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Digidem Digest - Issue 47 (April 2022)
No full textThe Digidem Digest literature radar was a monthly curated overview of the latest publications with relevance to the research group "Democracy and Digitalization" at the Weizenbaum Institute. Their research focused around the interrelation of digitalization and democratic self-determination, asking how liberal-democratic societies appropriate digital technologies and how democracy is changing within the digital configuration. The present articles and publications were chosen by observation of leading journals within the field - a list can be found at the end of each newsletter
“Doing gender” by sharing. Examining the gender gap in the European sharing economy
Get PDFIn this study, based on survey data collected from twelve European countries (N=6111), we build on the digital technology access model to examine the role of gender in access to the sharing economy. Applying a “doing gender” perspective, we find that men capitalise on a stronger economic position and a more pronounced orientation to explore new technology to gain access to sharing services, while women rely more on cultural and social capital. We relate our findings to intersectionality theory by discussing how class and gender intersect in facilitating access to the sharing economy
Foundations of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Get PDFToday, artificial intelligence and machine learning play a crucial role in various fields of application. In one way or another, they influence our everyday lives. This current state of affairs and the suggestive power of these terms have triggered fundamental discussions in society. However, the technical basics have not received the attention they deserve – and need. This is especially true from a legal perspective, where groundwork on both the fundamental functionality as well as all the relevant terms surrounding the technology seems to be almost non-existent. This paper aims to fill this gap. We examine the technical background of artificial intelligence and machine learning from an interdisciplinary perspective and aim to develop common definitions that can be used for further research in legal academia. These findings provide a common starting point for a more differentiated treatment of legal (and technical) questions surrounding artificial intelligence and machine learning and allow legal academia to make reliable legal statements as well as to advance legal research in this field.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Your social ties, your personal public sphere, your responsibility: How users construe a sense of personal responsibility for intervention against uncivil comments on Facebook
Get PDFUser intervention against incivility is a significant element of democratic norm enforcement on social media, and feeling personally responsible for acting is a vital prerequisite for intervention. However, our insight into how users construe their sense of personal responsibility and expectations of other users remains limited. By theoretically foregrounding user perspective, this study investigates the boundaries and nuances of user responsibility to intervene against incivility. Empirically, it draws on 20 qualitative vignette interviews with young people in Germany. The findings show that as contexts collapse in users’ newsfeeds, the imagined boundaries of personal public spheres and own social relationships with uncivil users serve as heuristics for hierarchizing and delimiting personal responsibility to intervene. Beyond abstract individual responsibility for the public discourse, practical responsibility is distributed among personal public spheres.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, grant number 16DII114
Imprinting the economy: The structural power of venture capital
Get PDFThis article analytically links asset management and the digital economy by analyzing the structural power of venture capital (VC) investors. Therefore, I propose the notion of imprinting, which describes how financial actors, enabled by their structural position, shape businesses according to their specific logic. Concretely, I argue that VCs’ logic is one of assetization, whereby VCs turn startups into assets for themselves and their capital providers. To do so, VCs seek hypergrowth, selecting only companies with the potential to grow fast and large and decouple financial value from business fundamentals. Instead of the threat of exit, VCs establish direct and indirect channels of control: legally, via preferred shareholder rights, board seats, and payout conditionality; and as participatory capital, offering operational advice and access to their network. The article contributes to a nuanced understanding of financial sector power in contemporary capitalism
New Objects, New Boundaries: How the “Journalism of Things” Reconfigures Collaborative Arrangements, Audience Relations and Knowledge-Based Empowerment
Get PDFJournalism of Things (JoT) is a new paradigm in digital journalism where journalists co-create sensor technologies with citizens, scientists, and designers generating new kinds of data-based and community-driven insights to provide a novel perspective on matters of common concern. This study locates Journalism of Things in existing theory and elaborates on innovation practices with the analytical lenses of boundary work and objects of journalism. Three case studies on recent award-winning journalism projects in Germany include interviews, media content analyses, and observations. The findings suggest four typical phases in JoT projects: formation, data work, presentation, and ramification. Blurred boundaries of journalism towards science and activism become apparent when co-creative JoT teams apply scientific methods and technology design while mobilizing communities. The article discusses how things (or objects) of JoT have implications on the configuration for collaborative arrangements and audience relations. By creating and disseminating new local knowledge on matters of common concern, JoT is contributing to empowering both journalism and citizens.This work has been supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII124 (“Deutsches Internet-Institut”)
Agile Methods on the Shop Floor: Towards a "Tesla Production System"?
Get PDFThis discussion paper investigates two questions: To what extend can Tesla be regarded as a digital firm, and do we - as a result - see elements of a distinct "Tesla production system"? While the EV-startup is widely approached as a competing automaker focusing on the electric drive train, which it certainly is, this paper argues that it can only fully be understood as a digital firm - a digital car company with a digital product embedded in a digital ecosystem. Its roots in Silicon Valley, its software-first approach, and its strategic exploitation of user activity data point into this direction. In the second part, this paper explores to what extent Tesla's rootedness in software and its Silicon-Valley ancestry gave reason to introduce methods borrowed from software development on the shop floor. To a certain degree, concepts from agile software development found their way to the very assembly-line at Tesla. Although it might be exaggerated to speak of a distinct "Tesla Production system", indications for a considerable and possibly enduring alteration of Lean Production paradigm can be determined.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Algorithmic Management: Bright and Dark Sides, Practical Implications, and Research Opportunities
Get PDFThe authors gratefully acknowledge the funding support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the project "Algorithmic Control: A Legitimacy Perspective on Worker-level Implications (AlgoWork)" (project number 461985572), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P 35031-GBL, and the PwC Fellowship at the University of Waterloo. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL