Reading list

This is an open reading list we assembled in preparation of the Governing Algorithms conference. Please add suggestions below – or download a PDF version.

Last updated: March 21, 2013


Anderson, C W. (2012). ‘Towards a sociology of computational and algorithmic journalism’, New Media & Society.

Barocas, S. (2012). ‘The Price of Precision: Voter Microtargeting and Its Potential Harms to the Democratic Process’, PLEAD’12, November 2, 2012, Maui, Hawai.

Beer, D. (2009). ‘Power through the algorithm? Participatory Web cultures and the technological unconscious’, New Media & Society 11(6): 985-1002.

Bucher, T. (2012). ‘Want to be on the top? Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook’, New Media & Society, first published on April 8, 2012.

Cheney-Lippold, J. (2011). A New Algorithmic Identity: Soft Biopolitics and the Modulation of Control. Theory, Culture & Society, 28(6), 164–181.

Custers, B., Zarsky, T., Schermer, B., & Calders, T. (2013). Discrimination and privacy in the information society data mining and profiling in large databases. Berlin: Springer.

D’Amato, A. (1977). ‘Can/Should Computers Replace Judges?’, Georgia Law Review 11: 1277-1301.

Domingos, P. (2012). A few useful things to know about machine learning. Communications of the ACM, 55(10), 78.

Ensmenger N. (2012). ‘Is chess the drosophila artificial intelligence? A social history of an algorithm’, Soc Stud Sci. 42(1): 5-30.

–– (2003). Letting the “Computer Boys” Take Over: Technology and the Politics of Organizational Transformation. International Review of Social History, 48(S11), 153–180.

Friedman, B. and H. Nissenbaum (1996). ‘Bias in computer systems’, ACM Transactions on Information Systems 14: 330-347.

Galloway, A. N. (2006). Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, University of Minnesota Press.

Gillespie, T. (2011). ‘Can an algorithm be wrong? Twitter Trends, the specter of censorship, and our faith in the algorithms around us’, Culture Digitally Blog, Oct 19, http://culturedigitally.org/2011/10/can-an-algorithm-be-wrong/.

–– (2012). ‘The relevance of algorithms’, in Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo Boczkowski, and Kirsten Foot (eds), Media Technologies (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

Gitelman, Lisa (2013). “Raw Data” is an Oxymoron. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Goffey, A. (2008). ‘Algorithm’, in: Fuller, M. (ed), Software studies: A lexicon, MIT Press, pp. 15-20.

Good, I. J. (1983). ‘The philosophy of exploratory data analysis’, Philosophy of Science, 283–295.

Greiffenhagen, C. (2008). Video analysis of mathematical practice? Different attempts to “open up” mathematics for sociological investigation. Forum: Qualitative Social Research 9(3), art. 32.

Helmreich, S. (1998). Recombination, Rationality, Reductionism and Romantic Reactions:: Culture, Computers, and the Genetic Algorithm. Social Studies of Science, 28(1), 39–71.

Hildebrandt, M (2010). “The meaning and the mining of legal texts”. Presentation at The Computational Turn in the Humanities. Swansea University. March 2010. A further developed version will be published in: Berry, D. M. (Ed.) (forthcoming, 2011) Understanding Digital Humanities: The Computational Turn and New Technology. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Introna, L. (2011). ‘The enframing of code: Agency, originality and the plagiarist’, Theory, Culture & Society, 28: 113-141.

Kowalski, R. (1979). ‘Algorithm = Logic + Control’, Communications of the ACM 22(7): 424-436.

Kraemer, F., Overveld, K., & Peterson, M. (2010). ‘Is there an ethics of algorithms? Ethics and Information Technology’, 13(3), 251–260.

Lash, S. (2007). ‘Power after Hegemony: Cultural Studies in Mutation?’, Theory, Culture & Society 24(3): 55-78.

Lenglet, M. (2011). ‘Conflicting Codes and Codings: How Algorithmic Trading Is Reshaping Financial Regulation’, Theory, Culture & Society 28(6): 44-66.

Lohr, Steve (2013). “Algorithms Get a Human Hand in Steering Web,” The New York Times, Mar. 10, 2012.

Lynch, M. (2002). ‘Protocols, practices, and the reproduction of technique in molecular biology’, British Journal of Sociology 53(2): 203–220.

Mager, A. (2012). ‘Algorithmic Ideology’, Information, Communication & Society, 1–19.

Mackenzie, A. (2007). Protocols and the Irreducible Traces of Embodiment: The Viterbi Algorithm and the Mosaic of Machine Time, in: Hassan, R. & Purser R. E., 24/7: Time and temporality in the network society, Stanford University Press: Standford, CA, pp. 89-108.

Morozov, E. (2013). To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, PublicAffairs/Perseus Books: New York, NY.

Muniesa, F. (2011). ‘Is a stock exchange a computer solution? Explicitness, algorithms and the Arizona Stock Exchange’, International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation, 3(1), 1-15.

Noble, D. (1984). Forces of Production: A social history of industrial automation, Alfred E. Knopf: New York, NY.

Parisi, L. (2012). Digital Design and Topological Control. Theory, Culture & Society, 29(4-5), 165–192.

Ramsay, S. (2003). Special Section: Reconceiving Text Analysis: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 18(2), 167–174.

Schüll, N. D. (2012). Addiction by design: Machine gambling in Las Vegas, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.

Schwartz, P. M. (2010). Data Protection Law and The Ethical Use of Analytics (pp. 1–30). Washington, DC: The Centre for Information Policy Leadership, Hunton & Williams LLP.

Slavin, Kevin (2011). How algorithms shape our world, TED Talk, http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html.

Steiner, C. (2012). Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World, Portfolio/Penguin: New York, NY.

Srinivasan, R. (2012). ‘Re-thinking the cultural codes of new media: The question concerning ontology’, New Media & Society.

Stacey, J. and Suchman, L. (2012). ‘Animation and Automation − The Liveliness and Labours of Bodies and Machines’, Body & Society, 18: 1.

Sweeney, L. (2013). Discrimination in online ad delivery. Harvard University, January 28, 20131.

Symposium on “Computer discovery and the sociology of scientific knowledge” (1989), Social Studies of Science 19(4).

Turing, A.M. (1950). ‘Computing machinery and intelligence’, Mind 59: 433-460.

Uprichard, E., Burrows, R., & Byrne, D. (2008). ‘SPSS as an “inscription device”: from causality to description?’, The Sociological Review, 56(4): 606–622.

Vries, K. (2010). ‘Identity, profiling algorithms and a world of ambient intelligence’, Ethics and Information Technology, 12(1), 71–85.

Webmoor, T. (in press). Algorithmic Alchemy, Or the Work of Code in Coordinating Creativity and Collaborators, in: Visualization in the Age of Computerization, Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society, edited by A. Carusi, A. S. Hoel, T. Webmoor and S. Woolgar. London: Routledge.

Zarsky, T. (2004). ‘Desperately Seeking Solutions: Using Implementation-Based Solutions for the Troubles of Information Privacy in the Age of Data Mining and the Internet Society’, Maine Law Review 56 (1): 13-59.

Ziewitz, M. (2011). ‘How to think about an algorithm? Notes from a not quite random walk’, Working paper.

3 thoughts on “Reading list

  1. Berry, David M. (2011). The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Cheney-Lippold, J. (2011). “A New Algorithmic Identity: Soft Biopolitics and the Modulation of Control.” Theory, Culture & Society 28, no. 6: 164–181. doi:10.1177/0263276411424420.

    Ramsay, Stephen. (2011). Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism. 1st Edition. University of Illinois Press.

    Mackenzie, A. (2007) “Protocols and the Irreducible Traces of Embodiment: The Viterbi Algorithm and the Mosaic of Machine Time”, in R. Hassan and R. Purser (eds) 24/7: Time and Temporality in the Network Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Rieder, Bernhard. 2013. “What Is in PageRank? A Historical and Conceptual Investigation of a Recursive Status Index.” Computational Culture (2). Accessed April 1. http://computationalculture.net/article/what_is_in_pagerank.

    Amoore, Louise. “Data Derivatives: on the Emergence of a Security Risk Calculus for Our Times.” Theory, Culture & Society 28, no. 6 (December 2, 2011): 24–43. doi:10.1177/0263276411417430.

  2. Kushner, S. “The Freelance Translation Machine: Algorithmic Culture and the Invisible Industry.” New Media & Society (January 3, 2013). doi:10.1177/1461444812469597.

  3. Mackenzie, A. and T. Vurdubakis. “Codes and Codings in Crisis: Signification, Performativity and Excess.” Theory, Culture & Society 28, no.6 (December 2, 2011): 3–23. doi: 10.1177/0263276411424761 .

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