Algocount seeks to expand our current understanding of, and raise awareness about, the role of algorithms in society, with a specific focus on the formation of public opinion in the Italian context.
Algocount Final Event
Conference, 7th July
Event, 8th July
In the context of a society pervasively intermediated by digital technologies, algorithms represent a new and important actor in the determination of social relations, cultural patterns and economic outcomes.
Algorithms ‘recommend’ which movies to watch, what items to purchase, who to trust when using an online service, and are increasingly used as instruments of control for crime prevention, financial assessment and economic risk.
Algorithms, however, also hold an increasingly important role in the formation of public opinion, that is now largely mediated by social media and digital platforms.
As the famous Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed in the context of the 2016 “Brexit” referendum and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America of the same year, algorithms bear demonstrable potential to play a key role in filtering personalised news content to users based upon their preferences and previous consumption, thus affecting what information sources users will and will not be able to access. Yet, despite their pervasive presence, we still know little about them, how they work, how they produce the outcomes we see.
Building on the understanding of these challenges, Algocount seeks to expand our current understanding of, and raise awareness about, the role of algorithms in society. To do so, it asks the following questions: