Investigative approaches to researching information technology companies

Abstract

Recent events reveal the potential for information technologies to threaten democratic participation and destabilize knowledge institutions. These are core concerns for researchers working within the area of critical information studies—yet these companies have also demonstrated novel tactics for obscuring their operations, reducing the ability of scholars to speak about how harms are perpetuated or to link them to larger systems. While scholars' methods and ethical conventions have historically privileged the agency of research participants, the current landscape suggests the value of exploring methods that would reveal actions that are purposefully hidden. We propose investigation as a model for critical information studies and review the methods and epistemological conventions of investigative journalists as a provocative example, noting that their orientation toward those in power enables them to discuss societal harms in ways that academic researchers often cannot. We conclude by discussing key topics, such as process accountability and institutional norms, that should feature in discussions of how academic researchers might position investigation in relation to their own work.

The Seer and the Seen: Surveying Palantir’s Surveillance Platform

“…The present study also turns the preemptive gaze back onto Palantir and seeks to visualize its technological affordances through patent analysis and extraction of topics. We thus simultaneously follow recent calls for critical data and internet studies (Acker and Donovan 2019;Iliadis and Russo 2016) and empirical investigative research of IT companies (Carter, Acker, and Sholler 2021) to understand surveillance platforms like Palantir, which we view as complementary to but distinct from the platform surveillance of social media companies (Murakami Wood and Monahan 2019;Turow and Couldry 2018). Our article views Palantir as a surveillance platform where the primary focus is surveillance services and preemptive decision analytics for facilitating the tracking of people and things both in and outside the US.…”

The platform as ecosystem

“…Finally, I have collected and demonstrated the value of different empirical materials, which are also openly available for others to reuse [▸Data availability]. Despite the many known issues and challenges of empirical and historical digital platform research (e.g., Carter et al, 2021;Venturini and Rogers, 2019), I have shown that there are also many opportunities for critical investigations, so long as we know where to look for relevant materials Helmond and van der Vlist, 2021;[▸Ch. 1]).…”

“…This early research surfaced the very material of many different software objects, which had long been left invisible, and which are so crucial to the study of how platforms govern. Critical approaches to this day often seek to render visible the hidden operations and behaviours of digital platforms and technologies generally, despite the challenges and hurdles they may have raised (e.g., Bounegru and Gray, 2021;Carter et al, 2021;Gray et al, 2018;Rieder and Hofmann, 2020). The case studies presented in subsequent chapters similarly adopt material approaches that contribute to these critical efforts.…”

“…Similarly, critical scholars note that a platform's influence and power is often purposefully implicit or hidden (e.g., Carter et al, 2021), such as in layers of infrastructure. 35 In fact, infrastructure is 'powerful precisely because it is not a grand and spectacular strategy but a functional and often invisible reality' (Munn, 2020: 15;cf.…”

“…One common type of approach is to conduct semi-structured in-depth interviews to reflect on the agency (or lack thereof) of individual users, stakeholders, and partners in relation to digital platforms. Other types of approaches are more technical, policyoriented, or involve academic-industrial collaboration (e.g., Carter et al, 2021). The ongoing platformisation of the Web, however, suggests the value of approaches that surface the many different relations and material conditions of online digital platforms that are sometimes purposefully hidden or obfuscated, including platform boundaries and boundary dynamics.…”