Event overview
How do algorithms work in relation to society, culture and power?
The era of ubiquitous computing and big data is now firmly established, with more and more aspects of our everyday lives being mediated, augmented, produced and regulated by digital devices and networked systems powered by software. Software is fundamentally composed of algorithms -- sets of defined steps structured to process data to produce an output. And yet, to date, there has been little critical reflection on algorithms, nor empirical research into their nature and work. This paper synthesises and extends initial critical thinking about algorithms and considers how best to research them in practice. It makes a case for thinking about algorithms in ways that extend far beyond a technical understanding and approach. It then details four key challenges in conducting research on the specificities of algorithms -- they are often: ‘black boxed’; contingent on hundreds of other algorithms and are embedded in complex socio-technical assemblages; ontogenetic and constantly evolving; ‘out of control’ in their work. Finally, it considers six approaches to empirically research algorithms: examining source code (both deconstructing code and producing genealogies of production); reflexively producing code; reverse engineering; ethnographies of coding teams and deconstructing the processes of creating algorithms; examining the wider socio-technical assemblage framing algorithms; and documenting how algorithms do work in the world.
Download the paper in advance to prepare for discussion:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2515786
Bio: Rob Kitchin is a professor and ERC Advanced Investigator in the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. He has published widely across the social sciences, including 23 books and over 130 articles and book chapters. He is editor of the international journals, Progress in Human Geography and Dialogues in Human Geography, and was the editor-in-chief of the 12 volume, International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. His book ‘Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life’ (with Martin Dodge) won the Association of American Geographers ‘Meridian Book Award’ for the outstanding book in the discipline in 2011. His latest book is 'The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences' (2014, Sage). He was the 2013 recipient of the Royal Irish Academy's Gold Medal for the Social Sciences.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Dec 2014 | 11:00am - 1:00pm |
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