This paper draws on information infrastructures (IIs) in science and technology studies (STS), as well as on feminist STS scholarship and contemporary critical accounts of digital technologies, to build an initial mapping of the infrastructural mechanisms and implications of large language models (LLMs). Through a comparison with discriminatory machine learning (ML) systems and a case study on gender bias, I present LLMs as contested artefacts with categorising and performative capabilities. This paper suggests that generative systems do not tangibly depart from traditional, discriminative counterparts in terms of their underlying probabilistic mechanisms, and therefore both technologies can be theorised as infrastructures of categorisation. However, LLMs additionally retain performative capabilities through their linguistic outputs. Here, I outline the intuition behind this phenomenon, which I refer to as “language as infrastructure”. While traditional, discriminative systems “disappear” into larger IIs, the hype surrounding generative technologies presents an opportunity to scrutinise these artefacts, to alter their computational mechanisms and introduce governance measures]. I illustrate this thesis through Sharma’s formulation of “broken machine”, and suggest dataset curation and participatory design as governance mechanisms that can partly address downstream harms in LLMs (Barocas, et al., 2023).
{"title":"Notes towards infrastructure governance for large language models","authors":"Lara Dal Molin","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i2.13567","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i2.13567","url":null,"abstract":"This paper draws on information infrastructures (IIs) in science and technology studies (STS), as well as on feminist STS scholarship and contemporary critical accounts of digital technologies, to build an initial mapping of the infrastructural mechanisms and implications of large language models (LLMs). Through a comparison with discriminatory machine learning (ML) systems and a case study on gender bias, I present LLMs as contested artefacts with categorising and performative capabilities. This paper suggests that generative systems do not tangibly depart from traditional, discriminative counterparts in terms of their underlying probabilistic mechanisms, and therefore both technologies can be theorised as infrastructures of categorisation. However, LLMs additionally retain performative capabilities through their linguistic outputs. Here, I outline the intuition behind this phenomenon, which I refer to as “language as infrastructure”. While traditional, discriminative systems “disappear” into larger IIs, the hype surrounding generative technologies presents an opportunity to scrutinise these artefacts, to alter their computational mechanisms and introduce governance measures]. I illustrate this thesis through Sharma’s formulation of “broken machine”, and suggest dataset curation and participatory design as governance mechanisms that can partly address downstream harms in LLMs (Barocas, et al., 2023).","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139786031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ben Collier, James Stewart, Shane Horgan, Daniel R. Thomas, Lydia Wilson
The targeted digital advertising infrastructures on which the business models of the social media platform economy rest have been the subject of significant academic and political interest. In this paper, we explore and theorise the appropriation of these infrastructures — designed for commercial and political advertising — by the state. In the U.K., public sector bodies have begun to repurpose the surveillance and messaging capacities of these social media platforms, along with the influencer economy, to deliver targeted behaviour change campaigns to achieve public policy goals. We explore how frameworks of behavioural government have aligned with Internet platforms’ extensive infrastructures and the commercial ecologies of professionalised strategic marketing. We map the current extent of these practices in the U.K. through case studies and empirical research in Meta’s Ad Library dataset. Although the networks of power and discourse within the ad infrastructure are indeed acting to shape the capacities of the state to engage in online influence, public bodies are mobilising their own substantial material networks of power and data to re-appropriate them to their own ends. Partly as a result of attempts by Meta to restrict the targeting of protected characteristics, we observe state communications campaigns building up what we term patchwork profiles of minute behavioural, demographic, and location-based categories in order to construct and reach particular groups of subjects. However, rather than a clear vision of a ‘cybernetic society’ of reactive information control, we instead find a heterogeneous and piecemeal landscape of different modes of power.
社交媒体平台经济的商业模式所依赖的有针对性的数字广告基础设施一直是学术界和政界关注的主题。在本文中，我们将探讨国家对这些为商业和政治广告而设计的基础设施的利用，并将其理论化。在英国，公共部门机构已开始重新利用这些社交媒体平台的监控和信息传递能力，以及影响者经济，开展有针对性的行为改变活动，以实现公共政策目标。我们探讨了行为政府框架如何与互联网平台的广泛基础设施和专业化战略营销的商业生态相协调。我们通过案例研究和对 Meta 广告库数据集的实证研究，描绘了这些实践在英国的现状。虽然广告基础设施中的权力和话语网络确实在塑造国家参与网络影响的能力，但公共机构也在调动自身大量的物质权力和数据网络，将其重新用于自身目的。部分由于 Meta 试图限制以受保护特征为目标，我们观察到国家传播活动建立了我们所说的基于细微行为、人口和位置类别的拼凑档案，以构建和接触特定的主体群体。然而，我们并没有看到一个反应式信息控制的 "控制论社会 "的清晰愿景，相反，我们发现的是一个由不同权力模式组成的异质而零碎的景观。
{"title":"Influence government, platform power and the patchwork profile: Exploring the appropriation of targeted advertising infrastructures for government behaviour change campaigns","authors":"Ben Collier, James Stewart, Shane Horgan, Daniel R. Thomas, Lydia Wilson","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i2.13579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i2.13579","url":null,"abstract":"The targeted digital advertising infrastructures on which the business models of the social media platform economy rest have been the subject of significant academic and political interest. In this paper, we explore and theorise the appropriation of these infrastructures — designed for commercial and political advertising — by the state. In the U.K., public sector bodies have begun to repurpose the surveillance and messaging capacities of these social media platforms, along with the influencer economy, to deliver targeted behaviour change campaigns to achieve public policy goals. We explore how frameworks of behavioural government have aligned with Internet platforms’ extensive infrastructures and the commercial ecologies of professionalised strategic marketing. We map the current extent of these practices in the U.K. through case studies and empirical research in Meta’s Ad Library dataset. Although the networks of power and discourse within the ad infrastructure are indeed acting to shape the capacities of the state to engage in online influence, public bodies are mobilising their own substantial material networks of power and data to re-appropriate them to their own ends. Partly as a result of attempts by Meta to restrict the targeting of protected characteristics, we observe state communications campaigns building up what we term patchwork profiles of minute behavioural, demographic, and location-based categories in order to construct and reach particular groups of subjects. However, rather than a clear vision of a ‘cybernetic society’ of reactive information control, we instead find a heterogeneous and piecemeal landscape of different modes of power.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139786220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article presents an ethnographic account of the advocacy initiative, conducted by NGO PersonalData.IO and the company Hestia.ai, that seeks to empower gig workers by helping them regain access to their personal data through data access rights, using the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. It is based on a case study of Uber drivers in Geneva that has a worldwide relevance for the gig economy. Previously self-employed, drivers are now classified as employees and their working time and earnings must be calculated according to local labour laws. We contribute to debates on algorithmic management in ride-hailing platforms by focusing on participatory methods of accountability through personal data, from an infrastructural perspective. First, we focus on the nexus between personal data protection and algorithmic management to understand the domination of ride-hailing platforms over the workers’ means of production, i.e., their personal data. We provide empirical transparency on the data structures of Uber for the sake of algorithmic accountability. These structures are utilised for their surge pricing algorithms and ultimately govern the workforce. Second, within a collective process of governance, we built participatory tools and methods for empowering gig workers and data scientists. These are means for calculating earnings and working that made explicit a new social meaning of work, i.e., “lost time between rides”.
{"title":"Governing work through personal data: The case of Uber drivers in Geneva","authors":"Jessica Pidoux, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, Jacob Gursky","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i2.13576","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i2.13576","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents an ethnographic account of the advocacy initiative, conducted by NGO PersonalData.IO and the company Hestia.ai, that seeks to empower gig workers by helping them regain access to their personal data through data access rights, using the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. It is based on a case study of Uber drivers in Geneva that has a worldwide relevance for the gig economy. Previously self-employed, drivers are now classified as employees and their working time and earnings must be calculated according to local labour laws. We contribute to debates on algorithmic management in ride-hailing platforms by focusing on participatory methods of accountability through personal data, from an infrastructural perspective. First, we focus on the nexus between personal data protection and algorithmic management to understand the domination of ride-hailing platforms over the workers’ means of production, i.e., their personal data. We provide empirical transparency on the data structures of Uber for the sake of algorithmic accountability. These structures are utilised for their surge pricing algorithms and ultimately govern the workforce. Second, within a collective process of governance, we built participatory tools and methods for empowering gig workers and data scientists. These are means for calculating earnings and working that made explicit a new social meaning of work, i.e., “lost time between rides”.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139845614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper draws on information infrastructures (IIs) in science and technology studies (STS), as well as on feminist STS scholarship and contemporary critical accounts of digital technologies, to build an initial mapping of the infrastructural mechanisms and implications of large language models (LLMs). Through a comparison with discriminatory machine learning (ML) systems and a case study on gender bias, I present LLMs as contested artefacts with categorising and performative capabilities. This paper suggests that generative systems do not tangibly depart from traditional, discriminative counterparts in terms of their underlying probabilistic mechanisms, and therefore both technologies can be theorised as infrastructures of categorisation. However, LLMs additionally retain performative capabilities through their linguistic outputs. Here, I outline the intuition behind this phenomenon, which I refer to as “language as infrastructure”. While traditional, discriminative systems “disappear” into larger IIs, the hype surrounding generative technologies presents an opportunity to scrutinise these artefacts, to alter their computational mechanisms and introduce governance measures]. I illustrate this thesis through Sharma’s formulation of “broken machine”, and suggest dataset curation and participatory design as governance mechanisms that can partly address downstream harms in LLMs (Barocas, et al., 2023).
{"title":"Notes towards infrastructure governance for large language models","authors":"Lara Dal Molin","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i2.13567","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i2.13567","url":null,"abstract":"This paper draws on information infrastructures (IIs) in science and technology studies (STS), as well as on feminist STS scholarship and contemporary critical accounts of digital technologies, to build an initial mapping of the infrastructural mechanisms and implications of large language models (LLMs). Through a comparison with discriminatory machine learning (ML) systems and a case study on gender bias, I present LLMs as contested artefacts with categorising and performative capabilities. This paper suggests that generative systems do not tangibly depart from traditional, discriminative counterparts in terms of their underlying probabilistic mechanisms, and therefore both technologies can be theorised as infrastructures of categorisation. However, LLMs additionally retain performative capabilities through their linguistic outputs. Here, I outline the intuition behind this phenomenon, which I refer to as “language as infrastructure”. While traditional, discriminative systems “disappear” into larger IIs, the hype surrounding generative technologies presents an opportunity to scrutinise these artefacts, to alter their computational mechanisms and introduce governance measures]. I illustrate this thesis through Sharma’s formulation of “broken machine”, and suggest dataset curation and participatory design as governance mechanisms that can partly address downstream harms in LLMs (Barocas, et al., 2023).","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139845855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Generative conversational artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, has attracted substantial attention since November 2022. The advent of this technology showcases the vast potential of such AI for generating and processing text and raises compelling questions regarding its potential usage. To obtain the requisite knowledge of users’ motivations in adopting this technology, we surveyed early adopters of ChatGPT (n = 197). Analysis of free text responses within the uses and gratifications (U&G) theoretical framework shows six primary motivations for using generative conversational AI: productivity, novelty, creative work, learning and development, entertainment, and social interaction and support. Our study illustrates how generative conversational AI can fulfill diverse user needs, surpassing the capabilities of traditional conversational technologies, for example, by outsourcing cognitive or creative works to technology.
{"title":"Why do people use ChatGPT? Exploring user motivations for generative conversational AI","authors":"Marita Skjuve, P. B. Brandtzaeg, Asbjørn Følstad","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i1.13541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i1.13541","url":null,"abstract":"Generative conversational artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, has attracted substantial attention since November 2022. The advent of this technology showcases the vast potential of such AI for generating and processing text and raises compelling questions regarding its potential usage. To obtain the requisite knowledge of users’ motivations in adopting this technology, we surveyed early adopters of ChatGPT (n = 197). Analysis of free text responses within the uses and gratifications (U&G) theoretical framework shows six primary motivations for using generative conversational AI: productivity, novelty, creative work, learning and development, entertainment, and social interaction and support. Our study illustrates how generative conversational AI can fulfill diverse user needs, surpassing the capabilities of traditional conversational technologies, for example, by outsourcing cognitive or creative works to technology.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139451082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nina Altmaier, Victoria A. E. Kratel, Nils S. Borchers, G. Zurstiege
As digital connectivity continues to shape society, scholarly discourses have paid increasing attention to our desires to moderate our use of, or disconnection from, digital media. Digital disconnection is being studied from a plethora of different perspectives, all of which grapple with the challenge of understanding and studying how digital media users navigate pressures to disconnect and remain connected at the same time. We contribute to the growing literature on digital disconnection by taking stock of empirical studies on the topic through a mapping review. Drawing on 138 peer-reviewed articles, we report the different kinds of disconnection behaviors studied, the users sampled, and the methods used. Our findings indicate that, while there are various calls for the greater incorporation of intersectional and socioeconomically diverse perspectives on disconnection studies, thus far these facets remain comparatively under-researched. We also find two key methodological tendencies, one toward one-time data generation via interviews and surveys, the other toward studies that rely on participants’ temporary disconnection.
{"title":"Studying digital disconnection: A mapping review of empirical contributions to disconnection studies","authors":"Nina Altmaier, Victoria A. E. Kratel, Nils S. Borchers, G. Zurstiege","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i1.13269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i1.13269","url":null,"abstract":"As digital connectivity continues to shape society, scholarly discourses have paid increasing attention to our desires to moderate our use of, or disconnection from, digital media. Digital disconnection is being studied from a plethora of different perspectives, all of which grapple with the challenge of understanding and studying how digital media users navigate pressures to disconnect and remain connected at the same time. We contribute to the growing literature on digital disconnection by taking stock of empirical studies on the topic through a mapping review. Drawing on 138 peer-reviewed articles, we report the different kinds of disconnection behaviors studied, the users sampled, and the methods used. Our findings indicate that, while there are various calls for the greater incorporation of intersectional and socioeconomically diverse perspectives on disconnection studies, thus far these facets remain comparatively under-researched. We also find two key methodological tendencies, one toward one-time data generation via interviews and surveys, the other toward studies that rely on participants’ temporary disconnection.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139451438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The social platform Reddit hosts a set of communities that denounce offensive behavior, invoking scrutiny and shame on (categories of) individuals. Despite varying in their targets, they all promote actionable content to an audience who can view, share and comment on it. These groups allow a global public to air grievances, enabling both accountability and abuse. Following high profile scandals, Reddit routinely sanctions and purges problematic ‘subreddits’. As a matter of self-preservation, subreddits that watch over the public also maintain heightened scrutiny of their own members. Group rules and other prescriptive texts are a means to instill this scrutiny among a broader audience. In analyzing rules and other content management practices in 68 shaming based subreddits, this paper considers how these groups temper platform-based denunciation.
{"title":"Norm enforcement on and of Reddit: Rules of engagement and participation","authors":"Daniel Trottier, Frazer Woodhead","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i1.13141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i1.13141","url":null,"abstract":"The social platform Reddit hosts a set of communities that denounce offensive behavior, invoking scrutiny and shame on (categories of) individuals. Despite varying in their targets, they all promote actionable content to an audience who can view, share and comment on it. These groups allow a global public to air grievances, enabling both accountability and abuse. Following high profile scandals, Reddit routinely sanctions and purges problematic ‘subreddits’. As a matter of self-preservation, subreddits that watch over the public also maintain heightened scrutiny of their own members. Group rules and other prescriptive texts are a means to instill this scrutiny among a broader audience. In analyzing rules and other content management practices in 68 shaming based subreddits, this paper considers how these groups temper platform-based denunciation.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139388634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bert Verhulst, Ralf De Wolf, Tom Evens, M. V. Vanden Abeele
Instagram has become a primary platform via which life coaches establish a relationship with potential clients and advertise their professional services. In this study, we draw from Bourdieu’s work on taste and capital to unravel how life coaches capitalize on the affordances of Instagram to generate legitimacy and credibility for their profession. Drawing from a one-month observation of 1,650 posts collected from 20 Instagram profiles of life coaches, our analysis provides insight into how these professionals strategically display and integrate cultural practices, tastes, and preferences that align with neoliberal ideals of self-improvement and self-responsibility to set themselves apart as experts within their field. They then use this distinctiveness as a marketing technique, thereby feeding off their cultural and social capital, among others by rationalizing their expertise by appealing to their own experiences, embedding client testimonials, and driving the narrative by combining hashtags or images that refer to self-entrepreneurism, self-responsibility, and the good life. We reflect on the potentially harmful implications of these legitimization techniques on individuals and society.
{"title":"\"Unlock a better life: Here's how!\": A critical inquiry into how life coaches gain capital and shape legitimacy using Instagram's affordances","authors":"Bert Verhulst, Ralf De Wolf, Tom Evens, M. V. Vanden Abeele","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i1.13181","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i1.13181","url":null,"abstract":"Instagram has become a primary platform via which life coaches establish a relationship with potential clients and advertise their professional services. In this study, we draw from Bourdieu’s work on taste and capital to unravel how life coaches capitalize on the affordances of Instagram to generate legitimacy and credibility for their profession. Drawing from a one-month observation of 1,650 posts collected from 20 Instagram profiles of life coaches, our analysis provides insight into how these professionals strategically display and integrate cultural practices, tastes, and preferences that align with neoliberal ideals of self-improvement and self-responsibility to set themselves apart as experts within their field. They then use this distinctiveness as a marketing technique, thereby feeding off their cultural and social capital, among others by rationalizing their expertise by appealing to their own experiences, embedding client testimonials, and driving the narrative by combining hashtags or images that refer to self-entrepreneurism, self-responsibility, and the good life. We reflect on the potentially harmful implications of these legitimization techniques on individuals and society.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139452034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The social live streaming service Twitch was launched in 2008 as Justin.tv, rebranded as Twitch Interactive in 2011, and acquired by Amazon in 2014. Although launched originally as a portal to broadcast videogames, Twitch currently hosts a wide range of content, including science and technology channels. Yet, despite growing interest in this online video sharing platform, Twitch’s potential for the study of science videos has been underexploited to date. This paper seeks to go some way to remedying this by studying the potential of Twitch as a data source for social media academic metrics. To do so, a scientometrics-inspired framework (the OBA framework) is proposed to integrate the analysis of Twitch, science videos and research organizations under a common conceptual space. Then, a science-related Twitch channel — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — is used as a case study. We analyse 197 videos published by NASA between March 2017 and December 2022, as well as 51,935 clips created from NASA videos. Data were collected from the official Twitch API, which is also analysed to identify the units and metrics available and the channel’s performance in retrospective quantitative studies (i.e., non-live broadcasts). The results show that Twitch allows in-depth metric analyses of science videos to be undertaken, facilitating identification of both the activity and output-level impact of a scientific organization such as NASA. However, the Twitch API presents a few constraints, due, in the main, to the limited availability of many metrics that are restricted in time range, quantity, accuracy, or access, and which as such limit comprehensive retrospective studies. Despite these technical limitations, it is estimated that Twitch offers considerable potential for the study of science-related activity. The OBA model proposed facilitates the analysis of the activity of specific scientific agents (not only organizations but journals or other aggregates) under a conceptual framework based on approaches applied in quantitative studies of science.
{"title":"Uncovering the potential of Twitch as a source for social media metrics","authors":"Enrique Orduña-Malea, Carlos Lopezosa","doi":"10.5210/fm.v29i1.13214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i1.13214","url":null,"abstract":"The social live streaming service Twitch was launched in 2008 as Justin.tv, rebranded as Twitch Interactive in 2011, and acquired by Amazon in 2014. Although launched originally as a portal to broadcast videogames, Twitch currently hosts a wide range of content, including science and technology channels. Yet, despite growing interest in this online video sharing platform, Twitch’s potential for the study of science videos has been underexploited to date. This paper seeks to go some way to remedying this by studying the potential of Twitch as a data source for social media academic metrics. To do so, a scientometrics-inspired framework (the OBA framework) is proposed to integrate the analysis of Twitch, science videos and research organizations under a common conceptual space. Then, a science-related Twitch channel — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — is used as a case study. We analyse 197 videos published by NASA between March 2017 and December 2022, as well as 51,935 clips created from NASA videos. Data were collected from the official Twitch API, which is also analysed to identify the units and metrics available and the channel’s performance in retrospective quantitative studies (i.e., non-live broadcasts). The results show that Twitch allows in-depth metric analyses of science videos to be undertaken, facilitating identification of both the activity and output-level impact of a scientific organization such as NASA. However, the Twitch API presents a few constraints, due, in the main, to the limited availability of many metrics that are restricted in time range, quantity, accuracy, or access, and which as such limit comprehensive retrospective studies. Despite these technical limitations, it is estimated that Twitch offers considerable potential for the study of science-related activity. The OBA model proposed facilitates the analysis of the activity of specific scientific agents (not only organizations but journals or other aggregates) under a conceptual framework based on approaches applied in quantitative studies of science.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139389606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, I examine online self-publishing literary platforms in Russia from a historical and legislative perspective. Using a mixed methods approach, including digital ethnography, field diary, phenomenological interviews, I trace how the Russian Internet, and particularly literary self-publishing platforms, transformed from a free space without legislation or geographical borders to a limited digital arena controlled by the Russian state. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this transformation was complete: the boundaries of the Russian literary Internet coincided with the geographical borders of Russia. The notion of Runet as a community of Russian-speaking people was broken by regulative acts of the Russian government and a war. Literary and online self-publishing practices, contrary to Soviet samizdat, depend on state legislation due to their commercial nature. Regulatory acts limit authors’ capacities to express their thoughts and feelings in literary work.
{"title":"Reconsidering Ru(li)net: Russian literary self-publishing platforms and the war in Ukraine. A case study of Litnet.com","authors":"Anna Murashova","doi":"10.5210/fm.v28i12.13224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v28i12.13224","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I examine online self-publishing literary platforms in Russia from a historical and legislative perspective. Using a mixed methods approach, including digital ethnography, field diary, phenomenological interviews, I trace how the Russian Internet, and particularly literary self-publishing platforms, transformed from a free space without legislation or geographical borders to a limited digital arena controlled by the Russian state. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this transformation was complete: the boundaries of the Russian literary Internet coincided with the geographical borders of Russia. The notion of Runet as a community of Russian-speaking people was broken by regulative acts of the Russian government and a war. Literary and online self-publishing practices, contrary to Soviet samizdat, depend on state legislation due to their commercial nature. Regulatory acts limit authors’ capacities to express their thoughts and feelings in literary work.","PeriodicalId":38833,"journal":{"name":"First Monday","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138593119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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