The Algorithmic Distribution Of News

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The Algorithmic Distribution of News

Author : James Meese
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030870863
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis The Algorithmic Distribution of News by : James Meese

Download or read book The Algorithmic Distribution of News written by James Meese and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-09-22 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how governments, policymakers and newsrooms have responded to the algorithmic distribution of the news. Contributors analyse the ongoing battle between platforms and publishers, evaluate recent attempts to manage these tensions through policy reform and consider whether algorithms can be regulated to promote media diversity and stop misinformation and hate speech. Chapter authors also interview journalists and find out how their work is changing due to the growing importance of algorithmic systems. Drawing together an international group of scholars, the book takes a truly global perspective offering case studies from Switzerland, Germany, Kenya, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and China. The collection also provides a series of critical analyses of recent policy developments in the European Union and Australia, which aim to provide a more secure revenue base for news media organisations. A valuable resource for journalism and policy scholars and students, Governing the Algorithmic Distribution of News is an important guide for anyone hoping to understand the central regulatory issues surrounding the online distribution of news.

Automating the News

Author : Nicholas Diakopoulos
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674239318
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Automating the News by : Nicholas Diakopoulos

Download or read book Automating the News written by Nicholas Diakopoulos and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From hidden connections in big data to bots spreading fake news, journalism is increasingly computer-generated. Nicholas Diakopoulos explains the present and future of a world in which algorithms have changed how the news is created, disseminated, and received, and he shows why journalists—and their values—are at little risk of being replaced.

Algorithms, Automation, and News

Author : Neil Thurman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 100038439X
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Algorithms, Automation, and News by : Neil Thurman

Download or read book Algorithms, Automation, and News written by Neil Thurman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the growing importance of algorithms and automation—including emerging forms of artificial intelligence—in the gathering, composition, and distribution of news. In it the authors connect a long line of research on journalism and computation with scholarly and professional terrain yet to be explored. Taken as a whole, these chapters share some of the noble ambitions of the pioneering publications on ‘reporting algorithms’, such as a desire to see computing help journalists in their watchdog role by holding power to account. However, they also go further, firstly by addressing the fuller range of technologies that computational journalism now consists of: from chatbots and recommender systems to artificial intelligence and atomised journalism. Secondly, they advance the literature by demonstrating the increased variety of uses for these technologies, including engaging underserved audiences, selling subscriptions, and recombining and re-using content. Thirdly, they problematise computational journalism by, for example, pointing out some of the challenges inherent in applying artificial intelligence to investigative journalism and in trying to preserve public service values. Fourthly, they offer suggestions for future research and practice, including by presenting a framework for developing democratic news recommenders and another that may help us think about computational journalism in a more integrated, structured manner. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Digital Journalism.

Algorithms, Automation, and News

Author : Neil Thurman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000384373
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Algorithms, Automation, and News by : Neil Thurman

Download or read book Algorithms, Automation, and News written by Neil Thurman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the growing importance of algorithms and automation—including emerging forms of artificial intelligence—in the gathering, composition, and distribution of news. In it the authors connect a long line of research on journalism and computation with scholarly and professional terrain yet to be explored. Taken as a whole, these chapters share some of the noble ambitions of the pioneering publications on ‘reporting algorithms’, such as a desire to see computing help journalists in their watchdog role by holding power to account. However, they also go further, firstly by addressing the fuller range of technologies that computational journalism now consists of: from chatbots and recommender systems to artificial intelligence and atomised journalism. Secondly, they advance the literature by demonstrating the increased variety of uses for these technologies, including engaging underserved audiences, selling subscriptions, and recombining and re-using content. Thirdly, they problematise computational journalism by, for example, pointing out some of the challenges inherent in applying artificial intelligence to investigative journalism and in trying to preserve public service values. Fourthly, they offer suggestions for future research and practice, including by presenting a framework for developing democratic news recommenders and another that may help us think about computational journalism in a more integrated, structured manner. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Digital Journalism.

Media Technologies

Author : Tarleton Gillespie
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262525372
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Media Technologies by : Tarleton Gillespie

Download or read book Media Technologies written by Tarleton Gillespie and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-01-24 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars from communication and media studies join those from science and technology studies to examine media technologies as complex, sociomaterial phenomena. In recent years, scholarship around media technologies has finally shed the assumption that these technologies are separate from and powerfully determining of social life, looking at them instead as produced by and embedded in distinct social, cultural, and political practices. Communication and media scholars have increasingly taken theoretical perspectives originating in science and technology studies (STS), while some STS scholars interested in information technologies have linked their research to media studies inquiries into the symbolic dimensions of these tools. In this volume, scholars from both fields come together to advance this view of media technologies as complex sociomaterial phenomena. The contributors first address the relationship between materiality and mediation, considering such topics as the lived realities of network infrastructure. The contributors then highlight media technologies as always in motion, held together through the minute, unobserved work of many, including efforts to keep these technologies alive. Contributors Pablo J. Boczkowski, Geoffrey C. Bowker, Finn Brunton, Gabriella Coleman, Gregory J. Downey, Kirsten A. Foot, Tarleton Gillespie, Steven J. Jackson, Christopher M. Kelty, Leah A. Lievrouw, Sonia Livingstone, Ignacio Siles, Jonathan Sterne, Lucy Suchman, Fred Turner

Metrics at Work

Author : Angèle Christin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691175233
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Metrics at Work by : Angèle Christin

Download or read book Metrics at Work written by Angèle Christin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Circulation Numbers to Web Analytics: Journalists and their Readers in the United States and France -- Utopian Beginnings: A Tale of Two Websites -- Entering the Chase for Clicks: Transatlantic Convergences -- The Multiple Meanings of Clicks: Journalists and Algorithmic Publics -- The Fast and the Slow: Producing Online News in Real Time -- Between Exposure and Unpaid Work: Compensation and Freelance Careers in Online News -- Conclusion.

Sharing News Online

Author : Fiona Martin
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030179060
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis Sharing News Online by : Fiona Martin

Download or read book Sharing News Online written by Fiona Martin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the political economics and cultural politics of social media news sharing, investigating how it is changing journalism and the news media internationally. News sharing plays important economic and cultural roles in an attention economy, recommending the stories audiences find valuable, making them more visible, and promoting the digital platforms that are reshaping our media ecologies. But is news sharing a force for democracy, or a sign of journalism’s declining power to set news agendas? In Sharing News Online, Tim Dwyer and Fiona Martin analyse the growth of commendary culture and the business of social news, critique the rise of news analytics and dissect virality online. They reveal that surprisingly, we share political stories more highly than celebrity news, and they probe how deeply affect drives our sharing behaviour. In mapping the contours of a critical digital media phenomenon, this book makes essential reading for scholars, journalists and media executives.

Social Media and the Public Interest

Author : Philip M. Napoli
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231545541
Total Pages : 419 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Social Media and the Public Interest by : Philip M. Napoli

Download or read book Social Media and the Public Interest written by Philip M. Napoli and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Facebook, a platform created by undergraduates in a Harvard dorm room, has transformed the ways millions of people consume news, understand the world, and participate in the political process. Despite taking on many of journalism’s traditional roles, Facebook and other platforms, such as Twitter and Google, have presented themselves as tech companies—and therefore not subject to the same regulations and ethical codes as conventional media organizations. Challenging such superficial distinctions, Philip M. Napoli offers a timely and persuasive case for understanding and governing social media as news media, with a fundamental obligation to serve the public interest. Social Media and the Public Interest explores how and why social media platforms became so central to news consumption and distribution as they met many of the challenges of finding information—and audiences—online. Napoli illustrates the implications of a system in which coders and engineers drive out journalists and editors as the gatekeepers who determine media content. He argues that a social media–driven news ecosystem represents a case of market failure in what he calls the algorithmic marketplace of ideas. To respond, we need to rethink fundamental elements of media governance based on a revitalized concept of the public interest. A compelling examination of the intersection of social media and journalism, Social Media and the Public Interest offers valuable insights for the democratic governance of today’s most influential shapers of news.

How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News

Author : Noah Giansiracusa
Publisher : Apress
ISBN 13 : 9781484271544
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (715 download)

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Book Synopsis How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News by : Noah Giansiracusa

Download or read book How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News written by Noah Giansiracusa and published by Apress. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From deepfakes to GPT-3, deep learning is now powering a new assault on our ability to tell what’s real and what’s not, bringing a whole new algorithmic side to fake news. On the other hand, remarkable methods are being developed to help automate fact-checking and the detection of fake news and doctored media. Success in the modern business world requires you to understand these algorithmic currents, and to recognize the strengths, limits, and impacts of deep learning---especially when it comes to discerning the truth and differentiating fact from fiction. This book tells the stories of this algorithmic battle for the truth and how it impacts individuals and society at large. In doing so, it weaves together the human stories and what’s at stake here, a simplified technical background on how these algorithms work, and an accessible survey of the research literature exploring these various topics. How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News is an accessible, broad account of the various ways that data-driven algorithms have been distorting reality and rendering the truth harder to grasp. From news aggregators to Google searches to YouTube recommendations to Facebook news feeds, the way we obtain information today is filtered through the lens of tech giant algorithms. The way data is collected, labelled, and stored has a big impact on the machine learning algorithms that are trained on it, and this is a main source of algorithmic bias – which gets amplified in harmful data feedback loops. Don’t be afraid: with this book you’ll see the remedies and technical solutions that are being applied to oppose these harmful trends. There is hope. What You Will Learn The ways that data labeling and storage impact machine learning and how feedback loops can occur The history and inner-workings of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm The state-of-the-art capabilities of AI-powered text generation (GPT-3) and video synthesis/doctoring (deepfakes) and how these technologies have been used so far The algorithmic tools available to help with automated fact-checking and truth-detection Who This Book is For People who don’t have a technical background (in data, computers, etc.) but who would like to learn how algorithms impact society; business leaders who want to know the powers and perils of relying on artificial intelligence. A secondary audience is people with a technical background who want to explore the larger social and societal impact of their work.

Proceedings of the 2023 3rd International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2023)

Author : Sikandar Ali Qalati
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 2384761781
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (847 download)

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Book Synopsis Proceedings of the 2023 3rd International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2023) by : Sikandar Ali Qalati

Download or read book Proceedings of the 2023 3rd International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2023) written by Sikandar Ali Qalati and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2024-01-29 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access book. As a leading role in the global megatrend of scientific innovation, China has been creating a more and more open environment for scientific innovation, increasing the depth and breadth of academic cooperation, and building a community of innovation that benefits all. Such endeavors are making new contributions to the globalization and creating a community of shared future. To adapt to this changing world and China's fast development in the new era, 2023 3rd International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2023) to be held in November 2023. This conference takes "bringing together global wisdom in scientific innovation to promote high-quality development" as the theme and focuses on cutting-edge research fields including Social Development and Media Communication. SDMC 2023 encourages the exchange of information at the forefront of research in different fields, connects the most advanced academic resources in China and the world, transforms research results into industrial solutions, and brings together talent, technology and capital to drive development. The conference sincerely invites experts, scholars, business people and other relevant personnel from universities, scientific research institutions at home and abroad to attend and exchange! 2023 3rd International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2023) will conduct in-depth discussions on the impact of social development on media communication and the impact of media communication on social development. Scholars in relevant fields are cordially invited to participate. We warmly invite you to participate in SDMC 2023 and look forward to seeing you in Xishuang Banna,China.

Journalism at risk

Author : Onur Andreotti
Publisher : Council of Europe
ISBN 13 : 9287181691
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (871 download)

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Book Synopsis Journalism at risk by : Onur Andreotti

Download or read book Journalism at risk written by Onur Andreotti and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is journalism under threat? Censorship, political pressure, intimidation, job insecurity and attacks on the protection of journalists’ sources - how can these threats be tackled?Journalism at Risk is a new book from the Council of Europe, in which ten experts from different backgrounds examine the role of journalism in democratic societies. Is journalism under threat? The image of journalists, as helmeted war correspondents protected by bullet-proof vests and armed only with cameras and microphones, springs to mind. Physical threats are only the most visible dangers, however. Journalists and journalism itself are facing other threats such as censorship, political and economic pressure, intimidation, job insecurity and attacks on the protection of journalists’ sources. Social media and digital photography mean that anyone can now publish information, which is also upsetting the ethics of journalism. How can these threats be tackled? What is the role of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights and national governments in protecting journalists and freedom of expression? In this book, 10 experts from different backgrounds analyse the situation from various angles. At a time when high-quality, independent journalism is more necessary than ever – and yet when the profession is facing many different challenges – they explore the issues surrounding the role of journalism in democratic societies.

The 2021 International Conference on Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics for IoT Security and Privacy

Author : John Macintyre
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030895084
Total Pages : 1169 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis The 2021 International Conference on Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics for IoT Security and Privacy by : John Macintyre

Download or read book The 2021 International Conference on Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics for IoT Security and Privacy written by John Macintyre and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-27 with total page 1169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the proceedings of the 2020 2nd International Conference on Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics for IoT Security and Privacy (SPIoT-2021), online conference, on 30 October 2021. It provides comprehensive coverage of the latest advances and trends in information technology, science and engineering, addressing a number of broad themes, including novel machine learning and big data analytics methods for IoT security, data mining and statistical modelling for the secure IoT and machine learning-based security detecting protocols, which inspire the development of IoT security and privacy technologies. The contributions cover a wide range of topics: analytics and machine learning applications to IoT security; data-based metrics and risk assessment approaches for IoT; data confidentiality and privacy in IoT; and authentication and access control for data usage in IoT. Outlining promising future research directions, the book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and professionals and provides a useful reference guide for newcomers to the IoT security and privacy field.

Network Propaganda

Author : Yochai Benkler
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190923644
Total Pages : 473 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis Network Propaganda by : Yochai Benkler

Download or read book Network Propaganda written by Yochai Benkler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics.

Three Liability Regimes for Artificial Intelligence

Author : Anna Beckers
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1509949356
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis Three Liability Regimes for Artificial Intelligence by : Anna Beckers

Download or read book Three Liability Regimes for Artificial Intelligence written by Anna Beckers and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes three liability regimes to combat the wide responsibility gaps caused by AI systems – vicarious liability for autonomous software agents (actants); enterprise liability for inseparable human-AI interactions (hybrids); and collective fund liability for interconnected AI systems (crowds). Based on information technology studies, the book first develops a threefold typology that distinguishes individual, hybrid and collective machine behaviour. A subsequent social science analysis specifies the socio-digital institutions related to this threefold typology. Then it determines the social risks that emerge when algorithms operate within these institutions. Actants raise the risk of digital autonomy, hybrids the risk of double contingency in human-algorithm encounters, crowds the risk of opaque interconnections. The book demonstrates that the law needs to respond to these specific risks, by recognising personified algorithms as vicarious agents, human-machine associations as collective enterprises, and interconnected systems as risk pools – and by developing corresponding liability rules. The book relies on a unique combination of information technology studies, sociological institution and risk analysis, and comparative law. This approach uncovers recursive relations between types of machine behaviour, emergent socio-digital institutions, their concomitant risks, legal conditions of liability rules, and ascription of legal status to the algorithms involved.

Journalism and Social Media

Author : Diana Bossio
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319654721
Total Pages : 173 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis Journalism and Social Media by : Diana Bossio

Download or read book Journalism and Social Media written by Diana Bossio and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-25 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive investigation of the ways in which social media has affected change to the constitution of mainstream journalism. The volume does this in a unique way – by tracing the links between the different changes social media has brought to individual journalism practice, organisational processes and policies and institutional understandings of journalism. The role of social media platforms in the changing professional landscape of journalism is explored, both in terms of the changes that social media platforms have impacted on journalism, but also the way in which journalistic use of social media has impacted on particular uses of these platforms. Therefore, Journalism and Social Media is not simply a description of changed journalistic practices, but endeavours to encapsulate a complex and integrated techno-social relationship, incorporating both the individual practices of journalists, as well as the larger organisational and institutional changes that have occurred due to the increasing use of social media to investigate, present and disseminate news.

Media Pluralism and Online News

Author : Tim Dwyer
Publisher : Intellect Books
ISBN 13 : 1789388503
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (893 download)

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Book Synopsis Media Pluralism and Online News by : Tim Dwyer

Download or read book Media Pluralism and Online News written by Tim Dwyer and published by Intellect Books. This book was released on 2023-08-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book arises from an international research project that explores the future of media pluralism policies for online news. It investigates the latest European policies and techniques for regulatory intervention, and examines the consequences of innovative news practices asking, ‘How will automation of news affect public opinion in the age of social media platforms, and what are the consequences?’ In Media Pluralism and Online News the authors make the argument that there is an urgent need for revitalised thinking for a media policy agenda to deal with the trends to platform power and concentrated media power, which is an ongoing global risk to public interest journalism. In the transition to a media landscape increasingly dominated by broadband internet distribution and the dominance of US-centric new media behemoths Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Netflix the book investigates measures that can be taken to reduce this ongoing march of concentration and the attenuation of media voices. Securing the public interest in a vibrant and sustainable news media sector will require that merger decisions assess whether there is a ‘reduction in diversity’ -- calling for a new public interest test and a more expansive policy focus than in the past. This would include consideration of the sustainability of local businesses; the encouragement of original and local news content; quality of content, in terms of the promotion of news standards; and new modes of delivery and consumption, including the ‘automated curation’ of news content by digital platforms.

Automating Inequality

Author : Virginia Eubanks
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1466885963
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis Automating Inequality by : Virginia Eubanks

Download or read book Automating Inequality written by Virginia Eubanks and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER: The 2018 McGannon Center Book Prize and shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice The New York Times Book Review: "Riveting." Naomi Klein: "This book is downright scary." Ethan Zuckerman, MIT: "Should be required reading." Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body: "A must-read." Astra Taylor, author of The People's Platform: "The single most important book about technology you will read this year." Cory Doctorow: "Indispensable." A powerful investigative look at data-based discrimination—and how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years—because a new computer system interprets any mistake as “failure to cooperate.” In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect. Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, employment, politics, health and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems—rather than humans—control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. The book is full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, from a woman in Indiana whose benefits are literally cut off as she lays dying to a family in Pennsylvania in daily fear of losing their daughter because they fit a certain statistical profile. The U.S. has always used its most cutting-edge science and technology to contain, investigate, discipline and punish the destitute. Like the county poorhouse and scientific charity before them, digital tracking and automated decision-making hide poverty from the middle-class public and give the nation the ethical distance it needs to make inhumane choices: which families get food and which starve, who has housing and who remains homeless, and which families are broken up by the state. In the process, they weaken democracy and betray our most cherished national values. This deeply researched and passionate book could not be more timely.