SMC postdoc Niall Docherty has a new publication in the International Journal of Communication, 'Digital Self-Control and the Neoliberalization of Social Media Well-Being'. Check it out! Abstract: Popular debates surrounding social media well-being target individual habit as the locus of critique and change. This article argues that this constitutes a commitment to responsibilized constructs of …
Continue reading new publication from Niall Docherty on “digital self-control”
As I hope you've heard by now, the SMC is publishing books like mad. Tarleton Gillespie's Custodians of the Internet is blazing a trail through the content moderation debate, Mary Gray and Sid Suri's Ghost Work will be out in May, and my own Playing to the Crowd has hit the road seeking readers. In that vein, here are some upcoming …
Continue reading Playing to the NYC Crowd and other SMC outings
This is a collection of some of our researchers' quotes, mentions, or writings in mainstream media. Topics include Facebook's supposed neutral community standards, sharing economy workers uniting to protest, living under surveillance and relational labor in music. Tarleton Gillespie in the Washington Post --> The Big Myth Facebook needs everyone to believe And yet, observers …
I wanted to share a new essay, "#Trendingistrending: When Algorithms Become Culture" that I've just completed for a forthcoming Routledge anthology called Algorithmic Cultures: Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies, edited by Robert Seyfert and Jonathan Roberge. My aim is to focus on the various "trending algorithms" that populate social media platforms, consider what they do as a set, and then …
Continue reading #trendingistrending: when algorithms become culture
This post originally appeared on Cyborgology as part of its "Small Town Internet" issue. Since I was thinking about several SMC members' research while writing this, and worked on this post while co-writing with Jessa Lingel, I thought it apropos to post it here as well. There's a lot more to be said about rural …
Continue reading My First Year On The Rural Side of the Digital Divide
The Pacific Standard magazine has been running a series where academics, business leaders, technologists and labor leaders have contributed to the discussion on the most consequential changes in labor and the future of work. We invite you to read the contributions from members of our SMC family. "Caring for the Crowdworker going at it alone" …
(Or, Should I Stay or Should I Go?) Is it time to boycott "traditional" scholarly publishing? Perhaps you are an academic researcher, just like me. Perhaps, just like me, you think that there are a lot of exciting developments in scholarly publishing thanks to the Internet. And you want to support them. And you also …
Algorithms, in the view of author Christopher Steiner, are poised to take over everything. Algorithms embedded in software are now everywhere: Netflix recommendations, credit scores, driving directions, stock trading, Google search, Facebook's news feed, the TSA's process to decide who gets searched, the Home Depot prices you are quoted online, and so on. Just a …
In the fall of 2009, I sent the manuscript for my book Personal Connections in the Digital Age off to press. I've just finished the index for a second edition, which will be published by Polity in mid-2015 (in time for fall classes!). The list of terms I added provides a fun little peek into the last …
Does collaboration result in higher quality creative works than individuals working alone? Is working in groups better for functional works like code than for creative works like art? Although these questions lie at the heart of conversations about collaborative production on the Internet and peer production, it can be hard to find research settings where you …
Social Media Collective 