Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Introduction: Subjectivity redundant -- 1. Can algorithmic knowledge be critical? -- Algorithms and you -- Know thyself -- Algorithmic knowledge and human interests -- The performance of algorithmic knowledge -- Subjectivity, algorithms, and privacy -- Interface algorithms -- Subjectivity redundant -- Note -- References -- 2. How algorithms think about humans? -- Media epistemes and the changing conception of the individual -- Seeing the audience in the mass media: The scientific episteme -- Seeing the audience in digital media: The algorithmic episteme -- I User-generated data -- II Inter-connected platforms -- III Algorithms -- Turning data into self: How algorithms see people -- Conclusion: Toward a post-social conception of the individual -- References -- 3. Can algorithms tell us who we are? -- Know thyself, or let algorithms do so -- The selfish ledger: Decoding the self -- The epistemology of the selfish ledger: A summary -- Self, media, knowledge: A historical view -- The personal diary -- Audience and subjectivity: Knowing the self by means of presenting -- Protestantism as an impetus to know -- Between the ledger and the diary -- Conclusion: Knowledge without subjects -- Notes -- References -- 4. Can algorithms make aesthetic judgments? -- Recommendation engines: Automating aesthetic judgment -- Algorithms in culture: Between technical neutrality and political worldview -- Aesthetic judgment and recommendation engines -- I Aesthetic judgment as objective -- II Aesthetic judgment as individualistic -- Arendt's conception of aesthetic judgment and culture -- Conclusion -- References -- 5. Do algorithms have a right to the city? -- Roads, traffic, and spatial politics -- Algorithmic spatiality -- Upholding residents' privileged right to the city.

In this thought-provoking volume, Eran Fisher interrogates the relationship between algorithms as epistemic devices and modern notions of subjectivity. Over the past few decades, as the instrumentalization of algorithms has created knowledge that informs our decisions, preferences, tastes, and actions, and the very sense of who we are, they have also undercut, and arguably undermined, the Enlightenment-era ideal of the subject. Fisher finds that as algorithms enable a reality in which knowledge is created by circumventing the participation of the self, they also challenge contemporary notions of subjectivity. Through four case-studies, this book provides an empirical and theoretical investigation of this transformation, analyzing how algorithmic knowledge differs from the ideas of critical knowledge which emerged during modernity ⁰́₃ Fisher argues that algorithms create a new type of knowledge, which in turn changes our fundamental sense of self and our concept of subjectivity. This book will make a timely contribution to the social study of algorithms and will prove especially valuable for scholars working at the intersections of media and communication studies, internet studies, information studies, the sociology of technology, the philosophy of technology, and science and technology studies.

This book explores the new terrain of network capitalism through the transformations of the discourse on technology. Rather than viewing such discourse as either a true or false reflection of reality, Fisher evaluates the ideological role that technology discourse plays in the legitimation of a new form of capitalism. Based on an extensive empirical analysis, the book argues that contemporary technology discourse at one and the same time promises more personal empowerment through network technology and legitimates a more privatized, flexible, and precarious economic constellations. Such discourse signals a new tradeoff in the political culture of capitalism, from a legitimation discourse which emphasizes the capacity of technology and technique to bring about social emancipation (through equality, stability, and security) to a legitimation discourse which focuses on the capacity of technology to bring about individual emancipation (through individual empowerment, authenticity, creativity, and cooperation). Contrary to the prevailing assumption that sees network technology as liberating from the rigidity and pitfalls of a stifling, Fordist capitalism, the book offers a theoretical framework which sees contemporary technology discourse as an ideology that legitimates the economic, social, and political arrangements of the new capitalism.

This article explores the ontology of personal knowledge that algorithms on digital media create by locating it on two axes: historical and theoretical. Digital platforms continue a long history of epistemic media—media forms and practices, which not only communicate knowledge, but also create knowledge. As epistemic media allowed a new way to know the world, they also facilitated a new way of knowing the self. This historical perspective also underscores a key difference of digital platforms from previous epistemic media: their exclusion of self-reflection from the creation of knowledge about the self. To evaluate the ramifications of that omission, I use Habermas's theory of knowledge, which distinguishes critical knowledge from other types of knowledge, and sees it as corresponding with a human interest in emancipation. Critical knowledge about the self, as exemplified by psychoanalysis, must involve self-reflection. As the self gains critical knowledge, deciphering the conditions under which positivist and hermeneutic knowledges are valid, it is also able to transform them and expand its realm of freedom, or subjectivity. As digital media subverts this process by demoting self-reflection, it also undermines subjectivity.

At the center of contemporary discourse on technology — or the digital discourse — is the assertion that network technology ushers in a new phase of capitalism which is more democratic, participatory, and de-alienating for individuals. Rather than viewing this discourse as a transparent description of the new realities of techno-capitalism and judging its claims as true (as the hegemonic view sees it) or false (a view expressed by few critical voices), this article offers a new framework which sees the digital discourse as signaling a historical shift in the technological legitimation of capitalism, concurrent with the emergence of the post-Fordist phase of capitalism. Technology discourse legitimated the Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology and technique to mitigate exploitation. It hence legitimated the interventionist welfare state, the central planning in businesses and the economy, the hierarchized corporation, and the tenured worker. In contrast, contemporary technology discourse legitimates the post-Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology to mitigate alienation. It hence legitimates the withdrawal of the state from markets, the dehierarchization and decentralization of businesses, and the flexibilization of production and the labor process.

This article argues the formation of a new type of economic actor at the intersection of a new capitalism and a new technology: The digerati. The article is based on a discourse analysis of the popular magazine Wired, which registers the culture of contemporary technocapitalism. The article suggests that the new persona of the digerati is constructed as a rejection of the ethics, which dominated the Fordist workplace and Fordist society: Hierarchy and differentiation between workers, on the one hand and capitalists and managers, on the other hand. The article describes the transformation of these two categories—workers and capitalists—into the digerati worker and the digerati entrepreneur, respectively. Set within the context of the structural transformations of capitalism from Fordism to post‐Fordism, the article shows the ideological fit of the new ethics of the digerati to the new working arrangements of post‐Fordist capitalism, characterized by more privatizes, flexible, and precarious working arrangements.

This volume explores current interventions into the digital labour theory of value, proposing theoretical and empirical work that contributes to our understanding of Marx's labour theory of value, proposes how labour and value are transformed under conditions of virtuality, and employ the theory in order to shed light on specific practices

"Nothing seems more far removed from the visceral, bodily experience of emotions than the cold, rational technology of the Internet. But as this collection shows, the internet and emotions intersect in interesting and surprising ways. Internet and Emotions is the fruit of an interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars from the sociology of emotions and communication and media studies. It features theoretical and empirical chapters from international researchers who investigate a wide range of issues concerning the sociology of emotions in the context of new media. The book fills a substantial gap in the social research of digital technology, and examines whether the internet invokes emotional states differently from other media and unmediated situations, how emotions are mobilized and internalized into online practices, and how the social definitions of emotions are changing with the emergence of the internet. It explores a wide range of behaviors and emotions from love to mourning, anger, resentment and sadness. What happens to our emotional life in a mediated, disembodied environment, without the bodily element of physical co-presence to set off emotional exchanges? Are there qualitatively new kinds of emotional exchanges taking place on the internet? These are only some of the questions explored in the chapters of this book, with quite surprising answers"--