Alexander Halavais: Search Engine Society (2008–)

“Search engines have become a key part of our everyday lives. Yet while much has been written about how to use search engines and how they can be improved, there has been comparatively little exploration of what the social and cultural effects might be. Like all technologies, search engines exist within a larger political, cultural, and economic environment. This volume aims to redress this balance and to address crucial questions such as:

* How have search engines changed the way we organize our thoughts about the world, and how we work?
* What are the ‘search engine wars’, what do they portend for the future of search, and who wins or loses?
* To what extent does political control of search engines, or the political influence of search engines, affect how they are used, misused, and regulated?
* Does the search engine help shape our identities and interactions with others, and what implications does this have for privacy?

Informed members of the information society must understand the social contexts in which search engines have been developed, what that development says about us as a society, and the role of the search engine in the global information environment. This book provides the perfect starting point.”

Publisher Polity, 2008
Digital Media and Society series
ISBN 0745642152, 9780745642154
196 pages

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Anne Goldenberg: La négociation des contributions sur les wikis publics: Légitimation et politisation de la cognition collective (2010) [French]

Les wikis sont des sites hypertextuels éditables dont chaque modification est publiquement consignée. L’usage de ces artefacts s’est notamment répandu pour de grands projets de production de connaissances (encyclopédie, documentation en ligne). Dès lors, les participants doivent s’organiser pour surveiller et discuter de ce qui constitue une contribution. Nous avons d’abord réalisé une enquête par questionnaires en ligne autour du concept de contribution suivi d’entretiens qualitatifs menés auprès des participants à trois wikis publics1. Ceux-ci l’ont défini comme une activité de production de connaissances, en tension entre intérêt personnel et collectif, besoin de reconnaissance et disposition d’anonymat et dont les principes de pertinence sont régulièrement discutées. Ces mises en débat semblent structurantes dans la mesure où les contributeurs et contributrices parviennent à distinguer ce qui relève d’une dispute sociale ou d’un débat d’ordre épistémique (relatif aux connaissances). L’usage de wikis publics dans une perspective épistémique amène les contributeurs à faire face à deux contradictions : L’ouverture à la contribution publique entre en tension avec le besoin de valider les connaissances diffusées. La participation du plus grand nombre est mise au défi par l’établissement de conventions sociales qui complexifient l’adhésion au projet. Que révèle l’étude de la négociation des contributions au regard des problèmes de justesse et de justice propre aux wikis publics ? Une analyse plus poussée de la gestion des désaccords dans les trois communautés étudiées a bien permis de relever une violence latente malgré les conventions sociales et épistémiques en place. Mais l’étude a aussi revélé l’importance du rôle des participant investis dans l’organisation, la mise en relation et la contextualisation des interventions. L’émergence d’une culture de la contribution serait ainsi tributaire d’une responsabilisation vis-à-vis des enjeux politiques et épistémiques impliqués dans la production participative de connaissances.

Sociology and Communication dissertation thesis
Faculté de communication, L’Université du Québec à Montréal et Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis
324 pages

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Cass R. Sunstein: Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge (2006)

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 ourselves with comforting opinions that reaffirm our core beliefs. Crowds quickly become mobs. The justification for the Iraq war, the collapse of Enron, the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia–all of these resulted from decisions made by leaders and groups trapped in “information cocoons,” shielded from information at odds with their preconceptions. How can leaders and ordinary people challenge insular decision making and gain access to the sum of human knowledge?

Stunning new ways to share and aggregate information, many Internet-based, are helping companies, schools, governments, and individuals not only to acquire, but also to create, ever-growing bodies of accurate knowledge. Through a ceaseless flurry of self-correcting exchanges, wikis, covering everything from politics and business plans to sports and science fiction subcultures, amass–and refine–information. Open-source software enables large numbers of people to participate in technological development. Prediction markets aggregate information in a way that allows companies, ranging from computer manufacturers to Hollywood studios, to make better decisions about product launches and office openings. Sunstein shows how people can assimilate aggregated information without succumbing to the dangers of the herd mentality–and when and why the new aggregation techniques are so astoundingly accurate.

In a world where opinion and anecdote increasingly compete on equal footing with hard evidence, the on-line effort of many minds coming together might well provide the best path to infotopia.

Publisher Oxford University Press, 2006
ISBN 0195189280, 9780195189285
273 pages

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