"Political and moral/religious contents are increasingly popular on TikTok, and the concerns associated with them create the premises for a re-exploration of the user–machine agency negotiation. Using algorithmic awareness as a process, this research examines the relationship between users’ awar
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eness of the TikTok algorithm and the main concerns associated with content that conveys political or moral/religious tenets. A survey of 329 Romanian students showed that greater algorithm awareness influences positive attitudes toward algorithms, but significantly stronger positive effects are observed between awareness and the two mediators related to political and moral/religious content perceived as contentious. Using Foucauldian insights on productive resistance, I argue that in-depth knowledge about the functionality of algorithms empower users to identify and subvert different forms of power, algorithmically mediated through political or religious content. When users perceive that they have enhanced agency over what they watch on TikTok, they feel that they can control potential concerns and consequently adopt positive attitudes toward algorithms and the overall platform. Foucault discusses pastoral power as a subtle form of power, designed to empty individuals of their deepest secrets. Similarly, such power is increasingly algorithmically mediated, given that digital machines enhance their agency in often nontransparent ways. Therefore, users’ awareness regarding the functionalities of algorithms allow them to combat the various mutations specific to pastoral power while encouraging them to adopt more positive attitudes toward algorithms in general." (Abstract)
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"As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more seamlessly integrated into our social life, the unfair outcomes and ethical issues associated with AI and its subtechnologies have been widely discussed in scholarly work across disciplines in recent years. This study provides an overview of the conceptu
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alization, empirical scholarship, and ethical concerns related to algorithmic bias across diverse disciplines. In doing so, the study relies on the framework of AI-mediated communication and human-AI communication, as well as topic modeling and semantic network analysis to examine the conceptualization and major thematic areas of AI bias literature. The study reveals the complexity of the concept of algorithmic bias, which extends beyond the algorithm itself. Empirical scholarship on AI and algorithmic bias revolves around conceptualizations, human perceptions, algorithm optimization, practical applications, and ethics and policy implications. Understanding and addressing the ethical challenges require a multilevel examination from the perspectives of different stakeholders. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed in the context of AI and algorithmic justice." (Abstract)
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"Drawing from rich ethnographic materials and perspectives from both the Global North and South, authors Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Treré explore how people appropriate and reconfigure algorithms to pursue their objectives in three domains of everyday life: gig work, cultural industries, and polit
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ics. They reveal how forms of algorithmic agency and resistance are endemic and mundane and how the platform society is a contested battleground of contrasting forces. Bonini and Treré begin by outlining their key theoretical framework of moral economies. This framework argues that algorithms exist on a continuum. At its two extremes are two competing moral economies: the user moral economy and the platform moral economy. From here, Algorithms of Resistance chronicles the various inventive ways that individuals can work to achieve agency and resist the ubiquitous power of algorithms." (Publisher description)
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"Algorithms have risen to become one, if not the central technology for producing, circulating, and evaluating knowledge in multiple societal arenas. In this book, scholars from the social sciences, humanities, and computer science argue that this shift has, and will continue to have, profound impli
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cations for how knowledge is produced and what and whose knowledge is valued and deemed valid. To attend to this fundamental change, the authors propose the concept of algorithmic regimes and demonstrate how they transform the epistemological, methodological, and political foundations of knowledge production, sensemaking, and decision-making in contemporary societies. Across sixteen chapters, the volume offers a diverse collection of contributions along three perspectives on algorithmic regimes: the methods necessary to research and design algorithmic regimes, the ways in which algorithmic regimes reconfigure sociotechnical interactions, and the politics engrained in algorithmic regimes." (Publisher description)
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"Was bedeutet die zunehmende Nutzung Künstlicher Intelligenz für die Demokratie, für Offenheit und Vielfalt in der Gesellschaft? Wie gerecht entscheiden Algorithmen? Vielfach zeigt sich, dass KI-Anwendungen strukturelle Ungleichheit und bestehende Diskriminierungsmuster reproduzieren können. Den
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noch berge Künstliche Intelligenz sowohl demokratiegefährdendes Potenzial als auch Chancen etwa für die Bekämpfung von Hassrede im Internet oder für die politische Bildung. Der Band versammelt Perspektiven aus so unterschiedlichen Feldern wie der Antisemitismusforschung, der Psychologie, der Informatik, dem Journalismus, der Techniksoziologie und der bildenden Kunst. Aufgrund von Verzerrungen im Datenmaterial kann Künstliche Intelligenz etwa bei der Bewertung von Bewerbungen, Kreditwürdigkeit oder Prognosen zur erneuten Straffälligkeit zu diskriminierenden Entscheidungen kommen. Daher fordern die Autorinnen und Autoren gezielte Investitionen in politische Bildung und gerechtere soziale Strukturen. Diese seien nötig, um zu verhindern, dass Rassismus, Antisemitismus und andere Formen gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit in digitalen Räumen reproduziert werden, denn: Technische Systeme, so ihr Fazit, werden kein Problem lösen können, das im Kern sozial oder politisch begründet sei." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This report, prepared by AlgorithmWatch for the ITUC, looks at examples from around the world of how unions are tackling the crucial issues of transparency and regulation in relation to algorithms. It reveals that while there is a substantial and growing body of trade union knowledge and policy, th
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ere is a need to build that into practical information, advice and guidance for union representatives and negotiators. The report includes examples of where unions are doing this, and puts the case for such efforts to be extended and deepened. The report should be read in the context of many governments failing to properly implement ILO Convention 98 on the right to organise and collective bargaining. That Convention, ratified by 168 countries, requires governments to promote collective bargaining, which is very often not the case. As the ITUC Global Rights Index shows, the fundamental rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining are under attack, either by governments or with their compliance and support." (Page 3)
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"This paper establishes dialogs between theories on the popular and critical studies on algorithms and datafication. In doing so, it contributes to reversing the analytical tendency to assume that algorithms have universal effects and that conclusions about “algorithmic power” in the Global Nort
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h apply unproblematically everywhere else. We begin by clarifying how Latin American scholars and other research traditions have theorized the popular (“lo popular”). We then develop four dimensions of lo popular to implement these ideas in the case of algorithms: playful cultural practices, imagination, resistance, and “in-betweenness.” We argue that this dialogue can generate different ways of thinking about the problems inherent to algorithmic mediation by drawing attention to the remixes of cultural practices, imaginative solutions to everyday problems, “cyborg” forms of resistance, and ambiguous forms of agency that are central to the operations of algorithmic assemblages nowadays." (Abstract)
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"Efforts to govern algorithms have centerd the ‘black box problem,’or the opacity of algorithms resulting from corporate secrecy and technical complexity. In this article, I conceptualize a related and equally fundamental challenge for governance efforts: black box gaslighting. Black box gasligh
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ting captures how platforms may leverage perceptions of their epistemic authority on their algorithms to undermine users’ confidence in what they know about algorithms and destabilize credible criticism. I explicate the concept of black box gaslighting through a case study of the ‘shadowbanning’ dispute within the Instagram influencer community, drawing on interviews with influencers (n = 17) and online discourse materials (e.g., social media posts, blog posts, videos, etc.). I argue that black box gaslighting presents a formidable deterrent for those seeking accountability: an epistemic contest over the legitimacy of critiques in which platforms hold the upper hand. At the same time, I suggest we must be mindful of the partial nature of platforms’ claim to ‘the truth,’ as well as the value of user understandings of algorithms." (Abstract)
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"The increasing role of algorithms shaping our use of communication technology—particularly on social media—comes with a growth of empirical research attempting to assess how literate users are regarding these algorithms. This rapidly emerging field is marked by great diversity in terms of how i
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t theorizes and measures our understanding of algorithms, due, in part, to the opaque “black box” nature of the algorithms themselves. In this review article, we summarize the state of knowledge on algorithmic literacy, including its definitions, development, measurement, and current theorizing on human–algorithm interaction. Drawing on this existing work, we propose an agenda including four different directions that future research could focus on: (1) balancing users’ expectations of algorithmic literacy with developers’ responsibility for algorithmic transparency, (2) methods for engaging users in increasing their literacy, (3) further developing the affective and behavioral facets of literacy, and (4) addressing the new algorithmic divide." (Abstract)
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"Argues that what makes AI socially relevant and useful is not intelligence at all but something even more human: communication. If machines are going to improve their ability to address ever more important human issues, it will not be because they have learned to think like people, but because we h
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ave learned to communicate with them." (Publisher description)
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"Algorithms are not to be regarded as a technical structure but as a social phenomenon - they embed themselves, currently still very subtle, into our political and social system. Algorithms shape human behavior on various levels: they influence not only the aesthetic reception of the world but also
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the well-being and social interaction of their users. They act and intervene in a political and social context. As algorithms influence individual behavior in these social and political situations, their power should be the subject of critical discourse - or even lead to active disobedience and to the need for appropriate tools and methods which can be used to break the algorithmic power." (Publisher description)
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"Diese Publikation ist im Rahmen des Projekts AutoCheck – Handlungsanleitung für den Umgang mit automatisierten Entscheidungssystemen für Antidiskriminierungsstellen entstanden. Sie ist eine erste Einführung in die Diskriminierungsrisiken beim Einsatz von automatisierten Entscheidungssystemen.
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Für ein tiefergehendes Verständnis der Thematik werden im Rahmen des Projekts Weiterbildungskonzepte entwickelt, die als Workshops für Multiplikator*innen veröffentlicht und angeboten werden. Wir wenden uns mit dieser Handreichung in erster Linie an Mitarbeitende von Antidiskriminierungsstellen in Deutschland. Durch Kompetenzaufbau in diesem zunehmend bedeutsamen Themenfeld sollen sie in die Lage versetzt werden, Risiken besser zu erkennen, einzuschätzen und dadurch in konkreten Diskriminierungsfällen Betroffene besser unterstützen zu können. Darüber hinaus soll diese Publikation auch den von Diskriminierung Betroffenen die Möglichkeit geben, sich über das Thema zu informieren. Der Fokus liegt auf dem Zugang zu Gütern und privaten Dienstleistungen, beispielsweise Benachteiligungen im Online-Handel oder beim Abschließen einer Versicherung. Nur am Rande gehen wir auf andere Anwendungsbereiche des Allgemeinen Gleichbehandlungsgesetzes (AGG) ein." (Einleitung)
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"The role of algorithms for producing and curating content as well as potential outcomes of these mechanisms is one of the most debated issues in existing communication research. “Communicating algorithms” affect processes of political, social and interpersonal communication. A broad variety of
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communication fields is thus currently touched on by algorithms, ranging from news exposure, public opinion forming, information retrieval, and political communication processes among others. However, a scientific sound and objective consideration of algorithms as actors in digital (mass) communication is still scarce. The special issue “Algorithms and Communication” addresses this research gap. It presents theoretical as well as empirical results in important fields of communication science, such as media literacy, news aggregation or robotics. With this, it aims to shed light on the black-box of algorithms as “hidden actors” in communication processes." (Abstract)
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