Credit: Photo by Jenna Ueberberg From influencers, vloggers, live streamers, to “Wanghong” (網紅) in China, the past decade saw the emergence of “creator culture” where “commercializing and professionalizing native social media users” generate and circulate original content “in close interaction and engagement with their communities” [1]. These creators engage in content creation in pursuit of …
Tag: social media
The accountability of social media platforms, in the age of Trump
Pundits and commentators are just starting to pick through the rubble of this election and piece together what happens and what it means. In such cases, it is often easier to grab hold of one explanation — Twitter! racism! Brexit! James Comey! — and use it as a clothesline to hang the election on and shake …
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Architecture or Minecraft?
(or, "Hopefully 4chan Won't Hear About This Contest") The social-media-ification of everything continues. If you've got time for some late-summer procrastination, thanks to the Internet you can choose the design of my house. As you may have read here two weeks ago, I'm crowdsourcing it. The first competition is over and I received 16 entries -- …
I crowdsourced the design of my house
(or, "The Social-Media-ification of Everything") The architecture crowdsourcing Web site Arcbazar has been called "The Worst Thing to Happen To Architecture Since the Internet Started." The site also got some press recently by running a parallel, unauthorized architecture competition for the "people's choice" for the design of the Obama Presidential Library. I've decided to use arcbazar.com …
CFP: Studying Social Media and Digital Infrastructures: a workshop-within-a-conference
part of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-50) paper submission deadline: June 15, 2016, 11:59pm HST. For fifty years, the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) has been a home for researchers in the information, computer, and system sciences (http://www.hicss.org/). The 50th anniversary event will be held January 4-7, …
Reflections on technology and the 2016 elections
Way back in 2008, Off the Bus reporter Mayhill Fowler filed a report on an appearance by Hillary Clinton during that spring's Democratic primary. The piece opens with a quote: "'Being here this morning is a gift,' Hillary Clinton says to the small band of supporters, several hundred strong, gathered under the Saturday morning sun …
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#trendingistrending: when algorithms become culture
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 …
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News Feed created by you? Final presentation by intern Stacy Blasiola
During her summer with us at Microsoft Research, PhD candidate Stacy Blasiola did a qualitative analysis of how Facebook users make sense of News Feed and algorithmic systems. Take a look at the presentation she did on her findings. (Video 1) (Video 2) (Video 3) (Video 4)
The Facebook “It’s Not Our Fault” Study
Today in Science, members of the Facebook data science team released a provocative study about adult Facebook users in the US "who volunteer their ideological affiliation in their profile." The study "quantified the extent to which individuals encounter comparatively more or less diverse" hard news "while interacting via Facebook’s algorithmically ranked News Feed."* The research found that …
The Google Algorithm as a Robotic Nose
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 …
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