People's sense of being subject to digital dataveillance can cause them to restrict their digital communication behavior. Such a chilling effect is essentially a form of self-censorship in everyday ...digital media use with the attendant risks of undermining individual autonomy and well-being. This article combines the existing theoretical and limited empirical work on surveillance and chilling effects across fields with an analysis of novel data toward a research agenda. The institutional practice of dataveillance—the automated, continuous, and unspecific collection, retention, and analysis of digital traces—affects individual behavior. A mechanism-based causal model based on the theory of planned behavior is proposed for the micro level: An individual's increased sense of dataveillance causes their subjective probability assigned to negative outcomes of digital communication behavior to increase and attitudes toward this communication to become less favorable, ultimately decreasing the intention to engage in it. In aggregate and triggered through successive salience shocks such as data scandals, dataveillance is accordingly hypothesized to lower the baseline of free digital communication in a society through the chilling effects mechanism. From the developed theoretical model, a set of methodological consequences and questions for future studies are derived.
This article explores the governance by algorithms in information societies. Theoretically, it builds on (co-)evolutionary innovation studies in order to adequately grasp the interplay of ...technological and societal change and combines these with institutional approaches to incorporate governance by technology or rather software as institutions. Methodologically, it draws from an empirical survey of Internet-based services that rely on automated algorithmic selection, a functional typology derived from it, and an analysis of associated potential social risks. It shows how algorithmic selection has become a growing source of social order, of a shared social reality in information societies. It argues that – similar to the construction of realities by traditional mass media – automated algorithmic selection applications shape daily lives and realities, affect the perception of the world, and influence behavior. However, the co-evolutionary perspective on algorithms as institutions, ideologies, intermediaries, and actors highlights differences that are to be found, first, in the growing personalization of constructed realities and, second, in the constellation of involved actors. Altogether, compared to reality construction by traditional mass media, algorithmic reality construction tends to increase individualization, commercialization, inequalities, and deterritorialization and to decrease transparency, controllability, and predictability.
Algorithmic governance affects individuals' reality construction and consequently social order in societies. Vague concepts of algorithmic governance and the lack of comprehensive empirical insights ...into this kind of institutional steering by software from a user perspective may, however, lead to unrealistic risk assessments and premature policy conclusions. Therefore, this paper offers a theoretical model to measure the significance of algorithmic governance and an empirical mixed-methods approach to test it in different life domains. Applying this guideline should lead to a more nuanced understanding of the actual significance of algorithmic governance, thus contributing to an empirically better-informed risk assessment and governance of algorithms.
In modern everyday life, individuals experience an abundance of digital information and communication options, and pressure to use them effectively and constantly. While there are many benefits ...attainable through the use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs), digital overuse needs to be explored as it may impair individual well-being. A nationally representative survey explored the extent of perceived digital overuse (PDO) and tested its relation to social digital pressure, digital coping skills, and, to assess everyday offline relevance, to individual subjective well-being. Results indicated that 28% of Swiss Internet users pereived digital overuse, which was strongly and negatively associated with well-being. Social pressure was positively related to overuse. Differences in experiencing and dealing with digital overabundance are highly relevant to general well-being and need to be further researched in light of social change and ICT innovations.
How can the ubiquitous digitalization in the early twenty-first century be grasped and characterized? A media-change perspective that focuses on innovation-driven, complex co-evolutionary processes ...distinguishes two phases of digitalization and points to the following characteristics of its second phase: digitalization is an intertwined bundle of socio-technological transformation processes that reveals itself as a trinity of datafication, algorithmization and platformization. On the industry and politics side, this co-evolutionary trinity is driven by the belief in a scientifically and technologically controllable human evolution, reflected in the pursuit of nano-bio-info-cogno convergence, and accordingly linked to a transhumanism standing for this belief. On the users’ side, the digital trinity is characterized and driven by the convergence of digital technology and religion in the form of an implicit everyday religion. These hallmarks of digitalization lead to a digitally transformed social order, shaped by the interplay of governance
by
and
of
this digital trinity, and challenged by growing complexity.
Self-tracking with wearable devices and mobile applications is a popular practice that relies on automated data collection and algorithm-driven analytics. Initially designed as a tool for personal ...use, a variety of public and corporate actors such as commercial organizations and insurance companies now make use of self-tracking data. Associated social risks such as privacy violations or measurement inaccuracies have been theoretically derived, although empirical evidence remains sparse. This article conceptualizes self-tracking as algorithmic-selection applications and empirically examines users' risk awareness related to self-tracking applications as well as coping strategies as an option to deal with these risks. It draws on representative survey data collected in Switzerland. The results reveal that Swiss self-trackers' awareness of risks related to the applications they use is generally low and only a small number of those who self-track apply coping strategies. We further find only a weak association between risk awareness and the application of coping strategies. This points to a cost-benefit calculation when deciding how to respond to perceived risks, a behavior explained as a privacy calculus in extant literature. The widespread willingness to pass on personal data to insurance companies despite associated risks provides further evidence for this interpretation. The conclusions--made even more pertinent by the potential of wearables' track-and-trace systems and state-level health provision--raise questions about technical safeguarding, data and health literacies, and governance mechanisms that might be necessary considering the further popularization of self-tracking for health.
How can the ubiquitous digitalization in the early twenty-first century be grasped and characterized? A media-change perspective that focuses on innovation-driven, complex co-evolutionary processes ...distinguishes two phases of digitalization and points to the following characteristics of its second phase: digitalization is an intertwined bundle of socio-technological transformation processes that reveals itself as a trinity of datafication, algorithmization and platformization. On the industry and politics side, this co-evolutionary trinity is driven by the belief in a scientifically and technologically controllable human evolution, reflected in the pursuit of nano-bio-info-cogno convergence, and accordingly linked to a transhumanism standing for this belief. On the users’ side, the digital trinity is characterized and driven by the convergence of digital technology and religion in the form of an implicit everyday religion. These hallmarks of digitalization lead to a digitally transformed social order, shaped by the interplay of governance by and of this digital trinity, and challenged by growing complexity.
The rapidly growing academic and public attention to algorithmic-selection applications such as search engines and social media is indicative of their alleged great social relevance and impact on ...daily life in digital societies. To substantiate these claims, this paper investigates the hitherto little explored subjective relevance that Internet users assign to algorithmic-selection applications in everyday life. A representative online survey of Internet users comparatively reveals the relevance that users ascribe to algorithmic-selection applications and to their online and offline alternatives in five selected life domains: political and social orientation, entertainment, commercial transactions, socializing and health. The results show that people assign a relatively low relevance to algorithmic-selection applications compared to offline alternatives across the five life domains. The findings vary greatly by age and education. Altogether, such outcomes complement and qualify assessments of the social impact of algorithms that are primarily and often solely based on usage data and theoretical considerations.
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