . The other three examples are very recent, two of them related to COVID-19 pandemic and about the most controversial type of algorithms: image recognition. Search as research and the analysis of digital traces and footprints within quasi-experimental research designs are useful methods for testing the quality of data, the codes, and the outcomes of algorithms.
Stories about what living well means are critical both to the maintenance of existing ways of living and to the possibility of envisioning and transitioning toward fairer and more sustainable futures. The implications of the stories told on social media for the possibility of such futures have yet to be explored. In this article we explore how the use of hashtags on Instagram shapes the visibility and recognizability of understandings of the good life in the discursive field created by #goodlife on the platform. Using network analysis, we map the co-occurrence of hashtags in 793 posts tagged #goodlife to explore the formation of hashtag-based narrative and hyperlink patterns. The visibility and recognizability of narrative patterns within this discursive space are shaped by interactional conventions and by algorithmic infrastructure, favoring corporate interests over sustainable and fair livelihoods. However, we also identify themes that could support fairer and more sustainable understandings of living well and reassert their ongoing importance.
Za prevladujočo digitalno družbenost je značilno stanje nenehne povezanosti in stalnega pričakovanja, to pa vzpodbuja nemirnost in nestabilnost ter ustvarja občutek dogodkopolnosti in kratkotrajnosti. Stalna obvestila o novem »dogodku« in stopnjevanje pogostosti teh obvestil, ki jih imajo uporabniki vključene, ta občutek še okrepi. Ravno to ustvarjanje vtisa njihove družbene osrednjosti, tudi s pomočjo percepcije, da se stvari dogajajo »v živo«, je glavna značilnosti družbenih medijev. Kot pravi sociolog David Beer, družbene platforme utripajo od pričakovanja, da se vsak trenutek lahko zgodi nekaj novega, vrednega pozornosti, zaradi česar so uporabniki stalno »na preži«. Obenem je za platformno družbenost značilna večopravilnost, to je naraščajoča razdrobljenost aktivnosti, kjer pride do izvajanja več aktivnosti hkrati, brez jasne hierarhije med tipi praks in brez razlikovanja prostorov za posamezne prakse, kot je na primer sfera šole in prostega časa. Kaj te ključne značilnosti platformne družbenosti pomenijo za usodo branja literature? V prispevku v zgoščeni obliki in z ilustrativnimi primeri predstavljamo nekatere ključne ugotovitve obsežnejše raziskave o medijski potrošnji mladih (https://medijimladih.si/) , konkretno o umeščenosti branja (literature) v medijski vsakdan mladih. Vprašanje (izumiranja) branja je bil samo manjši vidik proučevanja platformskega habitusa in medijskih repertoarjev mladih. Pojasniti skušamo, zakaj in kako se od »medijskih« praks v digitalnem okolju morda ravno branje literature najbolj radikalno preoblikuje in izumira.
Scholars of critical algorithmic studies, including those from geography, anthropology, science talent search, and communication studies, have begun to consider how algorithmic devices and platforms facilitate democratic practices. In this article, I draw on a comparative ethnography of two alternative open-source algorithmic platforms – Decide Madrid and vTaiwan – to consider how they are dynamically constituted by differing algorithmic–human relationships. I compare how different algorithmic–human relationships empower citizens to influence political decision-making through proposing, commenting, and voting on the urban issues that should receive political resources in Taipei and Madrid. I argue that algorithmic empowerment is an emerging process in which algorithmic–human relationships orient away from limitations and towards conditions of plurality, actionality, and power decentralisation. This argument frames algorithmic empowerment as bringing about empowering conditions that allow (underrepresented) individuals to shape policy-making and consider plural perspectives for political change and action, not as an outcome-driven, binary assessment (i.e. yes/no). This article contributes a novel, situated, and comparative conceptualisation of algorithmic empowerment that moves beyond technological determinism and universalism.
This paper establishes dialogs between theories on the popular and critical studies on algorithms and datafication. In doing so, it contributes to reversing the analytical tendency to assume that algorithms have universal effects and that conclusions about “algorithmic power” in the Global North apply unproblematically everywhere else. We begin by clarifying how Latin American scholars and other research traditions have theorized the popular (“lo popular”). We then develop four dimensions of lo popular to implement these ideas in the case of algorithms: playful cultural practices, imagination, resistance, and “in-betweenness.” We argue that this dialogue can generate different ways of thinking about the problems inherent to algorithmic mediation by drawing attention to the remixes of cultural practices, imaginative solutions to everyday problems, “cyborg” forms of resistance, and ambiguous forms of agency that are central to the operations of algorithmic assemblages nowadays. © 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
This article argues that concept of popular culture, as conceptualized within the media/cultural studies tradition in the Anglophone West, is in crisis. The idea of the “popular” that continues to be embraced by many critical media/communication and cultural studies scholars derives from postwar assumptions about mass media which no longer accurately fit present conditions. However, the resilience of these assumptions has created “the problem of popular culture,” a complicated and longstanding series of dilemmas for contemporary scholarship. This article documents several manifestations of this problem and proposes that scholars reserve the term popular culture for instances of popular practice.
In this article, we analyze the rise of data visualization in social and political contexts. Against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, we consider a case in Shenzhen, China, and demonstrate the impact of visualization as intermediation for data on policies and society. We propose an epistemology of visualization as infrastructure. In China, visualization has been developed as a technological system to support information dissemination and collective action in public crises. Three characteristics are proposed to describe China’s data visualization politics during the pandemic, in particular, to summarize the power relationships between visual brokers, policymakers, and public users in data visualization. Further, based on the conceptualization of the links between visualization, infrastructure, and data politics, visualization serves as an important component of information infrastructure, and is an easily overlooked technical process. The creation and use of data may seem like normalized actions, but data visualization in fact supports the perception, participation, proposal, and critique of data politics issues. Via a focus group discussion with members of the Shenzhen public health sector and in-depth interviews with Shenzhen residents, we developed a qualitative effectiveness measurement framework highlighting the potential for the involvement of visualization in politics and activism.
This chapter investigates the hashtag battle #BlackLivesMatter vs. #AllLivesMatter and considers its ability to promote cyber race. It assesses the implications of constructing racial boundaries within the online space, its impact on identity politics and the viability for cyberspace to exist as a post-racial epoch in the digital age. This study takes an affordance and architectural approach to its analysis of BLM and ALM, incorporating a thematic analysis of the hashtags on Twitter. The research uses a theoretical underpinning of framing theory to analyze tweets from the ALM and BLM twitter timelines. It demonstrates that the hashtag battle, although, configured, and framed by the mainstream media as one that encapsulates a race war of Black vs. White, that actually, findings reveal that the battle consists of the tension and friction between mainstream media frames and what is termed digitized frames.
Organizations increasingly delegate agency to artificial intelligence. However, such systems can yield unintended negative effects as they may produce biases against users or reinforce social injustices. What pronounces them as a unique grand challenge, however, are not their potentially problematic outcomes but their fluid design. Machine learning algorithms are continuously evolving; as a result, their functioning frequently remains opaque to humans. In this article, we apply recent work on tackling grand challenges though robust action to assess the potential and obstacles of managing the challenge of algorithmic opacity. We stress that although this approach is fruitful, it can be gainfully complemented by a discussion regarding the accountability and legitimacy of solutions. In our discussion, we extend the robust action approach by linking it to a set of principles that can serve to evaluate organisational approaches of tackling grand challenges with respect to their ability to foster accountable outcomes under the intricate conditions of algorithmic opacity.
Organizations increasingly delegate agency to artificial intelligence. However, such systems can yield unintended negative effects as they may produce biases against users or reinforce social injustices. What pronounces them as a unique grand challenge, however, are not their potentially problematic outcomes but their fluid design. Machine learning algorithms are continuously evolving; as a result, their functioning frequently remains opaque to humans. In this article, we apply recent work on tackling grand challenges though robust action to assess the potential and obstacles of managing the challenge of algorithmic opacity. We stress that although this approach is fruitful, it can be gainfully complemented by a discussion regarding the accountability and legitimacy of solutions. In our discussion, we extend the robust action approach by linking it to a set of principles that can serve to evaluate organisational approaches of tackling grand challenges with respect to their ability to foster accountable outcomes under the intricate conditions of algorithmic opacity.
The corporate rhetoric of streaming platforms often assumes a tight link between their scale-making ambitions on the one hand and the creative interests of musicians on the other. In practice, most musicians recognise that claims of musical ‘democratisation’ are deeply flawed. The creative ambivalence this produces is an understudied pillar in scholarship on digital music platforms and suggests that these systems can be more creatively constrictive than empowering. Based on ethnographic research among Spotify engineers, record labels and musicians, this article explores how music recommendation systems become inculcated with a corporate rhetoric of ‘scalability’ and considers, following Anna Tsing, how this impacts musical creativity further down the value chain. I argue that the ‘creative ambivalence’ that these technologies produce should be more fully understood as woven into a complex web of social relations and corporate interests than prevailing claims of technological objectivity and ‘democratisation’ suggest.
Post-crisis Greece is experiencing dynamic audiovisual market growth, faster than the EU average. As Greek TV responds to the challenges of the streaming era, new paths are forged by young viewers/users. This article, based on a survey of nearly 1,000 students, attempts to characterise the viewing patterns of young audiences, who are early adopters and heavy consumers of streaming television. We argue that whereas young Greek media users favour streaming platforms, they value the social character of traditional television, which plays a prominent role in post-crisis Greece. Young media users’ screen behaviour can be described as mobility-centred and algorithmically naïve.
In this chapter, I want to reconsider what has become a critical orthodoxy with regard to Stranger Things—namely, its use of nostalgic, 1980s-focused intertextual referencing.
Nos últimos anos, é notável a proliferação de empresas de televisão distribuídas via internet, especialmente as orientadas pelo modelo de assinatura (SVoD). No campo acadêmico, diversas incursões já foram feitas para abordar esses serviços dentro do contexto televisivo. Contudo, ainda há uma lacuna no que tange o enquadramento enquanto plataformas, regida por lógicas semelhantes a outras empresas de tecnologia, como Facebook e Google. Dessa forma, este artigo tem como objetivo traçar um panorama teórico combinando os estudos de televisão com as discussões atuais sobre os processos de dataficação e plataformização da internet. Para tanto, é feita uma análise preliminar em duas plataformas SVoD, Netflix e Amazon Prime Video, observando como cada uma delas se comporta quanto aos aspectos de relacionados aos mecanismos de personalização algorítmica e ao tratamento de dados sobre a audiência. Argumenta-se que, tendo em vista a acentuada intersecção de modelos televisivos com o meio digital na atualidade, não se pode mais encarar termos como catálogo e audiência sem levar em consideração elementos como a interface do sistema, os algoritmos de personalização e a maneira como os dados são trabalhados.
Purpose
The purpose is to map and discuss two schools of thought in knowledge organization research. The objective of this mapping is to examine the conceptual views and the derived questions and concerns voiced in these two schools and whether they fit with concerns in contemporary digital culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is a comparative analysis and discussion.
Findings
The comparative analysis and discussion point out the different sets of questions the two schools are concerned with distinct epistemological and ontological implications.
Originality/value
The originality of this article is the naming, mapping and discussion of two schools of research in knowledge with a view to how they fit with problems of ordering, archiving and searching in digital culture.
Luxury and designer fashion brands today produce as much digital content and branded entertainment as they do design and product. Online video is a key part of that production. In this article, the author questions whether the use of the generic term ‘fashion film’ is still relevant to discussions of the moving image in the digital age. He does this by examining a range of promotional uses of the moving image by the fashion industry – by brands such as Gucci, Burberry and Louis Vuitton – on the social media platforms Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, which blend design with media. This article seeks to engage critically with the branded dominance of ‘fashion film’ as a commercial phenomenon in contemporary visual culture by positioning it as a shape-shifting form of ‘content’ through the dissemination of moving images on social media, on mobile image-sharing platforms, in which the visual dynamic of the feed (of marketing and data) is now, in part, superseding the aesthetic framework of cinema (of narrative and drama). Rather than situating it primarily as part of film history, here the author situates the contemporary fashion-moving image at the intersection of digital interactivity, fashion branding and celebrity influence.
The analysis of urban informatics might initially sound like a rather technical and esoteric undertaking; something best restricted to a few specialised books, journals and conferences, rather than a topic that could potentially be of a more general sociological interest. The task in this chapter is to convince the, likely, sceptical reader otherwise that an analytic focus on urban informatics provides a plethora of insights into how the contemporary sociological imagination might be more productively rethought for the digital age. The notion of urban informatics is a relatively recent invention designed to conceptually register that we now live under circumstances where the well-worn ontological distinction between ‘a space of places’ and ‘a space of flows’ (Castells, 1996) is no longer sustainable. It is the study of how information and urban systems are meshing in order to produce, what for some is, a distinctive social ontology that demands a major rethinking of sociological practice.