What's the Folk Theory? Reasoning About Cyber-Social Systems

French, Megan; Hancock, Jeff

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2910571

Cited by 40 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…YouTubers use these personas to make sense of actions that the algorithm takes and to orient themselves towards the algorithm or sometimes to work against it [33]. Our finding builds on and extends prior research invoking folk theories [20,25,69] and metaphors [30] in users' understandings of algorithmically curated social media feeds.…”

Section: :2 Eva Yiwei Wu Emily Pedersen and Niloufar Salehisupporting

confidence: 71%

“…French and Hancock contributed a method for eliciting metaphors for the Facebook and Twitter feeds via wiki surveys and consequently constructing folk theories based on factor analysis of the metaphors gathered [30]. This study found a number of folk theories held by users for the Facebook and Twitter feeds.…”

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 92%

“…Some of this research views users as "folk" or "non-professionals" whose conceptual understandings stand in contrast to the "institutionalized, professionally legitimated conceptions held by experts and system designers" [25]. Others have insisted that the framing of folk theories do not assume that users hold faulty theories that need to be corrected [30]. In all cases, researchers have emphasized that users' intuitive theories about how social media feeds are composed affect their behaviors on those platforms [25,30,69].…”

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Others have insisted that the framing of folk theories do not assume that users hold faulty theories that need to be corrected [30]. In all cases, researchers have emphasized that users' intuitive theories about how social media feeds are composed affect their behaviors on those platforms [25,30,69]. Researchers have also argued that user behaviors, influenced by their folk theories of the platforms, in turn become input that feeds back into the algorithms and thus forms a feedback loop [69].…”

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Researchers have also argued that user behaviors, influenced by their folk theories of the platforms, in turn become input that feeds back into the algorithms and thus forms a feedback loop [69]. Therefore, motivations to study folk theories within HCI are to design better systems that communicate useful theories of how they work to users, to increase trust in the systems by avoiding expectation violation [25,30,69], and to intervene in a potentially vicious feedback loop [69].…”

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Agent, Gatekeeper, Drug Dealer

Pedersen

Salehi

2019

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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Online content creators have to manage their relations with opaque, proprietary algorithms that platforms employ to rank, filter, and recommend content. How do content creators make sense of these algorithms and what does that teach us about the roles that algorithms play in the social world? We take the case of YouTube because of its widespread use and the spaces for collective sense-making and mutual aid that content creators (YouTubers) have built within the last decade. We engaged with YouTubers in one-on-one interviews, performed content analysis on YouTube videos that discuss the algorithm, and conducted a wiki survey on YouTuber online groups. This triangulation of methodologies afforded us a rich understanding of content creators' understandings, priorities, and wishes as they relate to the algorithm. We found that YouTubers assign human characteristics to the algorithm to explain its behavior; what we have termed algorithmic personas. We identify three main algorithmic personas on YouTube: Agent, Gatekeeper, and Drug Dealer. We propose algorithmic personas as a conceptual framework that describes the new roles that algorithmic systems take on in the social world. As we face new challenges around the ethics and politics of algorithmic platforms such as YouTube, algorithmic personas describe roles that are familiar and can help develop our understanding of algorithmic power relations and potential accountability mechanisms. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Computer supported cooperative work.

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Section: :2 Eva Yiwei Wu Emily Pedersen and Niloufar Salehisupporting

confidence: 71%

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Algorithms and Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Agent, Gatekeeper, Drug Dealer

Pedersen

Salehi

2019

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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Understanding the impact of artificial intelligence on the justice of charitable giving: The moderating role of trust and regulatory orientation

Yang,

Zhang

2024

J of Consumer Behaviour

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The issue of distributive justice in charitable donations has become increasingly prominent. It not only weakens people's confidence in philanthropy but also their enthusiasm for participation. With the widespread use of artificial intelligence technology in donations, a key question arises: Can artificial intelligence inspire people to be more willing to donate by improving their perception of justice in donation distribution? This question is vital for charities but has yet to be answered. To address this gap, this research conducted five comprehensive studies to investigate the impact of AI decision‐makers on consumers' willingness to donate. The findings of Studies 1 and 2 consistently revealed that consumers perceive higher distributive justice in AI decision‐makers compared with humans, motivating increased participation in charitable donations. Study 3 examined two different experimental scenarios and found that this effect only occurs among consumers with lower trust in nonprofit organizations. Study 4 further explored the effect that is only present among prevention‐oriented consumers. These findings reveal how perceptions of distributive justice toward AI decision‐makers can facilitate public charitable giving and highlight the significance of this effect across different groups of consumers, providing invaluable insights for charitable organizations. This research not only fills the theoretical gap in the philanthropic field about the impact of artificial intelligence decision‐makers on donation distribution justice but also provides charitable organizations with artificial intelligence‐based donation promotion strategies.

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Voicing the Future: Folk Epistemic Understandings of Smart and Datafied Lives

Cheong

Mossberger

2021

Perceiving the Future Through New Communication Technologies

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What's the Folk Theory? Reasoning About Cyber-Social Systems

Cited by 40 publications

References 14 publications

Agent, Gatekeeper, Drug Dealer

Agent, Gatekeeper, Drug Dealer

Understanding the impact of artificial intelligence on the justice of charitable giving: The moderating role of trust and regulatory orientation

Voicing the Future: Folk Epistemic Understandings of Smart and Datafied Lives

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