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Determining the Extractive Casting Mold of Intimate Platforms through Document Theory

Published: 23 April 2020 Publication History

Abstract

This paper introduces document theory as a mechanism to analyze intimate platforms as sociotechnical systems. The theory, developed in documentation studies and applied to HCI, focuses on the casting mold or how agents, through particular means and modes, produce documents that govern social relations. We studied the process of creating a profile by identifying and mapping out the fields asked among the ten most popular online dating apps in the US. By looking at dating profiles as documents and their creation as a process of documentation, we argue that the current casting mold of these intimate platforms is designed to extract profit via invisibilization of labor in digital networks leading to the emergence of a constrained rational market agent. Our study illustrates how document theory makes visible the assumptions of technological systems, calling on us to imagine alternatives beyond incremental design changes given broader structural realities of market and power.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '20: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2020
    10688 pages
    ISBN:9781450367080
    DOI:10.1145/3313831
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    Published: 23 April 2020

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    1. document theory
    2. intimate platforms
    3. political economy

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    • (2024) Smooth operator: sleuthing Homo oeconomicus on social media platforms through a close reading of design Information, Communication & Society10.1080/1369118X.2024.2352633(1-22)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
    • (2022)Stewarding the Documental Afterlives of Refugee Tech InitiativesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555606:CSCW2(1-23)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
    • (2022)A comparative study of algorithmic–user classification practices in online dating: a human–machine learning processPorn Studies10.1080/23268743.2022.210435210:2(191-209)Online publication date: 19-Aug-2022
    • (2021)Declarative Variables in Online DatingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34491745:CSCW1(1-32)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2021
    • (2021)Market, Testbed, Backroom: The Redacted Internet of Facebook’s DiscoverProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445754(1-13)Online publication date: 6-May-2021

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