by Malte Ziewitz
When planning the conference we had the last-minute idea to add a seemingly innocent field to the registration form and ask: “Can you recommend a paper or website that might be of interest to other conference participants?” This turned out to be very productive. About every third person suggested something, resulting in the following list of resources.
Please note that the list is not curated, except for a rough division into media types. Occasionally, we added quotes below the source for context. There is a list of all contributors at the bottom of this post. We will also make sure to update the open reading list accordingly.
Enjoy the ride — there is some really fascinating stuff in there.
Books and research articles
Aneesh, A. (2009). “Global Labor: Algocratic Modes of Organization,” Sociological Theory, 27(4): 347-370.
“Check out Aneesh’s lovely 2009 paper!”
Asaro, Peter (forthcoming 2013). “On Banning Autonomous Lethal Systems: Human Rights, Automation and the Dehumanizing of Lethal Decision-making,” Special Issue on New Technologies and Warfare, International Review of the Red Cross.
Blanchette, J.-F. and D. G. Johnson (2002). “Data Retention and the Panoptic Society: The Social Benefits of Forgetfulness,” The Information Society 18 (1): 33-45.
Boyd, D. and K. Crawford (2012). “Critical Questions for Big Data: Provocations for a Cultural, Technological, and Scholarly Phenomenon”, http://www.danah.org/papers/2012/BigData-ICS-Draft.pdf.
Braun, J.A. (forthcoming). “Going Over the Top: Online Television Distribution as Socio-technical System,” Communication, Culture & Critique.
Bucher, T. (2012). “Want to Be on the Top? Algorithmic Power and the Threat of Invisibility on Facebook,” New Media & Society.
Citron, D. K. (2008). “Technological Due Process,” Washington University Law Review 85:1249-1313.
Collins, C. and E. P. Stabler (2011). “A Formalization of Minimalist Syntax,” http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001691.
Dixon, B. (1984). “Black Box Blues,” The Sciences 24 (March/April).
Donohue, L. K. (2012). “Technological Leap, Statutory Gap, and Constitutional Abyss: Remote Biometric Identification Comes of Age,” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2137838.
Espeland, W. N. and M. L. Stevens (1998). “Commensuration as a Social Process,” Annual Review of Sociology, 24: 313-343.
Eubanks, V. (2011). “Ch. 5: Technologies of Citizenship,” in: Virginia Eubanks, Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
“Her new work has to do with the citizenship effects of the computerization of public services, especially Medicaid, welfare, law enforcement and child protective services.”
Galloway, A. R. and E. Thacker (2007). The Exploit: A Theory of Networks. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Geiger, R. S. (2011). “The lives of bots,” in: Lovink, G., & Tkacz, N. (Eds.). Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia reader. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. Retrieved from http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/inc-readers/critical-point-of-view-a-wikipedia-reader/.
Gerlitz, C. and A. Helmond (forthcoming 2013). “The Like economy: Social buttons and the data-intensive web,” http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/02/03/1461444812472322.abstract.
Gillespie, T. (forthcoming 2013). “The Relevance of Algorithms,” in: T. Gillespie, P. Boczkowski, and K. Foot (eds), Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Guattari, F. (1995). “Machinic heterogenesis,” in: Chaosmosis: An ethico-aesthetic paradigm, pp. 33-57. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Hilbert, M. (2013). “Big Data for Development: From Information- to Knowledge Societies”, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2205145.
“This is a thorough and balanced overview of what big data could mean for international development. The author points out both the benefits (e.g. better decision-making) and costs (e.g. further loss of privacy; the lack of transparency in algorithms) and argues that it will take a lot of region-specific contextual work to make big data deliver on its promises.”
Holling, C. S. (2001). “Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems,” Ecosystems (2001) 4: 390–405.
Hromada, D. D. (forthcoming 2013). “Of foundations of Parallel Democracy Model and of first tentatives to implement it in the cyberspace,” Teoria Politica, http://dev.kyberia.cz/id/4750224/data.
Lin, T. C. W. (2013). “The New Investor,” 60 UCLA L. Rev. 678, available at http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/189.
Manovich, L. (2011). “There is only Software,” http://www.manovich.net/DOCS/Manovich.there_is_only_software.pdf.
Marino, M. C. (2006). “Critical Code Studies”, http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/codology.
“This article on ‘critical code studies’ written by Mark C. Marino has an excellent definition of software-based on algorithms: ‘Software, it follows, is a cultural practice made up of (a) algorithms…'”
Miyazaki, S. (2012). “Algorhythmics: Understanding Micro-Temporality in Computational Cultures,” Computational Culture, http://computationalculture.net/article/algorhythmics-understanding-micro-temporality-in-computational-cultures.
Poon, M. (2008). “From New Deal Institutions to Capital Markets: Commercial Consumer Risk Scores and the Making of Subprime Mortgage Finance,” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1458545.
Ridgeway, G. (2013). “The Pitfalls of Prediction,” NIJ Journal, Issue 271: 34-40, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/240702.pdf.
“Ridgeway (acting director of the National Institute for Justice) defends the use of predictive policing while also articulating seven common pitfalls of prediction systems.”
Roque, A. (2011). “Language Technology Enables a Poetics of Interactive Generation,” Journal of Electromic Publishing 14(2), http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0014.209.
Schrier, K. and D. Gibson (2010). Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values Through Play. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
Sweeney, L. (2013). “Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery”, http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.6822
“This paper is based on an empirical study of racial discrimination practices embedded in Google AdSense algorithms. Having run an experiment on 2184 racially associated personal names across two websites that run Google AdSense, the author — a Harvard academic — found that names primarily given to black babies are much more likely to bring up ads suggestive of an arrest record. Discussion at Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510646/racism-is-poisoning-online-ad-delivery-says-harvard-professor/.”
Thrift, N. (2012). “The insubstantial pageant: producing an untoward land,” Cultural Geographies 19(2): 141-168, http://cgj.sagepub.com/content/19/2/141.abstract.
Turing, A. (1950). “Computing machinery and intelligence,” Mind, 59: 433-460, http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html.
Vertesi, J. and P. Dourish (2011). “The value of data: considering the context of production in data economies,” Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, 2011, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1958824.1958906.
Blog posts, talks, essays, music
Adam Curtis, All watched over by machines of loving grace, http://vimeo.com/27393748.
“A documentary, even!”
Advertising Analytics 2.0, Harvard Business Review, http://hbr.org/2013/03/advertising-analytics-20/ar/1 ($$$).
Alberto Toscano, Gaming the plumbing: High-frequency trading and the spaces of capital, http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/gaming-plumbing-high-frequency-trading-and-spaces-capital.
Algorithmic Rape Jokes in the Library of Babel, http://quietbabylon.com/2013/algorithmic-rape-jokes-in-the-library-of-babel/.
Big data needs people, leaders and real-time analytics: A Structure:Data 2013 recap, http://gigaom.com/2013/03/22/structuredata-2013-recap/.
Chris W. Anderson, The Materiality of Algorithms, Culture Digitally, http://culturedigitally.org/2012/11/the-materiality-of-algorithms/.
Data Lockers: The Future of Personal Data?, http://www.facegroup.com/personal-data-lockers-the-future-of-data.html.
Evgeny Morozov, The Meme Hustler, http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_meme_hustler.
FMS Symphony by csv soundsystem, http://fms.csvsoundsystem.com/.
Heather Dewey-Hagborg, “Power/Play,” Talk at IGNITE NYC 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YPi2WyO1mI.
“Ignite talk on ML algorithms and surveillance. Creators project interview: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/artist-collects-and-analyzes-dna-samples-to-create-3d-portraits-in-stranger-visions”
Internet Census 2012, Port scanning /0 using insecure embedded devices, http://internetcensus2012.bitbucket.org/paper.html.
Jenna Burrell, The Ethnographer’s Complete Guide to Big Data: Small Data People in a Big Data World, http://ethnographymatters.net/2012/05/28/small-data-people-in-a-big-data-world/.
“Part 2 & 3 of this series are linked in this post.”
Kevin Slavin, “Those algorithms that govern our lives,” Talk at LIFT 2013, http://videos.liftconference.com/video/1177435/kevin-slavin-those-algorithms.
“Slavin’s talk is pretty awesome!”
Marcus Wohlsen, How new delivery algorithms will impact our online shopping economy – and the implications that this shift will have ‘on the ground’, http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/online-retailers-faster-than-overnight/all/#.UVmAMzZkzFQ.reddit.
Players only Love you when they’re Playin’: Community as Algorithm in Programmable Poetics, http://elmcip.net/critical-writing/players-only-love-you-when-theyre-playin-community-algorithm-programmable-poetics.
Privacy Protection Techniques Using Differences in Human and Device Sensitivity: Protecting Photographed Subjects against Invasion of Privacy Caused by Unintentional Capture in Camera Images, http://www.nii.ac.jp/userimg/press_20121212e.pdf.
Sniper/Six/Editions Zones sensibles, http://montenlair.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/sniper-six-editions-zones-sensibles/.
Tanner Teale, Playing Outside: An Algorithm Recital, http://www.tannerteale.com/playingoutside/.
Websites
Accountability and Identifiability, http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/~adj/accountability/
ACLU on Artificial Intelligence, http://www.aclu.org/node/35703
Claudia Venturelli’s blog, http://claudiaventurelli.blogspot.com.ar/
Dissent Magazine, www.dissentmagazine.org
ID3, www.idcubed.org
“Look at the papers on Digital Law – Rule of Law Engine – Social Stack etc.; also Law Lab at Harvard Berkman Center – Computational Term Sheets”
Imprints Research Project, http://imprintsfutures.org/
Journal of Peer Production, http://peerproduction.net/
Julie Cohen’s website, www.juliecohen.com
Kaggle, http://www.kaggle.com/
“Kaggle is fun!”
Mammoth Blog, http://m.ammoth.us/blog/
Mathbabe, http://mathbabe.org/
Nanex’s research into High Frequency Trading scandals, http://www.nanex.net/flashcrash/ongoingresearch.html
News at Y Combinator, https://news.ycombinator.com/
OTI’s policy papers, http://oti.newamerica.net/archives/policydocs/1487
Peter Asaro’s website, www.peterasaro.org
Post-Media Lab, www.postmedialab.org
Privacy SOS, http://privacysos.org/blog
Reddit – Algorithms, http://www.reddit.com/r/algorithms
Re-search blog, http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/re-search/
Software Studies Initiative, www.softwarestudies.com
The Status Project, Irational.org, http://status.irational.org/
The New Inquiry, www.thenewinquiry.com
“Covers a tremendous amount of emerging technology from a cultural criticism angle.”
Wethedata, http://wethedata.org/
Various algorithm research papers, http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
Contributors
Many thanks to C.W. Anderson, Peter Asaro, Fred Benenson, danah boyd, Josh Braun, Georgia Bullen, John Clippinger, Julie Cohen, Kade Crockford, Darius Cuplinskas, Kate Davids, Patrick Davison, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Mark DuRocher, Virginia Eubanks, Noah Feehan, Joan Feigenbaum, Vera Franz, Jacob Gaboury, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Bill Garate, Robert Gardner, Tarleton Gillespie, Kevin Gotkin, Melissa Gregg, Benjamin Haber, Paula Helm, Anne Helmond, Daniel Hromada, Margot Kaminski, Prudence Katze, René König, Hari Kunzru, Sarah Leonard, Thomas Levine, Karen Levy, Jen Lowe, Lisa Lucas, Lev Manovich, Francesca Musiani, Monika Norwid, Catherine Oneil, Chris Peterson, Jake Porway, Serge Proulx, Sajan Ravindran, Camille Reyes, David Robinson, Seyyed Ali Sajjadi, Kamron Saniee, Sharla Sava, Joseph Savirimuthu, Joshua Scannell, Suzanna Schmeelk, Carter Schonwald, Karen Schrier, Aaron Schumacher, Geoffrey Schwartz, Phoebe Sengers, Sava Saheli Singh, Jay Stanley, Tanner Teale, Neal Thomas, Claudia Venturelli, Janet Vertesi, Jason Windawi, Tyler Zang, Tengchao Zhou for their contributions.
