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The End of Media Logics? On algorithms & Agency

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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

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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)

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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).

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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, 2014

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Algorithm?

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).

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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)

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the Algorithmic Process / Situation

Input

è

Calculation

è

Output

behind the screen in front of the screen big data

context

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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)

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Media Use Ideals Commercial Imperatives Technological Affordances

MASS MEDIA LOGIC

NETWORK MEDIA LOGIC

Recap: Network Media Logics

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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

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“(A)ction without a name, a ‘who’ attached to it, is

meaningless.” (Arendt 1958: 181).

"(Actor-Network-Theory) does not limit itself to

human individual actors but extend the word actor -or

actant- to non-human, non individual entities." (Latour

1996: 2)

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What is Agency?

Agency as a “temporally embedded process” (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998) Iteration (linking action to the past) Captures what algorithms do: selective attention, recognition of types, categorical location, maneuver among repertoires and expectation maintenance Projectivity (linking action to the future) Consists of anticipatory identification, narrative construction, symbolic recomposition, hypothetical resolution and experimental enactment. Algorithms cannot move beyond themselves Practical evaluation (linking action to the present) Human agency builds on problematization (recognizing ambiguous situations), characterization (typifications), deliberation (of options), decision and execution. One can question algorithms ability to deal with ambiguity and ambivalence as well as their deliberative potential in the sense of an “enlarged mentality”.

Algorithms & Agency

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Thank you for listening!

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