First newsletter (from surveillance capitalism to AI judgment to Alan Partridge)
Thanks for signing up for this newsletter. I’m going to use it to share information about interesting books, articles, podcasts and videos in the areas of technology, media and culture. So, hopefully, it will be a useful resource for keeping-up-to-date with what is happening in these broad areas. Transformations in these fields are likely to have significant outcomes for social futures, and I’ll try to tap into things that can help us to understand what is happening and why. I’m also going to use it as a space to offer some reflections on writings and to share anything I publish. Alongside this, I work as a co-editor at the journal Theory, Culture & Society - from time to time I’ll post little updates about what we’ve got in the journal and what is in the pipeline. I’m going to keep this first letter quite short, and will look to expand it and try to use future letters to explore some new areas and developments (and I’ll also try to bring in quite a wide range of different types of content). In future letters I might also try adding more analysis and discussion.
Two podcast interviews with Shoshana Zuboff about surveillance capitalism…
Shoshana Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism has been getting lots of attention. It’s a substantial book. There are two interesting podcast interviews with Zuboff that explore the key themes from her book. The interview with the FT Tech Tonic podcast explores the focus on the new types of capitalism that her book examines. The second is with the Talking Politics podcast, and that looks at the broader issues covered and elaborates a bit more on the questions of power and politics. I’m going to be writing a longish review article about the book for Science as Culture.
Two other podcasts on media developments…
There were two other podcasts that caught my attention this week. Both are on Chris Till’s Digital Sociology Podcast. The first is an interview with Susan Halford which, amongst a range of issues, explores the implications of the semantic web and the impact of data. The second is an interview with Nick Couldry on the his forthcoming book on the colonisation of media and his his wider work on media change.
Two pieces on artificial intelligence and human judgement…
Artificial Intelligence is clearly creating some significant questions for decision making, judgment and discretion. The questions are far-reaching and I’m hoping to do some work on this in the coming months. Two recent pieces pick up on these debates. This interview in Open Democracy looks at how standards can be set for AI and how this relates to the idea of giving machines a conscience. Whereas this piece by Frank Pasquale looks at the impact of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning on professional judgement.
A podcast interview on The Data Gaze…
My book The Data Gaze was published a couple of months ago. I recently did a short podcast interview with Rafael Grohmann for his DigiLabour site. The interview is available here.
A special issue on algorithms and Katherine Hayles…
The new issue of Theory, Culture & Society is a special issue on the work of Katherine Hayles edited by Louise Amoore. Focusing on Hayles’ work on cognition, thinking and algorithms, the issue contains a series of articles that explore how algorithms shape the way we think. The issue also contains an interview with Katherine Hayles.
A new book in social theory (and science)…
I’m currently reading Stuart Elden’s new book on Georges Canguilhem (published by Polity Press). Canguilhem was a crucial figure in social theory and his work and teaching was widely influential, yet his writings have had relatively little attention considering his standing. Canguilhem’s work around notions of normalcy and abnormally, the philosophy of biology and reflex are particularly interesting. Stuart’s book is a detailed study of Canguilhem’s varied writings. Information about the book can be found here. I’ll be writing a review of the book for The Sociological Review, which I will post a link to in a future newsletter.
Whilst on the topic of the philosophy of science, Hettie O’Brien’s piece on Bruno Latour’s recent work on science, facts and populism is well worth a read too.
What is ‘Good Data’?
I’m currently working on an AHRC funded project, led by Helen Kennedy, on ‘good data’ in the creative industries. I’ll write a bit more about anything we discover in future. At our project meeting today we will be discussing the recent open-access book titled Good Data. It’s an edited volume that explores how data might be used for progressive ends and to achieve social advantages. The idea that the authors set out is to think about what data might be used to achieve as well as thinking critically about it. The book Good Data, edited by Angela Daly, Kate Devitt and Monique Mann, is available open access here.
A very short note on Alan Partridge…
Like many people, I’ve been watching the new series of Alan Partridge (which is available now on the BBC iPlayer). It’s the mid-point in the series as I write this. After the first episode, a review by Rachel Cooke suggested that she would rather have found Alan working in a talk show radio (LBC type) format, I can see the point (it conjures an image of Alan trying to defend a no-deal Brexit during a phone-in). Instead the current series finds him drafted in to present a prime-time magazine type programme. The problem with this is that the mock-show they are depicting is not far from the anodyne TV show that is their reference point. They are pretending to make a mock version of a lightweight TV show, rather than satirising they have ended up making a mildly competent version of shows that already exist. Alan makes some mistakes - some of which are shoehorned in - but what is missing is the desperation that the character had in the past. It was being out of place that gave the character its disruptive effect. Instead, we find Alan just doing an ok job in a glossy TV show setting. The character now pretty much fits in to the world they have created for him. Alan is a bit too comfortable in a cosy setting. This seems a bit of a missed opportunity for using the character to expose the problems faced by contemporary media and the difficulties of today’s public sphere.