1,854 research outputs found
The loss of natural habitats and the addition of artificial substrata
No full textLaura Airoldi, Sean D. Connell and Michael W. Bec
Machine habitus : Sociologia degli algoritmi
No full textOgni giorno miliardi di sistemi automatizzati contribuiscono alla costruzione della società, tracciando distinzioni algoritmiche tra il visibile e l'invisibile, il rilevante e l'irrilevante, il probabile e l'improbabile; le nostre scelte e abitudini generano trame di dati con cui gli algoritmi tessono vite digitali, come abiti su misura. È il machine habitus che riproduce disuguaglianze, plasma comportamenti e opinioni collettive, spesso in modo opaco e con conseguenze imprevedibili. Per comprenderlo serve una sociologia degli algoritmi, proprio come quella delineata da Massimo Airoldi in questo libro
Machine Habitus: Toward a Sociology of Algorithms
No full textWe commonly think of society as made of and by humans, but with the proliferation of machine learning and AI technologies, this is clearly no longer the case. Billions of automated systems tacitly contribute to the social construction of reality by drawing algorithmic distinctions between the visible and the invisible, the relevant and the irrelevant, the likely and the unlikely – on and beyond platforms.
Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this book develops an original sociology of algorithms as social agents, actively participating in social life. Through a wide range of examples, Massimo Airoldi shows how society shapes algorithmic code, and how this culture in the code guides the practical behaviour of the code in the culture, shaping society in turn. The ‘machine habitus’ is the generative mechanism at work throughout myriads of feedback loops linking humans with artificial social agents, in the context of digital infrastructures and pre-digital social structures.
Machine Habitus will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, media and cultural studies, science and technology studies and information technology, and to anyone interested in the growing role of algorithms and AI in our social and cultural life
Teorie e dimensioni del potere algoritmico, tra agency e dominio
No full textThis article reviews the critical and sociological literature on algorithms and AI in light of anthropocentric social theories of power and its dimensions. Building on the classic conceptual distinction between power to (agency) and power over (domination), I outline two main theorizations of algorithmic agency, which here I call “networked” and “cultural”, and conceptualize four dimensions of algorithmic domination: opaque coercion, computational authority, structural conditioning, and data governmentality.Questo articolo rilegge la letteratura critica e sociologica su algoritmi e IA alla luce di teorie sociali antropocentriche intorno al potere e alle sue dimensioni. Utilizzando come punto di partenza la classica distinzione concettuale tra potere di (agency) e potere su (dominio), illustro due teorizzazioni principali dell’agency degli algoritmi, che qui chiamo “reticolare” e “culturale”, e concettualizzo quattro dimensioni del dominio algoritmico: coercizione opaca, autorità computazionale, condizionamento strutturale e governamentalità dei dati
Digital traces of taste: methodological pathways for consumer research
No full textWith the increasing digitalization and datafication of consumption brought by platforms such as Amazon, Netflix and Spotify, digital traces of taste are constantly generated as by-products of consumers' everyday communications and activities. However, these data have not been fully exploited in the cross-disciplinary study of taste phenomena. This paper represents a first attempt to develop a comprehensive methodological framework for “augmenting” taste research through the analysis of digital traces. The proposed framework is theory-driven, multi-method, context-sensitive, and reflexive about platforms' affordances. Three distinct methodological pathways are examined, contributing to research on taste cultures, regimes and experiences. Empirical data about Italian hip-hop culture on YouTube are employed for illustrative purposes. Key methodological and theoretical implications for consumer research are discussed
You might also be interested in: recommender algorithms and social imaginary, the case of YouTube
No full textRecommender systems are a widespread type of online algorithm, which suggests personalised contents to “digital consumers”. By automatically creating links between items – such as Amazon products, TV series on Netflix, music artists on Spotify – recommender systems co-construct today’s social imaginary. They contribute to shape pop cultures’ “webs of meanings” and trace new symbolic connections shared by media publics. Starting from a recent literature about online algorithms’ power and diffusion, this article aims at problematizing the relationship between recommender systems and social imaginary. The case of the recommender algorithm employed by YouTube, the world’s most popular video sharing web platform, will be presented. Here, it will be interpreted as a twofold technology: on the one hand, the algorithm impacts on the users’ digital experiences; on the other hand, it represents a brand new source of real-time data about the trajectories of contemporary cultures and imaginaries
Ethnography and the Digital Field: between Text and Context
No full text“Nethnography”, “virtual ethnography”, “cyber-ethnography” and “digital ethnography” are overlapping labels which define a heterogeneous variety of research techniques. They essentially have one thing in common: the digital field. Up to now, the growing literature on online ethnography has not adequately considered the intrinsically dualistic nature of social media. On the one hand, we (both as researchers and users) move throughout a multiplicity of digitally segmented spaces, such as social network profiles, blog posts, forums; on the other hand, we query search engines or explore Twitter’s trends – following topics and issues through keywords. I will suggest that we should distinguish between two types of digital field: a structured, “contextual” field and a fluid, mainly “textual” one – resulting from the aggregation of previously disperse communicative contents. Both these two parallel layers of the online environment influence the users’ digital practices – which now represent a consistent part of people’s everyday life, deeply intertwined with offline social reality. While most of webbased investigations deal with “located” communities, recent studies in the realm of digital ethnography and digital methods tend to focus on “thematic” and “networked” fields instead. This shift recalls Marcus’ appeal for a multi-sited ethnography but, in fact, goes further beyond, towards a truly “un-sited” ethnography. I will highlight the main pros and cons of these two methodological outlooks, also referring to an empirical case study – Erasmus students’ collective identity on Facebook. In the conclusion, I will suggest that the ethnographer’s choice between “text” and “context” depends exclusively on the object investigated
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