scholarly journals Engineering a platform: The construction of interfaces, users, organizational roles, and the division of labor

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 2629-2646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreeharsh Kelkar
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Algorithm Design ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Large Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Roles ◽  
Media And Communication

Internet “platforms” like Facebook and YouTube often avoid accountability and regulation by claiming that they are mere software infrastructures with little oversight over their users. Scholars in media and communication studies have shown that these platform companies’ control over interface and algorithm design gives them a disproportionately large power, compared to their users, to fundamentally reshape politically salient categories like the “social” or the “innovative.” This article argues that this power of platforms stems from their ability to shape organizational roles and the division of labor. Based on an ethnographic study of the edX organization, I describe how the architects at edX transformed it from an educational company into a platform by building digital interfaces and formatting multiple organizational roles (their own, those of their “users”) to engineer a dichotomy between “software” and “education.” I suggest that platform studies should expand its concept of governance to include the socio-technical-discursive work of engineering organizational roles and the division of labor.

scholarly journals Engineering a Platform: Constructing Interfaces, Users, Organizational Roles, and the Division of Labor

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreeharsh Kelkar
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Algorithm Design ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Large Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Roles ◽  
Media And Communication

Internet “platforms” like Facebook and YouTube often avoid accountability and regulation by claiming that they are mere software infrastructures with little oversight over their users. Scholars in media and communication studies have shown that these platform companies’ control over interface and algorithm design,gives them a disproportionately large power, compared to their users, to fundamentally reshape politically salient categories like the “social” or the “innovative.” This paper argues that this power of platforms stems from their ability to shape organizational roles and the division of labor. Based on an ethnographic study of the edX organization, I describe how the architects at edX transformed it from an educational company into a platform by building digital interfaces and formatting multiple organizational roles (their own, those of their “users”) to engineer a dichotomy between “software” and “education.” I suggest that platform studies should expand its concept of governance to include the socio-technical-discursive work of engineering organizational roles and the division of labor.

scholarly journals Staging the Social Drama of Work: Ethnography of a Theater Company as a Means of Analyzing Theater Activity

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 78-99
Author(s):  
Celia Bense Ferreira Alves
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Central Group ◽  
The Core ◽  
Collective Activity ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Service Relationship

This paper shows how conducting the ethnographic study of a theater hall and company can help define theater activity. Once the aesthetic of the social organization is set apart from the proper division of labor, theater appears as a collective activity which requires the cooperation of eight groups playing different social roles. The cooperation modes rest on a meshing of direct or indirect services for the actors who carry out the core task of performing. This specific organization of work around a central group is what makes the activity artistic. Simultaneously, the service relation offers the possibility for some categories to bring their relationship with actors closer to a state of symmetry and sometimes reverse asymmetry. As a status enhancing opportunity, service relationship for actors also directly or indirectly provide the grounds for participant commitment and thus guarantee long-lasting operation for the theatrical organization.

scholarly journals Protest communication ecologies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Mercea
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
Growth Area ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Media And Communication

The flurry of protests since the turn of the decade has sustained a growth area in the social sciences. The diversity of approaches to the various facets and concerns raised by the collective action of aggrieved groups the world over impresses through multidisciplinarity and the wealth of insights it has generated. This introduction to a special issue of the international journal Information, Communication and Society is an invitation to recover conceptual instruments—such as the ecological trope—that have fallen out of fashion in media and communication studies. We account for their fall from grace and explicate the rationale for seeking to reinsert them into the empirical terrain of interlocking media, communication practices and protest which we aim to both capture with theory and adopt as a starting point for further analytical innovation.

scholarly journals Generational “we-sense”, “they-sense” and narrative: An epistemological approach to media and social change

2019 ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Goran Bolin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Epistemological Problem ◽  
The Social ◽  
Generational Identity ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Medios De Comunicacion

A classic epistemological problem in the social sciences is how to analyse and understand social change. In media and communication studies, for example, the concept of mediatisation has sparked off such a debate, since one of the main criticisms against the approach is that researchers rather take change for granted without being able to empirically establish if and how change has occurred. In this article is suggested a model for analysing social change through an analysis of how generational identity as “we-sense” is produced in narratives about media use. The empirical basis for the discussion is picked from a recently finished project on media generations in Sweden and Estonia, building on foremost qualitative material. The article concludes with accounting for the merits of using a generational perspective for analysing social change.Cómo analizar y comprender el cambio social es un problema epistemológico clásico en ciencias sociales. Sin embargo, en los estudios de comunicación, por ejemplo, el concepto de mediatización ha precipitado el debate, de manera que una de las principales críticas que se dirigen a los estudios realizados desde este concepto tienden a dar por sentado el cambio, sin llegar a establecer empíricamente si tal cambio ha ocurrido o cómo se ha producido. En este artículo, se sugiere un modelo para analizar el cambio social a través de un análisis de cómo la identidad generacional -entendida como “sentido compartido” (we-sense)- se produce en las narrativas sobre el uso de los medios de comunicación. La base empírica para la discusión deriva de un proyecto recientemente finalizado sobre las generaciones de medios de comunicación en Suecia y Estonia, fundamentado principalmente en material cualitativo. En artículo concluye resaltando el valor que tiene el uso de una perspectiva generacional para analizar el cambio social.

scholarly journals Artificial companions, social bots and work bots: communicative robots as research objects of media and communication studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1410-1426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hepp
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Operating Systems ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Relevant Field ◽  
Research Objects ◽  
Media And Communication

The aim of this article is to outline ‘communicative robots’ as an increasingly relevant field of media and communication research. Communicative robots are defined as autonomously operating systems designed for the purpose of quasi-communication with human beings to enable further algorithmic-based functionalities – often but not always on the basis of artificial intelligence. Examples of these communicative robots can be seen in the now familiar artificial companions such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, the social bots present on social media platforms or work bots that automatically generate journalistic content. In all, the article proceeds in three steps. Initially, it takes a closer look at the three examples of artificial companions, social bots and work bots in order to accurately describe the phenomenon and their recent insinuation into everyday life. This will then allow me to grasp the challenges posed by the increasing need to deal with communicative robots in media and communication research. It is from this juncture from where I would like to draw back on the discussion about the automation of communication and clearly outline how communicative robots are more likely than physical artefacts to be experienced at the interface of automated communication and communicative automation.

scholarly journals A critical review of social sciences and humanities R and D expenditure in South Africa, 2005–2014

2018 ◽  
Vol 114 (7/8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neo Molotja ◽  
Gerard Ralphs
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Experimental Development ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Expenditure ◽  
Media And Communication

Expenditure on research and experimental development in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in South Africa has almost doubled over the past decade. However, fine-grained analysis of patterns of Research and Development expenditure in SSH research fields over the period 2005/2006–2014/2015 reveals a number of critical issues for both institutional planning and national policymaking. We demonstrate that most SSH Research and Development expenditure in the 10-year reference period was targeted predominantly within just a few research fields: finance, economics, education, accounting and political science and public policy. By contrast, investment in SSH research fields such as architecture and habitat, media and communication studies, psychology, and transportation studies was strikingly low in the same period, with some research fields, such as dance or tourism, appearing to be at risk of decline. Using these Research and Development data as a proxy, we argue, principally, that institutional Research and Development planners and national policymakers need to find a greater balance between current priorities and future needs, if SSH Research and Development is to be ‘leveraged’ for larger socio-economic impacts, as is being envisaged in a new draft White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation. Significance: • Research and Development expenditure in the social sciences and humanities between 2005 and 2014 was concentrated in just a few research fields, such as finance, economics and education. By contrast, Research and Development expenditure was comparatively low in research fields such as media and communication studies, technology management, architecture and habitat, and dance. • In an era of rapid global technological change, but also deepening local societal challenges, South Africa’s national and institutional policymakers face strategic Research and Development choices. This article contributes to national debate about the status and perceived role(s) of the social sciences and humanities in this context.

scholarly journals Critical animal and media studies: Expanding the understanding of oppression in communication research

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núria Almiron ◽  
Matthew Cole ◽  
Carrie P Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Critical Animal Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Ethical Thinking ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Moral Stance

Critical and communication studies have traditionally neglected the oppression conducted by humans towards other animals. However, our (mis)treatment of other animals is the result of public consent supported by a morally speciesist-anthropocentric system of values. Speciesism or anthroparchy, as much as any other mainstream ideologies, feeds the media and at the same time is perpetuated by them. The goal of this article is to remedy this neglect by introducing the subdiscipline of Critical Animal and Media Studies. Critical Animal and Media Studies takes inspiration both from critical animal studies – which is so far the most consolidated critical field of research in the social sciences addressing our exploitation of other animals – and from the normative-moral stance rooted in the cornerstones of traditional critical media studies. The authors argue that the Critical Animal and Media Studies approach is an unavoidable step forward for critical media and communication studies to engage with the expanded circle of concerns of contemporary ethical thinking.

Narrating Society: Enacting ‘Immigrant’ Characters through Negotiating, Naturalization, and Forgetting

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanne Boersma
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Work ◽  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Media And Communication

This article scrutinizes how ‘immigrant’ characters of perpetual arrival are enacted in the social scientific work of immigrant integration monitoring. Immigrant integration research produces narratives in which characters—classified in highly specific, contingent ways as ‘immigrants’—are portrayed as arriving and never as having arrived. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork at social scientific institutions and networks in four Western European countries, this article analyzes three practices that enact the characters of arrival narratives: negotiating, naturalizing, and forgetting. First, it shows how negotiating constitutes objects of research while at the same time a process of hybridization is observed among negotiating scientific and governmental actors. Second, a naturalization process is analyzed in which slippery categories become fixed and self-evident. Third, the practice of forgetting involves the fading away of contingent and historical circumstances of the research and specifically a dispensation of ‘native’ or ‘autochthonous’ populations. Consequently, the article states how some people are considered rightful occupants of ‘society’ and others are enacted to travel an infinite road toward an occupied societal space. Moreover, it shows how enactments of arriving ‘immigrant’ characters have performative effects in racially differentiating national populations and hence in narrating society. This article is part of the Global Perspectives, Media and Communication special issue on “Media, Migration, and Nationalism,” guest-edited by Koen Leurs and Tomohisa Hirata.

Cross-space Consumption among Undocumented Chinese Immigrants in the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhou ◽  
Xiangyi Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Chinese Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Currency Exchange ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Migrants

We consider cross-space consumption as a form of transnational practice among international migrants. In this paper, we develop the idea of the social value of consumption and use it to explain this particular form of transnationalism. We consider the act of consumption to have not only functional value that satisfies material needs but also a set of nonfunctional values, social value included, that confer symbolic meanings and social status. We argue that cross-space consumption enables international migrants to take advantage of differences in economic development, currency exchange rates, and social structures between countries of destination and origin to maximize their expression of social status and to perform or regain social status. Drawing on a multisited ethnographic study of consumption patterns in migrant hometowns in Fuzhou, China, and in-depth interviews with undocumented Chinese immigrants in New York and their left-behind family members, we find that, despite the vulnerabilities and precarious circumstances associated with the lack of citizenship rights in the host society, undocumented immigrants manage to realize the social value of consumption across national borders and do so through conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, and vicarious consumption in their hometowns even without being physically present there. We conclude that, while cross-space consumption benefits individual migrants, left-behind families, and their hometowns, it serves to revive tradition in ways that fuel extravagant rituals, drive up costs of living, reinforce existing social inequality, and create pressure for continual emigration.

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