This article investigates how developers of alternative search engines challenge increasingly cor... more This article investigates how developers of alternative search engines challenge increasingly corporate imaginaries of digital futures by building out counter-imaginaries of search engines devoted to social values instead of mere profit maximization. Drawing on three in-depth case studies of European search engines, it analyzes how search engine developers counter-imagine hegemonic search, what social values support their imaginaries, and how they are intertwined with their sociotechnical practices. This analysis shows that notions like privacy, independence, and openness appear to be fluid, context-dependent, and changing over time, leading to a certain “value pragmatics” that allows the projects to scale beyond their own communities of practice. It further shows how European values, and broader notions of Europe as “unified or pluralistic,” are constructed and co-produced with developers’ attempts to counter-imagine and counteract hegemonic search. To conclude, I suggest three points of intervention that may help alternative search engine projects, and digital technologies more generally, to not only make their counter-imaginaries more powerful, but also acquire the necessary resources to build their technologies and infrastructures accordingly. I finally discuss how “European values,” in all their richness and diversity, can contribute to this undertaking.
Momentum Quarterly - Zeitschrift für sozialen Fortschritt
Gesundheits-Apps und Tracking-Geräte zum Messen, Speichern und Verarbeiten von Körperdaten sind w... more Gesundheits-Apps und Tracking-Geräte zum Messen, Speichern und Verarbeiten von Körperdaten sind weltweit im Vormarsch. In unserem Artikel verwenden wir verschiedene Ansätze aus Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung (STS), Surveillance Studies und Medizin-Soziologie um diese globalen Trends der Körperdatenerfassung in gesundheitsbezogenen Kontexten erfassen und theoretisieren zu können. Wir stellen das post-digitale Konzept des „data body“ als Schnittpunkt von Online- und Offline-Welten, individuellen und kollektiven Dimensionen, privaten und öffentlichen Aspekten vor, wobei wir besonderes Augenmerk auf die Verschränkung des physischen Körpers mit seinen Datendimensionen legen. Der data body soll so in seinen Ausprägungen zwischen Empowerment und sozialer Kontrolle besser wahrnehmbar werden. Abschließend diskutieren wir, wie data bodies im Hinblick auf Eigentumsrechte, Pflege und Kontrolle sowohl von Individuen als auch Gemeinschaften in Zukunft gehandhabt werden können.
As of 2020, the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) makes use of algorithmic profiling of job... more As of 2020, the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) makes use of algorithmic profiling of job seekers to increase the efficiency of its counseling process and the effectiveness of active labor market programs. Based on a statistical model of job seekers' prospects on the labor market, the system—that has become known as the AMS algorithm—is designed to classify clients of the AMS into three categories: those with high chances to find a job within half a year, those with mediocre prospects on the job market, and those clients with a bad outlook of employment in the next 2 years. Depending on the category a particular job seeker is classified under, they will be offered differing support in (re)entering the labor market. Based in science and technology studies, critical data studies and research on fairness, accountability and transparency of algorithmic systems, this paper examines the inherent politics of the AMS algorithm. An in-depth analysis of relevant technical documentation and policy documents investigates crucial conceptual, technical, and social implications of the system. The analysis shows how the design of the algorithm is influenced by technical affordances, but also by social values, norms, and goals. A discussion of the tensions, challenges and possible biases that the system entails calls into question the objectivity and neutrality of data claims and of high hopes pinned on evidence-based decision-making. In this way, the paper sheds light on the coproduction of (semi)automated managerial practices in employment agencies and the framing of unemployment under austerity politics.
A plethora of health apps and tracking devices is used around the globe to measure, store, and pr... more A plethora of health apps and tracking devices is used around the globe to measure, store, and process body data. In this article, we use various approaches from the fields of science and technology studies (STS), surveillance studies and medical sociology to grasp and theorize these global trends of body datafication in health-related contexts. We (re)introduce the post-digital concept of the data body as the intersection of online and offline, individual and collective, private and public aspects, emphasizing the entanglements of the physical body from its data-dimensions and its situatedness between empowerment and social control. We conclude by discussing aspects of ownership, care, and control of digital data bodies and how both individuals and society may cope with them in the future.
In this article, I investigate internet governance in practice by focusing on search engines, Goo... more In this article, I investigate internet governance in practice by focusing on search engines, Google in particular. Building on STS‐grounded internet governance research, I ask how different stakeholders interpret governing by algorithms, the governing of algorithms, and the limits of various governing modes when considering local specificities. To answer these questions, I conducted 18 qualitative interviews with key experts involved in search engine governance from four distinct societal domains: policy, law, civil society and the IT sector (from Austria and/ or the European level). In this analysis, I show that perceptions of search engine governance are shaped in specific cultural contexts, but also within particular social groups and their situated knowledges. I further elaborate how joint efforts are imagined as a means to challenge powerful search engines and their governing abilities cutting through different societal arenas and areas of expertise. Finally, I discuss implications of this analysis regarding the complex relationship between global technology and local cultures.
This article discusses the co-production of search technology and a European identity in the cont... more This article discusses the co-production of search technology and a European identity in the context of the EU data protection reform. The negotiations of the EU data protection legislation ran from 2012 until 2015 and resulted in a unified data protection legislation directly binding for all European member states. I employ a discourse analysis to examine EU policy documents and Austrian media materials related to the reform process. Using the concept ‘sociotechnical imaginary’, I show how a European imaginary of search engines is forming in the EU policy domain, how a European identity is constructed in the envisioned politics of control, and how national specificities contribute to the making and unmaking of a European identity. I discuss the roles that national technopolitical identities play in shaping both search technology and Europe, taking as an example Austria, a small country with a long history in data protection and a tradition of restrained technology politics.
This article conceptualizes “algorithmic ideology” as a valuable tool to understand and critique ... more This article conceptualizes “algorithmic ideology” as a valuable tool to understand and critique corporate search engines in the context of wider socio-political developments. Drawing on critical theory it shows how capitalist value-systems manifest in search technology, how they spread through algorithmic logics and how they are stabilized in society. Following philosophers like Althusser, Marx and Gramsci it elaborates how content providers and users contribute to Google’s capital accumulation cycle and exploitation schemes that come along with it. In line with contemporary mass media and neoliberal politics they appear to be fostering capitalism and its “commodity fetishism” (Marx). It further reveals that the capitalist hegemony has to be constantly negotiated and renewed. This dynamic notion of ideology opens up the view for moments of struggle and counter-actions. “Organic intellectuals” (Gramsci) can play a central role in challenging powerful actors like Google and their algorithmic ideology. To pave the way towards more democratic information technology, however, requires more than single organic intellectuals. Additional obstacles need to be conquered, as I finally discuss.
Google has been blamed for its de facto monopolistic position on the search engine market, its ex... more Google has been blamed for its de facto monopolistic position on the search engine market, its exploitation of user data, its privacy violations, and, most recently, for possible collaborations with the US-American National Security Agency (NSA). However, blaming Google is not enough, as I suggest in this article. Rather than being ready-made, Google and its ‘algorithmic ideology’ are constantly negotiated in society. Drawing on my previous work I show how the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ gets inscribed in Google’s technical Gestalt by way of social practices. Furthermore, I look at alternative search engines through the lens of ideology. Focusing on search projects like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, YaCy and Wolfram|Alpha I exemplify that there are multiple ideologies at work. There are search engines that carry democratic values, the green ideology, the belief in the commons, and those that subject themselves to the scientific paradigm. In daily practice, however, the capitalist ideology appears to be hegemonic since 1) most users employ Google rather than alternative search engines, 2) a number of small search projects enter strategic alliances with big, commercial players, and 3) choosing a true alternative would require not only awareness and a certain amount of technical know-how, but also effort and patience on the part of users, as I finally discuss.
While the Internet is often discussed as empowering or endangering patients due to broadening acc... more While the Internet is often discussed as empowering or endangering patients due to broadening access to medical and health-related information, little is known about the way patients actually get informed about medical conditions and how the technology shapes their practices. This article draws on 40 user observations and 40 qualitative interviews to explore how users employ the web to obtain knowledge about a chronic disease in the Austrian context. Following concepts from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) it explores how users’ individual medical preferences and search engines’ mechanisms of pre-filtering information co-shape online health information practices. The analysis demonstrates that search engines are not passive intermediaries, but rather actively shape how users browse through, select and evaluate health information in the
context of their own bodies of knowledge. Accordingly, new skills are required on the part of users, but also on the part of medical professionals and policy makers. Both policy makers and
doctors should engage with users’ highly individual search practices and establish more dialogueoriented and technology-focused health policy measures, rather than trying to educate users with standardized quality criteria for websites not responding to users’ online routines and needs.
What are the conditions for the public understanding of biofuels and how do the media shape these... more What are the conditions for the public understanding of biofuels and how do the media shape these conditions under the influence of a new production of knowledge? This article investigates how the biofuel controversy plays out in the Swedish press and Google search engine results and analyses winners and losers in the tight attention economy of contemporary media. It describes different visibility strategies biofuel stakeholders employ in both media arenas, and identifies a form of technoscientific promotion that hybrid actors use to succeed in the day-to- day struggle for media attention. To conclude, it raises broader societal questions of the contemporary blurring of knowledge boundaries and the emergence of new information hierarchies and their biases. By understanding how contemporary media shape controversies, we can address the democratic potential of both mass media and science.
This paper challenges the democratic ideal of the Web as a new public sphere in the medical conte... more This paper challenges the democratic ideal of the Web as a new public sphere in the medical context. Drawing on a mix of methods it investigates how different Web site providers configure and position their diabetes sites in the multitude of online health information, search engine results in particular. Building on insights gained from critical new media studies and medical sociology, it shows that a range of power relations and information politics are involved in these practices, triggering information visibility hierarchies and a commercialisation of online health information, partly overlapping with off–line contexts. To conclude, it argues for reconsidering the democratic ideal of the Web and focusing on market dynamics involved in the production of medical Web information co–produced by Web site providers and search engine algorithms.
This article investigates how the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007) gets i... more This article investigates how the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007) gets inscribed in the fabric of search algorithms by way of social practices. Drawing on the tradition of the social construction of technology (SCOT) and 17 qualitative expert interviews I discuss how search engines and their “capital accumulation cycle” (Fuchs, forthcoming) are negotiated and stabilized in a network of actors and interests, website providers and users first and foremost. I further show how corporate search engines and their capitalist ideology are solidified in a socio-political context characterized by a techno-euphoric climate of innovation and a politics of privatization. This analysis provides a valuable contribution to contemporary search engine critique mainly focusing on search engines’ business models and societal implications. It shows that a shift of perspective is needed from impacts search engines have on society towards social practices and power relations involved in the construction of search engines to reconsider and renegotiate search engines and their algorithmic ideology in the future.
This article investigates how developers of alternative search engines challenge increasingly cor... more This article investigates how developers of alternative search engines challenge increasingly corporate imaginaries of digital futures by building out counter-imaginaries of search engines devoted to social values instead of mere profit maximization. Drawing on three in-depth case studies of European search engines, it analyzes how search engine developers counter-imagine hegemonic search, what social values support their imaginaries, and how they are intertwined with their sociotechnical practices. This analysis shows that notions like privacy, independence, and openness appear to be fluid, context-dependent, and changing over time, leading to a certain “value pragmatics” that allows the projects to scale beyond their own communities of practice. It further shows how European values, and broader notions of Europe as “unified or pluralistic,” are constructed and co-produced with developers’ attempts to counter-imagine and counteract hegemonic search. To conclude, I suggest three points of intervention that may help alternative search engine projects, and digital technologies more generally, to not only make their counter-imaginaries more powerful, but also acquire the necessary resources to build their technologies and infrastructures accordingly. I finally discuss how “European values,” in all their richness and diversity, can contribute to this undertaking.
Momentum Quarterly - Zeitschrift für sozialen Fortschritt
Gesundheits-Apps und Tracking-Geräte zum Messen, Speichern und Verarbeiten von Körperdaten sind w... more Gesundheits-Apps und Tracking-Geräte zum Messen, Speichern und Verarbeiten von Körperdaten sind weltweit im Vormarsch. In unserem Artikel verwenden wir verschiedene Ansätze aus Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung (STS), Surveillance Studies und Medizin-Soziologie um diese globalen Trends der Körperdatenerfassung in gesundheitsbezogenen Kontexten erfassen und theoretisieren zu können. Wir stellen das post-digitale Konzept des „data body“ als Schnittpunkt von Online- und Offline-Welten, individuellen und kollektiven Dimensionen, privaten und öffentlichen Aspekten vor, wobei wir besonderes Augenmerk auf die Verschränkung des physischen Körpers mit seinen Datendimensionen legen. Der data body soll so in seinen Ausprägungen zwischen Empowerment und sozialer Kontrolle besser wahrnehmbar werden. Abschließend diskutieren wir, wie data bodies im Hinblick auf Eigentumsrechte, Pflege und Kontrolle sowohl von Individuen als auch Gemeinschaften in Zukunft gehandhabt werden können.
As of 2020, the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) makes use of algorithmic profiling of job... more As of 2020, the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) makes use of algorithmic profiling of job seekers to increase the efficiency of its counseling process and the effectiveness of active labor market programs. Based on a statistical model of job seekers' prospects on the labor market, the system—that has become known as the AMS algorithm—is designed to classify clients of the AMS into three categories: those with high chances to find a job within half a year, those with mediocre prospects on the job market, and those clients with a bad outlook of employment in the next 2 years. Depending on the category a particular job seeker is classified under, they will be offered differing support in (re)entering the labor market. Based in science and technology studies, critical data studies and research on fairness, accountability and transparency of algorithmic systems, this paper examines the inherent politics of the AMS algorithm. An in-depth analysis of relevant technical documentation and policy documents investigates crucial conceptual, technical, and social implications of the system. The analysis shows how the design of the algorithm is influenced by technical affordances, but also by social values, norms, and goals. A discussion of the tensions, challenges and possible biases that the system entails calls into question the objectivity and neutrality of data claims and of high hopes pinned on evidence-based decision-making. In this way, the paper sheds light on the coproduction of (semi)automated managerial practices in employment agencies and the framing of unemployment under austerity politics.
A plethora of health apps and tracking devices is used around the globe to measure, store, and pr... more A plethora of health apps and tracking devices is used around the globe to measure, store, and process body data. In this article, we use various approaches from the fields of science and technology studies (STS), surveillance studies and medical sociology to grasp and theorize these global trends of body datafication in health-related contexts. We (re)introduce the post-digital concept of the data body as the intersection of online and offline, individual and collective, private and public aspects, emphasizing the entanglements of the physical body from its data-dimensions and its situatedness between empowerment and social control. We conclude by discussing aspects of ownership, care, and control of digital data bodies and how both individuals and society may cope with them in the future.
In this article, I investigate internet governance in practice by focusing on search engines, Goo... more In this article, I investigate internet governance in practice by focusing on search engines, Google in particular. Building on STS‐grounded internet governance research, I ask how different stakeholders interpret governing by algorithms, the governing of algorithms, and the limits of various governing modes when considering local specificities. To answer these questions, I conducted 18 qualitative interviews with key experts involved in search engine governance from four distinct societal domains: policy, law, civil society and the IT sector (from Austria and/ or the European level). In this analysis, I show that perceptions of search engine governance are shaped in specific cultural contexts, but also within particular social groups and their situated knowledges. I further elaborate how joint efforts are imagined as a means to challenge powerful search engines and their governing abilities cutting through different societal arenas and areas of expertise. Finally, I discuss implications of this analysis regarding the complex relationship between global technology and local cultures.
This article discusses the co-production of search technology and a European identity in the cont... more This article discusses the co-production of search technology and a European identity in the context of the EU data protection reform. The negotiations of the EU data protection legislation ran from 2012 until 2015 and resulted in a unified data protection legislation directly binding for all European member states. I employ a discourse analysis to examine EU policy documents and Austrian media materials related to the reform process. Using the concept ‘sociotechnical imaginary’, I show how a European imaginary of search engines is forming in the EU policy domain, how a European identity is constructed in the envisioned politics of control, and how national specificities contribute to the making and unmaking of a European identity. I discuss the roles that national technopolitical identities play in shaping both search technology and Europe, taking as an example Austria, a small country with a long history in data protection and a tradition of restrained technology politics.
This article conceptualizes “algorithmic ideology” as a valuable tool to understand and critique ... more This article conceptualizes “algorithmic ideology” as a valuable tool to understand and critique corporate search engines in the context of wider socio-political developments. Drawing on critical theory it shows how capitalist value-systems manifest in search technology, how they spread through algorithmic logics and how they are stabilized in society. Following philosophers like Althusser, Marx and Gramsci it elaborates how content providers and users contribute to Google’s capital accumulation cycle and exploitation schemes that come along with it. In line with contemporary mass media and neoliberal politics they appear to be fostering capitalism and its “commodity fetishism” (Marx). It further reveals that the capitalist hegemony has to be constantly negotiated and renewed. This dynamic notion of ideology opens up the view for moments of struggle and counter-actions. “Organic intellectuals” (Gramsci) can play a central role in challenging powerful actors like Google and their algorithmic ideology. To pave the way towards more democratic information technology, however, requires more than single organic intellectuals. Additional obstacles need to be conquered, as I finally discuss.
Google has been blamed for its de facto monopolistic position on the search engine market, its ex... more Google has been blamed for its de facto monopolistic position on the search engine market, its exploitation of user data, its privacy violations, and, most recently, for possible collaborations with the US-American National Security Agency (NSA). However, blaming Google is not enough, as I suggest in this article. Rather than being ready-made, Google and its ‘algorithmic ideology’ are constantly negotiated in society. Drawing on my previous work I show how the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ gets inscribed in Google’s technical Gestalt by way of social practices. Furthermore, I look at alternative search engines through the lens of ideology. Focusing on search projects like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, YaCy and Wolfram|Alpha I exemplify that there are multiple ideologies at work. There are search engines that carry democratic values, the green ideology, the belief in the commons, and those that subject themselves to the scientific paradigm. In daily practice, however, the capitalist ideology appears to be hegemonic since 1) most users employ Google rather than alternative search engines, 2) a number of small search projects enter strategic alliances with big, commercial players, and 3) choosing a true alternative would require not only awareness and a certain amount of technical know-how, but also effort and patience on the part of users, as I finally discuss.
While the Internet is often discussed as empowering or endangering patients due to broadening acc... more While the Internet is often discussed as empowering or endangering patients due to broadening access to medical and health-related information, little is known about the way patients actually get informed about medical conditions and how the technology shapes their practices. This article draws on 40 user observations and 40 qualitative interviews to explore how users employ the web to obtain knowledge about a chronic disease in the Austrian context. Following concepts from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) it explores how users’ individual medical preferences and search engines’ mechanisms of pre-filtering information co-shape online health information practices. The analysis demonstrates that search engines are not passive intermediaries, but rather actively shape how users browse through, select and evaluate health information in the
context of their own bodies of knowledge. Accordingly, new skills are required on the part of users, but also on the part of medical professionals and policy makers. Both policy makers and
doctors should engage with users’ highly individual search practices and establish more dialogueoriented and technology-focused health policy measures, rather than trying to educate users with standardized quality criteria for websites not responding to users’ online routines and needs.
What are the conditions for the public understanding of biofuels and how do the media shape these... more What are the conditions for the public understanding of biofuels and how do the media shape these conditions under the influence of a new production of knowledge? This article investigates how the biofuel controversy plays out in the Swedish press and Google search engine results and analyses winners and losers in the tight attention economy of contemporary media. It describes different visibility strategies biofuel stakeholders employ in both media arenas, and identifies a form of technoscientific promotion that hybrid actors use to succeed in the day-to- day struggle for media attention. To conclude, it raises broader societal questions of the contemporary blurring of knowledge boundaries and the emergence of new information hierarchies and their biases. By understanding how contemporary media shape controversies, we can address the democratic potential of both mass media and science.
This paper challenges the democratic ideal of the Web as a new public sphere in the medical conte... more This paper challenges the democratic ideal of the Web as a new public sphere in the medical context. Drawing on a mix of methods it investigates how different Web site providers configure and position their diabetes sites in the multitude of online health information, search engine results in particular. Building on insights gained from critical new media studies and medical sociology, it shows that a range of power relations and information politics are involved in these practices, triggering information visibility hierarchies and a commercialisation of online health information, partly overlapping with off–line contexts. To conclude, it argues for reconsidering the democratic ideal of the Web and focusing on market dynamics involved in the production of medical Web information co–produced by Web site providers and search engine algorithms.
This article investigates how the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007) gets i... more This article investigates how the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007) gets inscribed in the fabric of search algorithms by way of social practices. Drawing on the tradition of the social construction of technology (SCOT) and 17 qualitative expert interviews I discuss how search engines and their “capital accumulation cycle” (Fuchs, forthcoming) are negotiated and stabilized in a network of actors and interests, website providers and users first and foremost. I further show how corporate search engines and their capitalist ideology are solidified in a socio-political context characterized by a techno-euphoric climate of innovation and a politics of privatization. This analysis provides a valuable contribution to contemporary search engine critique mainly focusing on search engines’ business models and societal implications. It shows that a shift of perspective is needed from impacts search engines have on society towards social practices and power relations involved in the construction of search engines to reconsider and renegotiate search engines and their algorithmic ideology in the future.
As of 2020, the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) makes use of algorithmic profiling of job... more As of 2020, the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) makes use of algorithmic profiling of job seekers to increase the efficiency of its counseling process and the effectiveness of active labor market programs. Based on a statistical model of job seekers' prospects on the labor market, the system—that has become known as the AMS algorithm—is designed to classify clients of the AMS into three categories: those with high chances to find a job within half a year, those with mediocre prospects on the job market, and those clients with a bad outlook of employment in the next 2 years. Depending on the category a particular job seeker is classified under, they will be offered differing support in (re)entering the labor market. Based in science and technology studies, critical data studies and research on fairness, accountability and transparency of algorithmic systems, this paper examines the inherent politics of the AMS algorithm. An in-depth analysis of relevant technical documentation and policy documents investigates crucial conceptual, technical, and social implications of the system. The analysis shows how the design of the algorithm is influenced by technical affordances, but also by social values, norms, and goals. A discussion of the tensions, challenges and possible biases that the system entails calls into question the objectivity and neutrality of data claims and of high hopes pinned on evidence-based decision-making. In this way, the paper sheds light on the coproduction of (semi)automated managerial practices in employment agencies and the framing of unemployment under austerity politics.
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Papers by Astrid Mager
context of their own bodies of knowledge. Accordingly, new skills are required on the part of users, but also on the part of medical professionals and policy makers. Both policy makers and
doctors should engage with users’ highly individual search practices and establish more dialogueoriented and technology-focused health policy measures, rather than trying to educate users with standardized quality criteria for websites not responding to users’ online routines and needs.
context of their own bodies of knowledge. Accordingly, new skills are required on the part of users, but also on the part of medical professionals and policy makers. Both policy makers and
doctors should engage with users’ highly individual search practices and establish more dialogueoriented and technology-focused health policy measures, rather than trying to educate users with standardized quality criteria for websites not responding to users’ online routines and needs.