Technologies of choice: The shaping of choice on the World Wide Web

Abstract

Nowadays, choice is a ubiquitous aspect of everyday life. The emergence of the web has contributed to this explosion of choice, providing a seemingly endless landscape of goods and services to choose from. Whilst choice is held to be fundamental to individual freedom, wellbeing and self-identity, we currently have little understanding about how websites shape or govern choice, and what this might mean for individuals and society. This thesis undertakes a foundational examination of how choice is shaped in online spaces with respect to the design features and architecture of websites. Websites, or parts thereof, that are designed to enable users to navigate choice and compare between options to make decisions, are defined in this study as 'Technologies of Choice' (ToC).In undertaking the study, a phased, mixed methods approach was used. Drawing on several fields of literature, including science and technology studies, Foucaultian social theory, current and emerging social perspectives of choice, and Internet studies, a conceptual framework was developed for examining how choice is constructed and governed on the web. The ToC conceptual framework has four over-arching dimensions: 'Having Choice', 'Facilitating Choice', 'Knowledge Production', and 'Configuring Users'. The conceptual framework was then elaborated through an analysis of websites, resulting in 12 'sub-dimensions' and 56 'features'. The 12 sub-dimensions categorise sets of ToC features that shape choice in particular ways, for example, the 'scale' at which choice is provided or the different 'characteristics of commensurability' that make comparisons possible.Following this, the resulting conceptual framework was applied as an analytical tool to categorise 500 top-ranking websites, using content analysis. Of these 500 websites, 193 (or 39%) were identified as 'ToC websites'. The features of these 193 websites were analysed using descriptive statistics, multiple correspondence analysis, and hierarchical clustering, in order to determine the scale and patterns of distribution of ToC on the web, including whether there are broader 'types' of ToC that shape choice differently. ToC are found to be widespread on the web, constituting a kind of 'infrastructure of modernity'. Whilst ToC are predominantly observed in the commercial settings of recreational services and personal goods, the thesis shows that they are also found in other contexts, including consumer information, health and social care, and in different countries. Although the choice-making literature focuses on comparisons between 'products', the study finds that ToC more commonly enable comparisons between private services (67% of ToC sites) than private goods (42% of ToC sites). Similarly, choice is not always global: a third of ToC websites scale down the options on offer, for example to a particular brand (e.g. Virgin Media or BMW).Despite the ubiquity of ToC, the thesis finds diversity in their design. ToC features are not deployed uniformly on the web: some features are widely used (...

Futures Triangle: A Method Examined

“…Foucault’s concept of technologies of power offers a critical lens through which to examine the Futures Triangle and the complex dynamics at play within the process of mapping the future. By understanding the futures triangle as a technology of power, we acknowledge the mediating influence it has on surfacing the underlying power structures, dominant narratives, and social norms that shape society and our visions of the future (Foucault 1982; Graham 2014).…”

Enrolling citizens as informed consumers in quasi-markets

“…Platforms such as Booking.com, Expedia and Trip Advisor use online communities and websites to promote their services and to support informed choice by involving suppliers and consumers of services. This trend is also observable in public service provision where public agencies, public-private partnerships (PPPs) and private companies provide sometimes competing (Karpik, 2010) technological support for choice, including comparisons, ratings and other user-generated content (Gobby, 2016;Graham, 2016;Wilkins, 2012). The introduction of often web-based technologies can be viewed as a translation process (Callon, 1986) in which material devices and activities are central actors in the construction of markets for public services ( Johansson Krafve, 2015;Zuiderent-Jerak and van Egmond, 2015).…”

Platforms and hyper-choice on the World Wide Web

“…Such websites thus obtain a 'logic of choice' (in some ways akin to Ziewitz's (2012) 'logic of evaluation'). Moreover, the empirical analysis of websites undertaken by Graham (2016) revealed an interesting type or sub-species of choiceinfused websites, that is, large-scale platforms that go beyond the baseline or 'normal' understanding and experience of choice. Graham argues that the design features and architecture of platforms such as Amazon significantly expand the scope, scale and speed of choice-making, blur the line between users and content producers (Bruns and Schmidt, 2011), and embody a form of empiricism that radically challenges how we come to know and differentiate choice.…”

“…Drawing on theories in the sociology of classification and standards and science and technology studies (STS), I argue that this novel form of empiricism radically challenges, and perhaps even nullifies, existing categories and standards that used to define choice. In 'Choice and the politics of commensuration within produsage-driven platforms' section I use illustrative case examples of popular choice-infused platforms (Graham, 2016) to discuss how their design features and architecture shape choice in a way that breaks down, hybridises, and challenges the longstanding conceptual dualisms that we use to understand consumer choice and web use, such as producers versus consumers, and users versus producers. In the final section I examine how the individuality, self-governing capacities and subjectivity of users is actively harnessed and attempted to be shaped by platforms.…”