Machine Habitus

Machine Habitus

Author: Massimo Airoldi

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-12-13

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1509543295

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We commonly think of society as made of and by humans, but with the proliferation of machine learning and AI technologies, this is clearly no longer the case. Billions of automated systems tacitly contribute to the social construction of reality by drawing algorithmic distinctions between the visible and the invisible, the relevant and the irrelevant, the likely and the unlikely – on and beyond platforms. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this book develops an original sociology of algorithms as social agents, actively participating in social life. Through a wide range of examples, Massimo Airoldi shows how society shapes algorithmic code, and how this culture in the code guides the practical behaviour of the code in the culture, shaping society in turn. The ‘machine habitus’ is the generative mechanism at work throughout myriads of feedback loops linking humans with artificial social agents, in the context of digital infrastructures and pre-digital social structures. Machine Habitus will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, media and cultural studies, science and technology studies and information technology, and to anyone interested in the growing role of algorithms and AI in our social and cultural life.


New Journalism(s) in Theory and Practices Learning from Digital Transformations

New Journalism(s) in Theory and Practices Learning from Digital Transformations

Author: Romana Andò

Publisher: Sapienza Università Editrice

Published: 2023-06-16

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 8893772809

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Over the last decade, journalism has undergone radical changes: new languages, actors and methods have risen especially due to the digital transformation, revolutionizing this field in unpredictable ways. This book collects the most relevant scientific outputs of the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education Post-Crisis Journalism in Post-Crisis Libya: A Bottom-up Approach to the Development of a Cross-Media Journalism Master Program (PAgES), co-funded by the European Commission in the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education framework. It is ideally divided into two parts: the first section focuses on the theoretical and epistemological challenges of contemporary journalism, while the second part deals with the experiences of journalism(s), evoking tools, technical skills, and practices that are required within the media industry. Addressing topics concerning artificial intelligence, the role of algorithms, citizen journalism, the impact of Covid-19 and its challenges, social media dissemination, and many more, it gives a comprehensive and plural overview of what journalism is, or can be, today.


Dialogue through Education- Learning between Europe and China

Dialogue through Education- Learning between Europe and China

Author: Jie Li

Publisher: tredition

Published: 2023-12-14

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 338409042X

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This volume explores the potentials and perspectives upon educational diplomacy, promoting a better mutual understanding on the European and the Chinese traditions and their visions for the future. Together an essay competition was held from January to September 2023, which concluded with a symposium on the 23 rd of September. During this project young students and young professionals from Europe and China were invited to submit their essays on the following topics: •How will exchange programs develop in the future? •How can curiosity and enthusiasm for the other culture be awaken and strengthened? •What potential does educational diplomacy have? •What is the new approach to international and global education? The submissions of this unique academic project are collected in this publication, encompassing a wide range of authors from different interdisciplinary and intercultural backgrounds , coming from E urope and China This project was run in collaboration between the Institute for Greater Europe and the European Guanxi. Both are youth led think tanks run by young academics and young professionals from all over Europe and beyond. Meanwhile, the Institute for Greater Europe puts a focus on the role of the European Idea on the European continent and beyond, European Guanxi searches to foster a mutual understanding between Europe and China.


Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence

Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence

Author: Simon Lindgren

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2023-11-03

Total Pages: 941

ISBN-13: 1803928565

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As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to seep into more areas of society and culture, critical social perspectives on its technologies are more urgent than ever before. Bringing together state-of-the-art research from experienced scholars across disciplines, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of critical AI studies.


Digital Ageism

Digital Ageism

Author: Andrea Rosales

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-06-05

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1000904830

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This anthology contributes to creating awareness on how digital ageism operates in relation to the widely spread symbolic representations of old and young age around digital technologies, the (lack of) representation of diverse older individuals in the design, development, and marketing of digital technologies and in the actual algorithms and datasets that constitute them. It also shows how individuals and institutions deal with digital ageism in everyday life. In the past decades, digital technologies permeated most aspects of everyday life. With a focus on how age is represented and experienced in relation to digital technologies leading to digital ageism, digitalisation’s reinforcement of spirals of exclusion and loss of autonomy of some collectives is explored, when it could be natural for a great part of society and represent a sort of improvement. The book addresses social science students and scholars interested in everyday digital technologies, society and the power struggles about it, providing insights from different parts of the globe. By using different methods and touching upon different aspects of digital ageism and how it plays out in contemporary connected data societies, this volume will raise awareness, challenge power, initiate discussions and spur further research into this field. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.


The Quickest Revolution

The Quickest Revolution

Author: Jacopo Pantaleoni

Publisher: Mimesis International

Published: 2023-09-28

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 8869774511

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Since their invention, computers have kept revolutionizing the world at a staggering pace. And yet, if on one side this ongoing revolution keeps providing an incessant stream of novel and previously unimaginable technologies, on the other, as with all revolutions, its profound effects threaten to upend much of the previous world order. Facing the many questions that this change is urgently raising will require to acquire a novel and interdisciplinary understanding of the powerful forces that govern this process. Sitting squarely at the crossroads of computer science, history, socioeconomics, ethics, and philosophy, and written by an insider who contributed foundational work to many of the latest and most pervasive technologies this book offers a much-needed reframing of the past, present and future of computing, that goes far beyond the typical chronological record of events and arms us with a uniquely broad and integrated analysis of their complex origins and their numerous side effects.


Events and Infrastructures

Events and Infrastructures

Author: Barbara Grabher

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-05-13

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1040026699

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Innovative and the first of its kind, this informative and multidisciplinary book explores the socio-cultural significance inherent in event infrastructures. While mainstream event management literature addresses event infrastructures mainly through its operational relevance, this carefully compiled edited volume takes infrastructures as an analytical point in respect to its social, political, economic and cultural potential of the study of events. Borrowing from the ongoing social scientific debates on the geography, sociology and anthropology of infrastructures, critical questions are posed in relation to the event contexts. With references to events in Argentina, Malawi, Spain and the UK, among others, the volume combines an international perspective with a highly relevant subject for contemporary event management education. By bringing together theoretical as well as empirical readings on the question of event infrastructures from a critical point of view, the debates are relevant to practitioners and researchers as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in the field of events, leisure, tourism, anthropology, sociology, geography and urban planning – among others.


Algorithms of Anxiety

Algorithms of Anxiety

Author: Anthony Elliott

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2024-07-09

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1509555447

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Machine learning algorithms are widely presumed to herald a world in which the crippling burdens of anxiety can be left behind. The digital revolution promises a brave new world where individuals, communities and organizations can at last take control of the future – anticipating, designing and commanding the future, possibly even with mathematical exactitude. Yet, paradoxically, algorithms have unleashed widespread fears and forebodings about the impact of digital technologies. Whether it’s worries about unemployment, distress about social media’s harmful effects on teenagers, or the fear of intrusive digital surveillance, we live in an age of turbo-charged anxiety where the prophecies of algorithms are increasingly enmeshed with fundamental disruption and anxieties about the future. In this book, Anthony Elliott examines how machine learning algorithms are not only transforming global institutions but also rewriting our personal lives. He tells this story through a wide-ranging analysis which takes in ChatGPT, Amazon, the Metaverse, Martin Ford, Netflix, Uber, Bernard Stiegler, Squid Game, Kate Crawford, LaMDA, Byung-Chul Han, autonomous drones, Jean Baudrillard and the automation of warfare. Questioning why people often assume that they need to adopt new technologies in order to lead fulfilling lives, Elliott argues that people may be as much entranced as inspired by their outsourcing of personal decision-making to smart machines.