Richard Rogers | University of Amsterdam (original) (raw)

Papers by Richard Rogers

Public Policy Review, 2014

The Politics of Social Media Manipulation, 2020

2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’23), 2023

Language technologies that perpetuate stereotypes actively cement social hierarchies. This study ... more Language technologies that perpetuate stereotypes actively cement social hierarchies. This study enquires into the moderation of stereotypes in autocompletion results by Google, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo! We investigate the moderation of derogatory stereotypes for social groups, examining the content and sentiment of the autocompletions. We thereby demonstrate which categories are highly moderated (i.e., sexual orientation, religious affiliation, political groups and communities or peoples) and which less so (age and gender), both overall and per engine. We found that under-moderated categories contain results with negative sentiment and derogatory stereotypes. We also identify distinctive moderation strategies per engine, with Google and DuckDuckGo moderating greatly and Yahoo! being more permissive. The research has implications for both moderation of stereotypes in commercial autocompletion tools, as well as large language models in NLP, particularly the question of the content deserving of moderation.

New Media & Society, 2008

Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) resisting the security fence and other Israeli secu... more Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) resisting the security fence and other Israeli security measures are in `virtual isolation' in networks dedicated to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and especially to the criticism of Israeli governmental policies and the construction of the security fence. The research reported is a hyperlink and term analysis of select issue networks on the web assembled around the security fence and other conflict issues. It shows that attempts by left-leaning Israeli NGO network actors to frame the issue in their own critical terms are ignored by networked transnational actors working in the Palestinian-Israeli issue space, even though it may be that both kinds of organizations campaign against it. The Israeli organizations, it was found, are largely in an issue space of their own making, distinct from the human rights frame that dominates the transnational networks. In putting forward the notion of the separation fence, theirs is also a partic...

Prometheus, 2003

The article introduces the research behind the making of Viagratool.org, the Lay Decision Support... more The article introduces the research behind the making of Viagratool.org, the Lay Decision Support System on the World Wide Web. Viagratool.org is a 'web knowledge instrument' made to provide realities about a drug, available by searching, form-filling, online prescription, e-commerce and the post. Collaborative filtering, made famous by the disciples of Vannevar Bush, is used to ascertain information about Viagra. As we found with the aid of a group of collaborative filterers, Viagra comes across on the Web as a party drug, with distinct user groups-clubbers, sex tourists and others-not addressed by more official information providers-regulatory bodies, the medical industry or the manufacturer. Presented here are the findings that have led to two versions of the support system, one for the potential Viagra consumer, and another for the often overlooked second and third parties caught up in 'Viagra situations'. In the first system, the collaborative filters found and kept information about its marketing (and reselling), its serious harm in cocktail dosages, and insider accounts provided by seasoned aphrodisiac and other lifestyle drug users. The information is displayed in thought trajectories, each asking whether to consume it, from different angles. Importantly, the system is not a consumer-to-consumer information service or pure cohort support service. Rather, it allows a consumer to hear about Viagra from the marketeer, the emergency room medic, the humorist, and the user of Viagra and Viagra substitutes. Each could play a part in the Viagra decision. In the second version, we present Viagra situations, quite remote from the placid beach scenes with loving couples (on the Pfizer website), or a jogging Bob Dole, as seen on TV. Here, we move closer to employing the Web as an anticipatory medium by first resurrecting the second parties in Viagra situations, different from those in 'normal, loving' relationships. Finally, we call into existence third party observers, friends, onlookers, anticipating darker Viagra usage scenarios that are unavailable in the more official discourse.

Complexity, 2005

New media networks differ from old media networks in the sense that for the press, TV, and radio,... more New media networks differ from old media networks in the sense that for the press, TV, and radio, the formats are more established. To old media one sends a press release, a prepared sound bite, or an edited video can. One organizes a scripted event and invites journalists in the hopes that the story eventually told adheres to the prepared text and overall narrative. But what does one send to a network? Does one send information in the "old media" formats? What does a network do with a press release? Are certain formats routinely filed away or deleted, while others tend to circulate in networks, creating "new media network effects?" The work treats formats broadly and also makes distinctions between various kinds of new media networks-social networks, issue networks, and stranger networks. In a discussion of the formats circulated and network behaviors effected by the Association of Progressive Communications-a highly professionalized civil society network actor in the field of information and communications policy-the purpose of the article is to open up avenues of thought into how different formats operate in various types of networks, and in particular, whether formats may organize new media networks and, perhaps, social movements.

How to Make Meme Collections Introduction: The Meme Collection as a Technical Object Memes are in... more How to Make Meme Collections Introduction: The Meme Collection as a Technical Object Memes are increasingly studied as internet-based artefacts, given that they are created, remixed, and circulated by users across digital platforms (Davison, 2012; Milner, 2016; Shifman, 2014). The origin of internet memes can be traced back to fringe digital spaces, and, until the early 2010s, they were often associated with subcultural communities on such websites as 4chan and Reddit (cf. Zannettou et al., 2018). It has become evident, however, that memes also reached mainstream digital media, becoming a 'ubiquitous, arguably foundational, digital media practice' (Miltner, 2018, p. 412). Learning Outcomes By the end of this guide, readers should be able to: • Create meme collections by querying online sites and employing image extraction software Meme collections are made from Know Your Meme, Google Images, Imgur, and CrowdTangle • Understand how a meme collection is shaped by the site where it is sourced • Explore the features of a meme collection using an image analysis methodology, which relies on two pieces of software that (1) group images by similarity and (2) source the URLs where they appear on the web  SAGE

Information, Communication and Society, 2023

This contribution seeks to demonstrate how studying memes as a collection depends on the website ... more This contribution seeks to demonstrate how studying memes as a collection depends on the website or platform where they are sourced. To do so, we compare how memes, specifically internet memes, are conceived in the well-known meme repository (Know Your Meme) with those from a meme host and generator (Imgur), an imageboard (4chan), a short-form video hosting site (TikTok) as well as a marketing data dashboard (CrowdTangle). Building on insights from software studies and our observational analysis, we demonstrate how each site constructs and arranges meme collections in a distinctive manner, thus affecting the conceptualisation of memes by each of these sites. In all, the piece develops the concept of the meme as a technical collection of content, discussing how each collection' s distinctiveness has implications for meme research.

Arguably, there is an ontological distinction between the natively digital and the digitized, tha... more Arguably, there is an ontological distinction between the natively digital and the digitized, that is, the objects, content, devices and environments that are "born" in the new medium, as opposed to those that have "migrated" to it. Should the current methods of study change, however slightly or wholesale, given the focus on objects and content of the medium? The research program put forward here thereby engages with "virtual methods" that import standard methods from the social sciences and the humanities. That is, the distinction between the natively digital and the digitized also could apply to current research methods. What kind of Internet research may be performed with methods that have been digitized (such as online surveys and directories) vis-à-vis those that are natively digital (such as recommendation systems and folksonomy)? Second, I propose that Internet research may be put to new uses, given an emphasis on natively digital methods as opposed to the digitized. I will strive to shift the attention from the opportunities afforded by transforming ink into bits, and instead inquire into how research with the Internet may move beyond the study of online culture only. How to capture and analyze hyperlinks, tags, search engine results, archived Websites, and other digital objects? How may one learn from how online devices (e.g., engines and recommendation systems) make use of the objects, and how may such uses be repurposed for social and cultural research? Ultimately, I propose a research practice that grounds claims about cultural change and societal conditions in online dynamics, introducing the term "online groundedness." The overall aim is to rework method for Internet research, developing a novel strand of study, digital methods. To date the methods employed in Internet research have served the purpose of critiquing the persistent idea of the Internet as a virtual realm apart. Such thinking arose from the discourse surrounding virtual reality in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the Internet came to stand for a virtual realm, with opportunities for a redefinition of consciousness, identity, corporality, community, citizenry and (social movement) politics. 1 Indeed, in 1999 in one of the first efforts to synthesize Internet research, the communications scholar, Steve Jones invited researchers to move beyond the perspective of the Internet as a realm apart, and opened the discussion of method. 2 How would social scientists study the Internet, if they were not to rely on the approaches associated with it to date: human-computer interaction,

First Monday, 2000

The once academically humorous practice of Web games, examining log files to determine who is hit... more The once academically humorous practice of Web games, examining log files to determine who is hitting or linking to a Web site, turns into an infowar in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Public Understanding of Science, 2000

New World Wide Web (web) mapping techniques may inform and ultimately facilitate meaningful parti... more New World Wide Web (web) mapping techniques may inform and ultimately facilitate meaningful participation in current science and technology debates. The technique described here “landscapes” a debate by displaying key “webby” relationships between organizations. “Debate-scaping” plots two organizational positionings—the organizations' inter-hyperlinking as well as their discursive affinities. The underlying claim is that hyperlinking and discursive maps provide a semblance of given socio-epistemic networks on the web. The climate change debate on the web in November 1998 serves as a test case. Three findings are reported. First, distinctive .com, .gov and .org linking styles were found. Second, organizations take care in making hyperlinks, leading to the premise that the hyperlinks (and the “missing links”) reveal which issue and debate framings organizations acknowledge, and find acceptable and unacceptable. Finally, it was learned that organizations take substantive positions ...

Abstract Studies of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by non-governmen... more Abstract Studies of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seek to come to terms with a particular problem of political globalization. While global forums are widely attributed the capacity to put in ...

This work offers an approach to conceptualizing, demarcating and analyzing a national web. Instea... more This work offers an approach to conceptualizing, demarcating and analyzing a national web. Instead of defining a priori the types of websites to be included in a national web, the approach put forward here makes use of web devices (platforms and engines) that purport to provide (ranked) lists of URLs relevant to a particular country. Once gathered in such a manner, the websites are studied for their properties, following certain of the common measures (such as responsiveness and page age), and repurposing them to speak in terms of the health of a national web: Are sites lively, or neglected? The case study in question is Iran, which is special for the degree of Internet censorship undertaken by the state. Despite the widespread censorship, we have found a highly responsive Iranian web. We also report on the relationship between blockage, responsiveness and freshness, i.e., whether blocked sites are still up, and also whether they have been recently updated. Blocked yet blogging port...

Harvard Misinformation Review, 2020

Ushering in the contemporary 'fake news' crisis, Craig Silverman of Buzzfeed News reported that i... more Ushering in the contemporary 'fake news' crisis, Craig Silverman of Buzzfeed News reported that it outperformed mainstream news on Facebook in the three months prior to the 2016 US presidential elections. Here the report's methods and findings are revisited for 2020. Examining Facebook user engagement of election-related stories, and applying Silverman's classification of fake news, it was found that the problem has worsened, implying that the measures undertaken to date have not remedied the issue. If, however, one were to classify 'fake news' in a stricter fashion, as Facebook as well as certain media organizations do with the notion of 'false news', the scale of the problem shrinks. A smaller scale problem could imply a greater role for fact-checkers (rather than deferring to mass-scale content moderation), while a larger one could lead to the further politicization of source adjudication, where labelling particular sources broadly as 'fake', 'problematic' and/or 'junk' results in backlash.

European Journal of Communication, 2020

Extreme, anti-establishment actors are being characterized increasingly as 'dangerous individuals... more Extreme, anti-establishment actors are being characterized increasingly as 'dangerous individuals' by the social media platforms that once aided in making them into 'Internet celebrities'. These individuals (and sometimes groups) are being 'deplatformed' by the leading social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for such offences as 'organised hate'. Deplatforming has prompted debate about 'liberal big tech' silencing free speech and taking on the role of editors, but also about the questions of whether it is effective and for whom. The research reported here follows certain of these Internet celebrities to Telegram as well as to a larger alternative social media ecology. It enquires empirically into some of the arguments made concerning whether deplatforming 'works' and how the deplatformed use Telegram. It discusses the effects of deplatforming for extreme Internet celebrities, alternative and mainstream social media platforms and the Internet at large. It also touches upon how social media companies' deplatforming is affecting critical social media research, both into the substance of extreme speech as well as its audiences on mainstream as well as alternative platforms.

Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration, 2019

The rise of the connected migrant (Diminescu, 2008), through mobility and connectivity, has thus ... more The rise of the connected migrant (Diminescu, 2008), through mobility and connectivity, has thus enabled a shift in thinking from treating the migrant as ‘uprooted’ to one that emphazises mobilization and ‘presence at a distance’ (Diminescu, 2012). Whilst these strands of research are important for advancing the burgeoning field of migration in relation to digital technology, scant research exists with regard to how social media
platforms may function as repositories for migrant data, and particularly how these data collections may be employed for social and political inference. Whilst the emergence of the connected migrant and availability of tools and methods to repurpose digital data for social research (Rogers, 2013) provide the field of migration ample opportunity for social empiricism, these developments also raise numerous questions
with regard to the use of digital data for understanding the social world. To what extent can clicks, likes and shares (in a social media platform such as Facebook) serve as a means to study behaviour such as content circulation within migrant communities? That is, how may social media analysis be made meaningful for migration studies? What forms of social knowledge does one obtain whilst doing research with (publicly available) platform data? We take these questions in turn to illustrate how social media data may be used to study connected migration, and how migration research may benefit from relying on digital data for studying social and political inference.

Public Policy Review, 2014

The Politics of Social Media Manipulation, 2020

2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’23), 2023

New Media & Society, 2008

Prometheus, 2003

Complexity, 2005

Information, Communication and Society, 2023

First Monday, 2000

Public Understanding of Science, 2000

Harvard Misinformation Review, 2020

European Journal of Communication, 2020

Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration, 2019

Tradução de artigo de Richard Rogers, professor do Departamento de Media Studies da Universidad... more Tradução de artigo de Richard Rogers, professor do Departamento de Media Studies da Universidade de Amsterdã (UVA), na
Holanda, e coordenador do projeto Digital Methods Iniciative (DMI). Publicado originalmente como capítulo 1 do livro "Digital Methods" (MIT Press, 2013). Tradução de Carlos d'Andréa (docente pelo PPGCOM/ UFMG) e Tiago Barcelos P. Salgado (doutorando pelo PPGCOM/UFMG e bolsista CAPES/PROEX UFMG). Ambos são pesquisadores pelo NucCon, grupo de pesquisa vinculado ao CCNM/UFMG.