Metric Power
For your first assignment please review the course material of week 3 and 4, especially Beer’s text on Metric Power (Introduction, Conclusion and the chapter on Measurement).
YOUR TASK
Based on these texts prepare a 15 Minute presentation in which you explain how metric power operates in the digital world of today. Organize your presentation around a specific example where big data and algorithms are used to measure, categorize and evaluate people. This could be an app (fitness, dating, female cycles etc), the use of algorithms in the criminal justice system or social welfare or economic statistics (i.e. poverty indicators, GDP or development indexes) or the use of machine learning in medical research and entertainment (i.e. self tracking devices, ratings, audience analytics etc)
Based on your example explain how data is used to construct people or places based on assumptions (gender norms, standards for moral or social behaviour, success ratings for optimal performance etc) How do these assumptions shape the way we understand social, cultural and environmental phenomena through data and/or apps? How and where is power exercised in here?
The following questions will help you in your analysis:
- What is the main purpose for which data is collected and by whom?
- What assumptions and models are used?
- What units of measurement are applied?
- What standards and norms are generated? And on what basis are they defended and legitimized?
- How do these measurements discipline the ways in which people and phenomena become visible, knowable and identifiable as matter of interest or concern?
- How do these measures shape people’s actions and choices? How do they channel the way people think and act? What choices do they offer, prevent or foreclose?
- Who or what gives authority to the data based measures?
- What continuities (similiarities) to the historical examples we discussed can you identify?
The main thing I want you to understand from this exercise is how power operates through measurement by establishing specific relations to value. These measure value relations shape judgements and set standards that make people appear or disappear in certain ways.
FORMAT:
This is a group project. You can work in teams of 2. Prepare a visual presentation that outlines the main points of your analysis (8–10 slides).
DEADLINES:
Present your findings on Thursday Feb 14th in class.
Written Version:
Based on the feedback given in class you write up your analysis in a 1.000 word blogpost.
The blog is also group work so you post 1 text per group. Just make sure you list who is in your group.
