Algorithms influence every facet of modern life: criminal justice, education, housing, entertainment, elections, social media, news feeds, work… the list goes on. Delegating important decisions to machines, however, gives rise to deep moral concerns about responsibility, transparency, freedom, fairness, and democracy. Algorithms and Autonomy connects these concerns to the core human value of autonomy in the contexts of algorithmic teacher evaluation, risk assessment in criminal sentencing,...

**“Fascinating.” —Jill Lepore, The New YorkerA sweeping history of data and its technical, political, and ethical impact on our world.**From facial recognition—capable of checking people into flights or identifying undocumented residents—to automated decision systems that inform who gets loans and who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn’t just appear: they are part of a history that go...

Privacy is one of the most urgent issues associated with information technology and digital media. This book claims that what people really care about when they complain and protest that privacy has been violated is not the act of sharing information itself—most people understand that this is crucial to social life —but the inappropriate, improper sharing of information.Arguing that privacy concerns should not be limited solely to concern about control over personal information, He...

Despite the swift spread of social network concepts and their applications and the rising use of network analysis in social science, there is no book that provides a thorough general introduction for the serious reader. Understanding Social Networks fills that gap by explaining the big ideas that underlie the social network phenomenon. Written for those interested in this fast moving area but who are not mathematically inclined, it covers fundamental concepts, then discusses netwo...

Just about any social need is now met with an opportunity to "connect" through digital means. But this convenience is not free—it is purchased with vast amounts of personal data transferred through shadowy backchannels to corporations using it to generate profit. The Costs of Connection uncovers this process, this "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation.Colonialism might seem li...

The analysis of how institutions are formed, how they operate and change, and how they influence behavior in society has become a major subject of inquiry in politics, sociology, and economics. A leader in applying game theory to the understanding of institutional analysis, Elinor Ostrom provides in this book a coherent method for undertaking the analysis of diverse economic, political, and social institutions.Understanding Institutional Diversity explains the Institutiona...

Since the 1960s, a significant effort has been underway to program computers to “see” the human face—to develop automated systems for identifying faces and distinguishing them from one another—commonly known as Facial Recognition Technology. While computer scientists are developing FRT in order to design more intelligent and interactive machines, businesses and states agencies view the technology as uniquely suited for “smart” surveillance—systems that automate the labor of monitoring in o...

In this edited collection, institutional ethnographers draw on their field research experiences to address different aspects of institutional ethnographic practice. As institutional ethnography embraces the actualities of people's experiences and lives, the contributors utilize their research to reveal how institutional relations and regimes are organized. As a whole, the book aims to provide readers with an accurate overview of what it is like to practice institutional ethnography, as wel...

This distinctive volume offers a thorough examination of the ways in which meaning comes to be shaped. Editors Stephen Reese, Oscar Gandy, and August Grant employ an interdisciplinary approach to the study of conceptualizing and examining media. They illustrate how texts and those who provide them powerfully shape, or "frame," our social worlds and thus affect our public life. Embracing qualitative and quantitative, visual and verbal, and psychological and sociological perspectives, this b...

Today, more mediated information is available to more people than at any other time in human history. New and revitalized sense-making strategies multiply in response to the challenges of "cutting through the clutter" of competing narratives and taming the avalanche of information. Data miners, "sentiment analysts," and decision markets offer to help bodies of data "speak for themselves"—making sense of their own patterns so we don’t have to. Neuromarketers and body language experts promis...

We live in an algorithmic society. Algorithms have become the main mediator through which power is enacted in our society. This book brings together three academic fields – Public Administration, Criminal Justice and Urban Governance – into a single conceptual framework, and offers a broad cultural-political analysis, addressing critical and ethical issues of algorithms.Governments are increasingly turning towards algorithms to predict criminality, deliver public services, allocate...

The rise of the "information society" offers not only considerable peril but also great promise. Beset from all sides by a never-ending barrage of media, how can we ensure that the most accurate information emerges and is heeded? In this book, Cass R. Sunstein develops a deeply optimistic understanding of the human potential to pool information, and to use that knowledge to improve our lives. In an age of information overload, it is easy to fall back on our own prejudices and insulate ours...