Representation in the age of surveillance, AI, and Big Data

How do Senft & Baym define a selfie? (2015)

“A photographic object that initiates the transmission of human feeling in the form of a relationship” and “a practice—a gesture that can send [...] different messages to different individuals, communities, and audiences”

What does McLuhan’s theory tell us about the medium of the selfie?(McLuhan & Fiore, 1967)

“The ‘message’ of any medium [...] is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs”; “the formative power in the media are the media themselves”

How does Jurgenson describe social photography? (2014)

More like speaking than recording,” imagining “people holding their eyes, newly connected and telepathic, outstretched in their hands”

What are the four types of visibility enabled or demanded by selfies?

Generating, disciplining, demanding, and commanding visibility.

What does “commanding visibility” entail?

Construction of surveillance structures; e.g. predictive policing, digital Blackface, racial data categorisation for profit.

What does Hepp say about mediation? (2017)

“Not a neutral transmission of reality but an active process that constructs meaning, privileging certain narratives while marginalising others”

How do Boyd & Crawford define Big Data?

A “cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon” resting on technology, analysis, and mythology (Boyd & Crawford, 2014).

What does Noble argue about search engines?

“Google is not an objective platform—it encodes the values of those who create it” (Noble, 2018).

Example of algorithmic misrepresentation?

Noble (2018) found that searching “Black girls” yielded hypersexualised and exoticised results.

What does Buolamwini find about facial recognition?

34% of Black women misidentified vs 1% of white men by commercial AI (Buolamwini & Gebru, 2018).

What does Benjamin argue about AI erasure?

“If your face is not recognised by AI, you effectively do not exist in the digital economy” (Benjamin, 2019).

What is Zuboff’s concept of surveillance capitalism?

The commodification of user data: “You are not the product; you are the abandoned carcass. The real product is your behaviour.” (Zuboff, 2019; Amnesty, 2019).

How is Big Data used beyond ads, according to Milner & Traub?

“To make an increasing array of high-stakes automated decisions around employment, investment, lending and pricing” (Milner & Traub, 2021).

What is “digital redlining”?

Algorithmic discrimination in access to housing/jobs, e.g., Facebook ad exclusion by race (Amnesty, 2019).

What does Sobande say about digital Blackface? (2021)

It involves “non-Black people’s participation in online spaces [...] falsely alluding to their (non-existent) Blackness” for clout and profit

What does Eubanks say about predictive policing? (2017)

“Transforms historical inequalities into future inevitabilities”

What is the "Chicago Strategic Subject List"? (Eubanks, 2018).

Algorithmic list that labelled 56% Black individuals as potential criminals with no evidence

How does Amoore describe biometric borders? (2020)

“Turn the body itself into a site of surveillance and exclusion”

Example of biometric injustice? (Costanza-Chock, 2020).

TSA scanners flagging non-binary/trans people as anomalie

What does Mahmoudi argue about refugee tech?

Refugees become “experimental sites,” reinforcing “racialised politics of ‘integration’” (Mahmoudi, 2019).

What was revealed in the Facebook Files? (Amnesty, 2019).

Meta knew about human rights violations facilitated by its platform but publicly framed itself as pro-democracy

Example of Twitter platform delay in moderation? (Amnesty, 2019).

Trump’s account was only suspended in January 2021, despite glorifying violence

What does Tufekci find about YouTube?

The algorithm nudges users toward increasingly extreme content

What does Zuboff warn about platform power?

“They know everything about us; we know almost nothing about them” (Zuboff, 2019).

What is 'playful activism' on TikTok, and how does it relate to platform affordances?

“TikTok’s play-centric affordances and their distinguishable audiovisual vocabularies endorse playful activism by provoking powerful sentiment bonds that connect and allow scattered users to territorialize around a common cause.” Cervi & Divon (2023)

What human rights concerns are raised about predictive policing in the EU?

“Predictive policing systems... entrench racial inequality, discrimination and intolerance,” with insufficient oversight and the unlawful use of personal data without consent.
— Amnesty International (2020)

What is the role of testimonial video and witnessing on platforms like TikTok?

“Palestinian activists have mainly used what Askanius (2013) categorizes as testimonial videos... offering audiences worldwide a real-time window into the mundane violence and brutality.”
— Cervi & Divon (2023)