On Media Distortions (w/ Elinor Carmi)

How do layers of content moderation infrastructure shape sociality and anti-sociality? What are the incentives motivating algorithms used by Facebook, Google and Amazon? How do algorithms shape our sense of time, how we register social information and what content is produced by users? What are the implications for digital consent?  Unsettling the myth of “organic content” we discuss Spam and who gets to decide which media is categorized as deviant.

Elinor Carmi joins the WBI show to discuss the history of Bell Telephone regulating sound as a form of urban planning in New York City-where Black Americans were deemed noisy (and certain decibels were criminalized), the way digital infrastructure mediates discourse around Israel/Palestine, and the connections between digital literacy and grassroots digital activism. 

Elinor Carmi is a Postdoc Research Associate in digital culture and society, at the Communication and Media Department, Liverpool University, UK. She’s the author of: Media Distortions: Understanding the Power Behind Spam, Noise and Other Deviant Media

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Host: J. Khadijah Abdurahman
Music: Drew Lewis

Links for the Episode:

The Organic Myth — Real Life
Me and my big data: developing citizens' data literacy
Being Alone Together: Developing Fake News Immunity Being Alone Together: Developing Fake News Immunity- Faculty of Humanities & Social
THE playlist – Media Distortions
Dear Science and Other Stories - playlist by demonicground | Spotify
Social media's erasure of Palestinians is a grim warning for our future
Black Siren Radio — The American Assembly
He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can't fix its misinformation addiction
Architectures of Sound : Acoustic Concepts and Parameters for Architectural Design / Michael Fowler.
Over*Flow: Digital Humanity: Social Media Content Moderation and the Global Tech Workforce in the COVID-19 EraSarah T. Roberts / University of California, Los Angeles – Flow
Netanyahu presides over a social media empire. Here's how he runs it
'Go home,' chant anti-Netanyahu protesters ahead of Israel's snap polls
Operation Restart (May 14 Social Media Walk Out)