The End of Media Logics?
On Algorithms & Agency
b
Jakob Svensson & Ulrike Klinger
Digital Democracy: Critical Perspectives in the Age of Big Data, Södertörn, 10-11 Nov. 2017
Algorithms on the Agenda
Facebook manually controlling their algorithms (Tufekci, 2015) When firing its trending team è weird outcomes (Thielman, 2016).
Is Amazon is homophobic? (Striphas, 2015)
Is Google is racist? (Allen, 2016)
Microsoft’s chat program Tay (Neff & Nagy, 2016)
Gender biases in image search algorithms (Kay et al, 2015) Blacks are not recognized as humans in face-recognition (Sandvig et al, 2016)
the "Algorithmic
Turn"
Urrichio, 2011; Napoli, 2014 Algorithms replace editors (DeVito, 2016) to journalists (van Dalen, 2012), act as information intermediaries (Bozdag, 2013). Facebook is the number one source of news about government and politics for a majority of the so-called “millennials” (Diakopoulus, 2016). Steiner (2012) è argues that algorithms control financial markets, the music that reaches our ears, and even how we choose a partner. Algorithms are responsible for selecting the information that reaches us (Gillespie, 2014), which has consequences for the shaping of our social and economic life (Kitchin, 2017).Algorithmically generated news feeds influence the issues on our agenda and how these issues are framed (Just & Latzer, 2016), which in turn influences our decisions, preferences and even election results (Tufekci, 2015).
the "Algorithmic
Turn"
Urrichio, 2011; Napoli, 2014Algorithm?
A modern myth (Barocas et al., 2013), term is sloppily used (Sandvig et al., 2016) and it is expanding (Gurevich 2012), "in front the screen imaginary" (Mansell, 2012)? Algorithms = problem-solving technologies, calculate in steps (Kowalski 1979) "arithmos” = number “al-jabr” = calculation Algorithms as socio-material processes a) input, the designing/programming (based around problems that need to be solved), which b) leads to the formulation of one (or several) calculations (sort, filter, rank, profile users, weigh, Bozdag, 2013) which operate in a big-data context, c) calculations that then result in some kind of outcome (output).the Context
Big data-context: more than its size data that can be searched, aggregated
and triangulated with other sets of data (Shorey and Howard, 2016: 5033). “trace data” (Jungherr et al., 2016)
the Algorithmic Process / Situation
Input
è
Calculation
è
Output
behind the screen in front of the screen big data
context
the Algorithmic Process / Situation
Algorithmic output is thus biased, even if the calculation itself is conducted with an allure of detached data speaking for itself Algorithms embody social norms, values, imaginations, perceptions, rules, processes and are encoded with human intentions that may or may not be fulfilled (they are informed by logics on different levels) Silicon Valley is “incredibly white and male” (Yarow, 2015) Hacker culture / ethics (Levy, 2010)Media Use Ideals Commercial Imperatives Technological Affordances
MASS MEDIA LOGIC
NETWORK MEDIA LOGIC
Recap: Network Media Logics
Algorithmic content production Prognosis/Forecast Aggregation Recommendation Scoring Filtering Search Observation/ Surveillance Allocation
Functions based on Just & Latzer 2016: 3
Production of content, Distribution of information, Media use