Regaining control over algorithms: a hypervisual tool to get from awareness to knowledge

Rayya Roumanos & Olivier Le Deuff will be presenting a talk on ways to get from algorithm awareness to algorithm knowledge at the upcoming ICA 2022 Preconference (26 may 2022)

The talk will tackle the issue of algorithm awareness amongst journalists at a time when news has become fundamentally contingent upon the two colliding processes of platformization (Niebord & Poell, 2018) and datafication (Kennedy, Poell & van Dijk, 2015, Arsenault, 2017). Focusing on the continuous interferences of algorithms in media operations and news circulation (Gillespie, 2013, Diakopoulos, 2014), we explore journalists’ ability to make sense of their changing ecosystem and their aptitude to regain control over the production and flow of information. We also call attention to an ongoing research aimed at designing a hypervisual tool that has the potential to reach this goal.

Algorithms are highly efficient technical artifacts used by platforms as well as newsrooms to gather, process and distribute information. Although omnipresent, they are “invisible infrastructure” (Gran, Booth & Bucher, 2021) that have significant social power especially when they are employed to curate contents (Reider & Sire, 2013), shape choices (Yeung, 2017), induce feelings (Bucher, 2012) or impose agendas (Gillespie, 2017). In this communication, we look at them from the standpoint of social science as objects embedded in social processes and modelled on cultural interpretations. Following David Beer’s hypothesis, we argue that their role is determined by the decision-making parts of their codes (Beer, 2013) and their social function is dependent on social power dynamics (Beer, 2017). 

In order for journalists to discern the performative power of an algorithm with respect to its social impact and/or its effectiveness in shaping news contents (Joux and Bassoni, 2018) and news flows (Wallas, 2018), they need to overcome internal (technical proficiency) and external (code opacity) obstacles to get a clear insight into the workings and social ecology of this algorithm. In other words, they need to go beyond basic awareness of its existence and acquire constructive knowledge regarding its social functions. 

One of the main challenges facing them in this quest revolves around the issue of “algorithm visibility” considering that the ubiquity of these lines of codes renders them invisible, the same way media or metadata became invisible when they developed into infrastructures that people live in rather than with (Deuze, 2011, Pomerantz, 2015). 

Taking into consideration this specific problem, we looked at ways to revisibilize algorithms by focusing on their context and function. In this communication, we will present a Knowlege Management system called Graph ALGO-J that was designed as part of an ongoing research on the role and impact of algorithms in the journalism field. Its purpose is to provide users with interlinked data that can be explored, manipulated and amplified through a hypervisual interface.

Following an encyclopaedic approach, the knowledge graph gives access to information regarding algorithms (their origin, mode of operation, field of application and social function) as well as actors involved in the news environment (news media and digital intermediaries), devices, scientific research and journalistic investigations. But it also establishes direct and indirect links between each entry that is presented in the form of a card, in order to help users produce their own probe into the impact of algorithms. The ultimate goal of this tool is to become a “hyperdocument”:  a document that is also an instrument of action and knowledge (Otlet, 1934, Le Deuff, 2021) 

Rayya Roumanos & Olivier Le Deuff

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References     

• Arsenault, Amelia. (2017). The datafication of media: Big data and the media industries. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics. 13. 7-24. DOI: 10.1386/macp.13.1-2.7_1
• Beer, David. (2017). The social power of algorithms, Information, Communication & Society, 20:1, 1-13, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1216147
• Beer, David. (2013). Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-1-137-27004-7
• Bucher, Taina. (2012). Want to be on top? Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14, 1164-1180. DOI: 10.1177/1461444812440159
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• Joux, A., & Bassoni, M. (2018). Le journalisme saisi par les Big Data? Résistances épistémologiques, ruptures économiques et adaptations professionnelles. Les Enjeux de l’information et de la communication, 19/2(2), 125–134. DOI: 10.3917/enic.025.0125 
• Kennedy, Hellen, Poell, Thomas. & van Dijk, Jose. (2015). Data and agency. Big Data & Society 3: 1-7. DOI: 10.1177/2053951715621569
• Le Deuff, O. (2021). Hyperdocumentation. ISTE Ltd, Hoboken. DOI:10.1002/9781119855590
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• Yeung, Karen (2017) ‘Hypernudge’: Big Data as a mode of regulation by design, Information, Communication & Society, 20:1, 118-136, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1186713

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