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The Truman Syndrome and Surveillance Capitalism

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I happened to watch The Truman Show yesterday and could not help but notice a number of similarities with issues arising from the literature around algorithmic cultures. The script is peppered with examples of nudging on a subconscious (and then conscious) level that helped keep Truman oblivious to the fiction going on around him while stopping him from travelling outside the dome.

I then spent some time on the internet, looking for literature pertaining to the nudging of Truman and found this instead which shows how the film was inspirational at a time when social media hadn’t yet been popular. There are several parallel themes between the film and concerns of social media nowadays, especially the fact that

Truman is watched and recorded everywhere he goes, and this is used to build up information about his patterns and behaviour, which are then used to provide him with a version of things he wants.

Trott, T.(2018)

References:

Trott, T.(2018). How ‘The Truman Show’ Warned Us About Social Media (Before It Was Invented). Available at: https://medium.com/framerated/how-the-truman-show-warned-us-about-social-media-before-it-was-invented-f19819f1c87a. (Accessed: 22nd March 2020).

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Week 8-Algorithms for everyone

Pavstud

 

It would have been very handy to design an algorithm to filter my most inspired posts on this blog from the more run of the mill ones. On the other hand, this could prove futile in a blog aimed at documenting my train of thought throughout Education and Digital Cultures. Algorithms are as much about filtering out ‘undesired’ data as about whitelisting user choices.

There were two main arguments running in tandem through the posts this week. The right for the informed public to have access to algorithms behind some of the most popular social media platforms and how algorithms in education can either help or destroy notions of learning. Since algorithms are ‘adjudicating more and more consequential decisions in our lives’ (Diakopoulos, cited in Kitchin, 2017) and they are essentially capitalist in nature, one has to question who they are serving. Their chimaeric nature made up of many networked ‘hands’ (Seaver, cited in Kitchin, 2017) is perhaps why studying their effect is not straightforward. Yet algorithms feed-in human ingenuity or lack of knowledge about them and so need to be ethically managed.

Algorithms and AIEd is also a field of education that is often contested because of a return to a behavioural approach to learning. Perhaps this might not be the Pavlovian route where learners are given instant gratification but more of a consumerist perspective that monitors learning to collect data and tailor effective learning solutions through positive behaviour. Reinforcement learning and nudging are perhaps two of the most effective ways to shape learning. Not only are technologies shaping learning but more often than not they are shaping humans to act like machines, thereby stripping them of their autonomy by negating them access to what is being filtered out.

The ‘learner’ is now an irrational and emotional subject whose behaviours and actions are understood to be both machine-readable by learning algorithms and modifiable by digital hypernudge platforms.  (Knox et al, 2020)

References:

Kitchin. R., (2017) Thinking critically about and researching algorithms,
Information, Communication & Society, 20:1, 14-29, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1154087

Knox, J., Williamson, B., & Bayne, S., (2020) Machine behaviourism:
future visions of ‘learnification’ and ‘datafication’ across humans and digital technologies, Learning, Media and Technology, 45:1, 31-45, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2019.1623251

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My ethnography – A community with a focus

My micro-ethnography artefact is available here.

I feel that my ethnography on the MOOC ‘Launching Innovation in Schools’ is a mixture of different things, some statistical data, an evaluation of posts, use of language and some personal observations. I did feel at one point that I spent more time than necessary on the statistical data but I found that patterns in replies and activity between participants shed some light on the type of community that was (and is still) forming. I decided to choose a discussion around a video thread that seemed to have more activity than other threads.

Over the last few weeks, I did feel like I ‘ like discovering a cozy
little world that had been flourishing without me, hidden within the walls of my house’ Rheingold (2000). Accessing the MOOC every few days or receiving reminders of posts on my mobile every few days did feel like being part of something else. I felt that my MOOC was ‘a community of practice’ more than anything else but the depth of experience expressed was enlightening and comforting at the same time in my profession.

References:

Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community. Available at:http://www.caracci.net/dispense_enna/The%20Virtual%20Community%20by%20Howard%20Rheingold_%20Table%20of%20Contents.pdf. Accessed (1st March 2020).

References used in ethnography:

Lister, Martin … [et al.], (2009) “Chapter 3. Networks, users and economics” from Martin Lister … [et al.], New media: a critical introduction pp.163-236, London: Routledge

Kozinets, R. V. (2010) . Chapter 2: ‘Understanding Culture Online’ Netnograpghy: doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage. pp.21-40.

Kozinets, R. V. (2018). Netnography: Robert Kozinets. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8axfYomJn4. (Accessed: 27th February 2020)

Bibliography:

Harrison, R. & Michael, T. (2009) Identity in Online Communities: Social Networking Sites and Language Learning Identity in Online Communities: Social Networking Sites and Language Learning. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265631150_Identity_in_Online_Communities_Social_Networking_Sites_and_Language_Learning_Identity_in_Online_Communities_Social_Networking_Sites_and_Language_Learning. (Accessed: 25th February 2020).

Knox, J., (2013). Five critiques of the open educational resources movement. Teaching in higher education, 18(8), pp.821-823.

Vasilescu, B., Capillupi, A. & Serebrenik, A. (2012) Gender representation and online participation. A Quantitative study. Availabale at: https://bvasiles.github.io/papers/iwc13.pdf. (Accessed: 25th February 2020).

 

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Week 7- An overiew of online cultures.

This has been the concluding week to online cultures with a few (I was relatively busy with the ethnography) links to other studies (here and here) conducted with online cultures. Some of these studies were based on quantitative techniques and done a while ago but they still shed light on the interest in online communities generated by the Web 2.0 technologies boom. Most of these studies reveal multiple opportunities for people to come together for a number of reasons and  ‘that, rather than being socially-impoverished and ‘lean’, there were detailed and personally enriching social worlds being constructed by online groups.’ (Kozinets 2010).

Many people have I believe often experienced the feeling aptly described by Rheingold (2005) of ‘ Finding the WELL was like discovering a cosy little world that had been flourishing without me…’ at the first experiences of joining an online culture. Joining my MOOC slightly later I did get a feel of this ‘becoming part of something already there’. The first post might be a bit intimidating at first but it only takes the first reply or the first post to feel your presence has been felt.

I often wonder what it would feel like to meet members of an online community, or perhaps other people on this course in person one day, somewhere, perhaps a pub, a village square or a university hall. Will it be the feeling of meeting old friends, or of experiencing new relationships? Mobile technologies and fast internet speeds have allowed us to be online all the time making us a continuos presence in online communities and we worry when the community is quiet or has not posted in some time.

The study of my MOOC online community over these past few weeks has been interesting not only in the study of the MOOC itself which is all on the micro-ethnography but also in the first days of online communities when I was bounding from one of three MOOCs until I found the one I wanted to study. Each of these three MOOCs had their own specific community with members that made the community unique.

References:

Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage. pp. 21-40.

Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community. Available at:http://www.caracci.net/dispense_enna/The%20Virtual%20Community%20by%20Howard%20Rheingold_%20Table%20of%20Contents.pdf. Accessed (1st March 2020).

 

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The cherry on the cake

I found a series of Kozinets videos on YouTube which are short and very illuminating. The pity is that I found them slightly late in the day when I could have made better use of them for my micro-ethnography.

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Gender, Representation and OnlineParticipation:A Quantitative Study

The study found in the link below provides some insight into the way different groups, especially women are represented (or not) on the internet.

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While working on my micro-ethnography, I considered the issue of gender at an early point in my study. My study of participation by different genders was very basic and I determined it by using the name supplied by the participants. There was not much difference in the number of participants between women and men but there were more women than men in the thread I chose to study.

The study by Bogdan Vasilescu, Andrea Capiluppi and Alexander Serebrenik conducted 8 years ago may perhaps be a bit outdated by now but reading through the conclusions I could start to understand how anonymity could be more common on certain platforms than others. Anonymity could act in the same way a pseudonym did years ago, to comment without prejudice.

 

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Identity in Online Communities: Social Networking Sites and Language Learning Identity in Online Communities: Social Networking Sites and Language Learning

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This is a study of a community made up of foreign language learners which focuses on the creation of new relationships.

Of particular interest is the section on Mediation (pg119) which describes how mediation has no particular rules and regulations but is fluid and ‘arbitrary’ and the concept of ‘impression’. The idea of trying to find someone, one can relate to in an online community can be a very interesting concept to study. Do members of an online community decide to like or reply to another member on the basis of what is being posted or because they somehow feel that they can associate with that persona?

 

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Week 6 – Have MOOCs been created with the idea of online communities or are online communities a phenomenon of MOOCs?

This week’s posts have been somewhat similar in gist and content to week 5’s but possibly taken more from the perspective of the economy of MOOCs. MOOCs are one of those inventions where the whole seems greater than the sum of the individual parts, often making us wonder if they are seen as a product, a service or even both (Sultan, 2014)?

This week I spent some time analyzing discourse in the MOOC I have chosen, mostly what brought the people on the MOOC to take the course. The MOOC I have chosen ‘Launching Innovation in Schools‘ (which I decided to change to earlier on) is mostly populated by professionals in education. Most of those who took the MOOC decided to do so because they felt they could take something out of the course as opposed to simply taking the course for self-satisfaction (which in a way is also taking something from the MOOC). In this way, a MOOC represents a service. It is providing the necessary material for someone to learn. Yet MOOCs are also a form of ‘servitization‘, defined as

“the increased offering of fuller market packages or ‘bundles’ of customer-focused combinations of goods, services, support, self-service and knowledge in order to add value to core product offerings” and claim that manufacturing firms are increasingly moving towards offering services in order to avoid competing on cost alone.

(Vandermerwe and Rada as cited in Sultan, 2014)

Online communities pertaining to MOOCs are therefore a phenomenon that is part of this servitization but without the need for MOOC organisers to invest any capital into it. They do advertise numbers of participants in an effort to attract more people to the course and investment is required in designing the platform to allow for communication but it is like parking a hamburger van outside a football stadium. All you have to do is wait for the people to come by with little effort.

References:

Sultan, N. (2014) Cloud and MOOCs: The Servitization of IT and Education. Available at: https://www.uos.ac.uk/sites/default/files/basic_file/CLOUD-AND-MOOCS.pdf. (Accessed: 20th January 2020).

Image obtained and modified from: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart

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Learning everywhere and for everyone

This is a short advertisement by FutureLearn which I found somewhat interesting because it reminded me of some of the concepts I am keeping in mind during the micro-ethnography, such as the nationality of different online participants and the use of language. Although the video uses different accents from different national languages, this is something that is lost in an online community.

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a16z Podcast: Community and Culture, Online by a16z

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We’re so used to thinking of “community” as our friends, families, and neighbors. But what a community is, and who it is made of, has changed thanks to the internet, and without our noticing it. What happens when online communities — really, new subcultures — form primarily around interests, not just personal relationships?

Featuring VP of Product at Reddit Alex Le, CEO of Rabbit Michael Temkin, and CEO and co-founder of HVMN Geoffrey Woo — in conversation with a16z general partner Chris Dixon — this episode of the a16z Podcast is based on a discussion that took place at a16z’s annual Summit in November 2017. As communities of strangers and activities connect online and offline in new and different ways, what else changes?

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