Code Ethnography and the Materiality of Power in Internet Governance

Rosa, Fernanda R.

doi:10.1007/s11133-022-09517-3

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…For this research, we engaged in code ethnography (Rosa, 2022) of GSM, internet and 5G technologies, as well as participant observation in the main standard-development organisations of the internet and 5G. Our methodological assumptiontaken from world system theory (Wallerstein, 2004) is that the character and content of imaginaries and their underpinning ideologies creatively reflect the position of actors in the global division of labour.…”

Section: Ideologies and Materialitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geopolitics in the infrastructural ideology of 5G

Maxigas

Oever

2023

Global Media and China

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores how infrastructural ideologies function as tools in geopolitical struggles for dependence and independence between world powers. Meese et al. (2020) suggest that controversies around 5G stem from infrastructural anxieties best examined in the framework of geopolitics. We build on this work by analysing the emerging infrastructural ideology and sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim, 2015) of 5G in light of the changing global division of labour. Sociotechnical imaginaries refer to the vision of technologies themselves, while ideologies refer to the totality of social relations, translating the objective reality of material conditions to subjective lived experience (Bory, 2020). The Western imaginaries around 5G infrastructures reflect, deflect, translate and sublimate the infrastructural anxieties tied to the development and deployment of new network paradigms by China as an emerging hegemon. The controversial nature, contradictory content and fragmented presentation of 5G is a necessary part of living through the trauma of lost historical agency on the part of Western superpowers. We engaged in code ethnography (Rosa, 2022) of GSM, internet and 5G technologies, as well as participant observation in the main standard-development organisations of the internet and 5G. Our methodological assumption, taken from world systems theory (Wallerstein, 2004), is that the character and content of imaginaries and their underpinning ideologies creatively translate the position of actors in the global division of labour. This paper contributes to the understanding of the role of media infrastructures in geopolitical power tussles and straddles the fields of materialist media studies, science and technology studies and international relations.

show abstract

Section: Ideologies and Materialitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geopolitics in the infrastructural ideology of 5G

Maxigas

Oever

2023

Global Media and China

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Database ethnographies aim at complementing the collection and categorization of data with qualitative context (Schuurman, 2008), enhancing data interpretation (Zhang et al, 2018) and analyzing the resulting datasets as fieldsites (Burns & Wark, 2020), but ethnographic approaches can also contribute to structuring statistical inquiry (Ford, 2014), narrating quantitative data qualitatively (Dourish & Gómez Cruz, 2018) and establishing ground truths for big data analyses (Bjerre-Nielsen & Glavind, 2022). Ethnographers working with modeling experts have demonstrated that the complexity of machine learning models escapes their users (Kolkman, 2022), and the ones examining code have evidenced its key role as a socio-technical actor (Rosa, 2022).…”

Section: Ethnography Of the Digital Algorithmic Automatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthetic ethnography: Field devices for the qualitative study of generative models

Seta¹,

Pohjonen²,

Knuutila³

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The development of generative artificial intelligence sustains a proliferation of machine learning models capable of synthesizing text, images, sounds, and other kinds of content. While the increasing realism of synthetic content stokes fears about misinformation and triggers debates around intellectual property, generative models are adopted across creative industries, and synthetic media is already becoming an integral component of cultural products. Qualitative research in the social and human sciences has dedicated comparatively little attention to this category of machine learning, particularly in terms of what types of novel research methodology they both demand and facilitate. In this article, we propose a methodological approach for the qualitative study of generative models grounded on the experimentation with field devices which we call synthetic ethnography. Synthetic ethnography is not simply a qualitative research methodology applied to the study of the social and cultural contexts developing around generative models, but also strives to envision practical and experimental ways to repurpose these technologies as research tools in their own right. After briefly introducing generative models and synthetic media and revisiting the trajectory of digital ethnographic research, we discuss three case studies for which the authors have developed experimental field devices to study different generative AI ethnographically. In the conclusion, we derive a broader methodological proposal from these case studies, arguing that synthetic ethnography facilitates insights into how the algorithmic processes, training datasets and latent spaces behind these systems modulate bias, reconfigure agency, and challenge epistemological categories.

show abstract

“…I have argued that ethnographers can treat open science calls and practices not just as chances to prove that we are not lying, but as provocations to treat facticity as an object of our study, and we can treat the sharing of research materials as not only a strategy to adopt, but a knowledge practice to study. Indeed, the profusion of available data, instruments, research designs, code, and more across differing platforms and audiences that has resulted from open science policies and practices offers itself for ethnographic analysis, including "code ethnography" (Rosa, 2022), policy ethnography, ethnography of documentation, and ethnography of infrastructure (Star, 1999): open science, in other words, may be a great gift to ethnographers of science. By treating calls and requirements for open science, data-sharing, and transparency as not just methodological, but also empirical matters, we gain new questions for analysis, new field sites, and opportunities to revisit and reexamine core questions in the ethnographic study of science.…”

Section: Data-sharing For Governance: Open Science and The Problem Of...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Problems of knowledge, problems of order: the open science field site

Goldensher

2023

Front. Sociol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ethnographers can and should not just do or not do open science, but study the push to share data, instruments, and other research materials as an important moment of change and contest in contemporary knowledge-making and knowledge politics. Following ethnographers of science and technology who have demonstrated the analytic opportunities afforded by moments of scientific controversy, we should treat the places where these calls are made, debated, and taken up as important field sites for ethnographic inquiry. Whenever and wherever the sharing of data, instruments, and research is discussed, planned, done, measured, judged, or regulated, there are powerful claims, visions, and action concerning what makes for facticity, legitimacy, and credibility in both research and politics. From these sites, I argue, we can observe changes to disciplinary and popular understandings of epistemic virtue, or what makes for reliable, factual, or adequately transparent knowledge production. Attention to these sites can also yield important perspectives on the ways that visions of proper research conduct are imbricated with visions of governance. Turning ethnographic methods to studying the open science movement, I argue that turning ethnographic methods to studying the open science movement can enable us to do timely scholarship about shifting understandings of facticity, knowledge, information, and governance.

show abstract

Code Ethnography and the Materiality of Power in Internet Governance

Cited by 7 publications

References 61 publications

Geopolitics in the infrastructural ideology of 5G

Geopolitics in the infrastructural ideology of 5G

Synthetic ethnography: Field devices for the qualitative study of generative models

Problems of knowledge, problems of order: the open science field site

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About