Show Your Face! Investigating the Relationship Between Human Faces and Music’s Success

Streaming services are becoming the primary source for media consumption. Particularly platforms like SoundCloud, where users can disseminate user-generated content (UGC), are gaining relevance. To shed light into the drivers which positively influence the number of listeners, we draw from marketing literature related to depictions of people, which suggests that human faces can contribute to a higher degree of brand liking or brand identification. Thereupon, we propose a hypothesis which suggests that human faces on cover arts likewise generate more plays. We follow a data science approach using 1754 observations from SoundCloud and apply Google’s facial recognition API (Vision AI) to examine the impact of human faces on music’s success. We provide initial evidence that tracks with a human-face cover art yield in a higher number of plays compared to tracks with a cover art without a human face

‘Conspiracy Machines’ - The Role of Social Bots during the COVID-19 ‘Infodemic’

The omnipresent COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to a parallel spreading of misinformation, also referred to as an ‘Infodemic’. Consequently, social media have become targets for the application of social bots, that is, algorithms that mimic human behaviour. Their ability to exert influence on social media can be exploited by amplifying misinformation, rumours, or conspiracy theories which might be harmful to society and the mastery of the pandemic. By applying social bot detection and content analysis techniques, this study aims to determine the extent to which social bots interfere with COVID19 discussions on Twitter. A total of 78 presumptive bots were detected within a sample of 542,345 users. The analysis revealed that bot-like users who disseminate misinformation, at the same time, intersperse news from renowned sources. The findings of this research provide implications for improved bot detection and managing potential threats through social bots during ongoing and future crises

The art of bots: A practice-based study of the multiplicity, entanglements and figuration of sociocomputational assemblages

This thesis examines and analyses an emerging art practice known as artbots. Artbots are internet-based software applications that are imbued with character and configured to engage and entertain online audiences. This form of practice, and the community of practice leading it, was found to be underrepresented and misunderstood. I argue that this artform is original and warrants a more thorough understanding. This thesis develops a conceptual framework for understanding artbots that focuses on and enables questioning around pertinent aspects of the practice. A wide range of literature was reviewed to provide theoretical underpinnings towards this framework, including literature on algorithm studies, science and technology studies, and software architecture. The devised framework examines artbot case studies through the notions of multiplicity, entanglement, and figuration, having understood artbots as heterogenous sociocomputational assemblages comprised of software components and human intraactivity. The research followed a varied methodology that encompassed participant observation and my own practice-based experiments in producing artbots. The study resulted in several original works. In addition, a showcase titled Art of Bots brought together key proponents and artbots, further providing material that is analysed in this thesis. The study helped identify and discuss artbots with attention to how they utilise modular software components in novel arrangements, how normative human and nonhuman relations of interaction are being eschewed in favour of entangled interrelations, and how artbots challenge common narratives dictating technological constructs by inventing unique characters and figurations

Platform Liability in Copyright Enforcement

Every year, millions of dollars are invested and spent on works covered by copyright. However, in the platform economy, where most content is currently stored and viewed, copyright holders face infringements of their rights at an ever-increasing scale. While Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act serves a useful speech-protecting function, unless the United States is willing to forego copyright law and the economic interests that it protects, some effort is needed to develop an efficient mechanism of copyright enforcement for platforms. In this paper, we pull together copyright law, the law of platform liability, and the economics of enforcement to explore models of no liability, notice and takedown, strict liability, and negligence. We discuss how platform liability can encourage the creation of creative work, but may also lead to over-blocking and chilling effects. Using a formal model, we consider what mechanisms of copyright enforcement can maintain the speech protections of Section 230 while incentivizing authors to create new works

Facebook Idio-Culture: How Personalisation Puts the Me in Social Media

The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which cultural preferences in music in the UK have changed as a result of personalised social media. It is an exploration of the extent to which the boundaries of musical subcultures, and other such cultural groupings have been smudged by a customised Internet, and by the quotidian routine of using social media sites led by influential algorithms, designed to offer us an experience tailored to our own tastes. It also investigates the ways in which a person’s need to use their taste as an outward display of identity or subcultural capital (Thornton 2006) has altered, now that every aspect of life can be advertised on Facebook, Twitter and other such websites. With the rise of technologies such as ‘online recommenders’ this research evaluates whether the new technology, rather than helping, has hindered our ability to predict the tastes of an individual, and instead, whether it shepherds us through the abundance of data now readily available to us at the touch of a button. It examines, also how the filtering of accessible information, deemed relevant for us by such technologies affects our tastes and behaviour. In terms of primary research, an Investigation is conducted, focussing on a target group of individuals linked by a Facebook fan Page, following a mixed methods approach, consisting of an in-depth, self-completion questionnaire designed to collate quantitative data on the demographic, an observation by means of analytical tracking software, written specifically for this thesis examining the online behaviour of the participants as they create and recommend a musical playlist, and also a series of more open, qualitative interviews. The thesis concludes by acknowledging that musical taste is affected both implicitly by our habitus (Bourdieu 1984) and explicitly by means of algorithmic personalisation in a pincer movement, narrowing our tastes and channelling our musical choices

Regulating terrorist content on tech platforms: A proposed framework based on social regulation

Scholars have been arguing for years that responses to terrorist content on tech platforms have, to-date, been inadequate. Past responses have been reactive and fragmented with tech platforms self-regulating. Over the last few years, many governments began to decide that the self-regulatory approach was not working. As a result, a number of regulatory frameworks have been proposed and/or implemented. However, they have been highly criticised. The purpose of this thesis is to propose a new regulatory framework to counter terrorist content on tech platforms and overcome many of these criticisms. Scholars have argued that it is vital that future regulation be informed by past experience and supported by evidence from prior research. Therefore, a number of steps were taken. First, this thesis examines a review of literature into what platforms are exploited by terrorist organisations. Next, a content analysis was undertaken on blogposts that tech platforms publish in order to investigate the efforts that tech platforms report making to counter terrorist content on their services and the challenges that they face. Third, a sample of existing or currently proposed regulatory frameworks were examined in order to learn what was done well and what gaps, limitations and challenges exist that require addressing in future regulation. Finally, social regulation theory was identified as applicable in this regulatory context. Social regulation strategies were examined in three other regulatory contexts in order to examine whether they could be used in this regulatory context. The findings from the above analyses were used to inform a new regulatory framework that is proposed in this thesis. In addition to proposing a new regulatory framework, this thesis also identified three compliance issues that tech platforms may face. These compliance issues are addressed alongside the proposal of the framework. Overall, it is argued that previous regulatory attempts failed to consider the diverse array of challenges that are faced by different platforms when countering terrorist content. The regulatory framework proposed in this thesis researched these challenges and identified strategies from a social regulation approach, learning lessons from how they were applied elsewhere to overcome some of the key criticisms and limitations of existing regulatory practice

Artificial Intelligence Enabled Solutions in Marketing: Case Ekokompassi

Artificial Intelligence is a relevant field in computer science which is emerging into businesses. Due to the complexity of the concept itself, it is important to understand what AI is and how it can be integrated into the marketing operations in a business. The objective of this thesis was to utilize the information and insights gathered from experts in the field of computer science, business and marketing to gain a holistic view of the current and future capabilities of artificial intelligence in marketing so that recommendations could be provided to the commissioning company Ekokompassi Oy. The research questions are how to use artificial intelligence in marketing, secondly what are the future predictions in the field of marketing and AI and finally what are the potential AI enabled solutions in marketing for Ekokompassi. Qualitative tools, more precisely in-depth-interviews, were used to gather the main data in this research. The main data was analysed using content analysis methods from which four main categories were extracted for further examination. The main conclusions of this study answered the initial research questions reinforcing the knowledge gained from the theory. The conclusions indicated that companies which leverage technology in their business strategies can gain an advantage over their competitors who remain to work in traditional ways. AI can predict, analyse and personalize one to one marketing messages to consumers at scale and with precision that humans are incapable of. Companies should not fear technology but embrace it throughout the core functions of the business bearing in mind the issues around ethics and data privacy. The best time to begin gathering business data is today

Youth and the Participatory Promise

The emergence of digital technologies and the ways we have seen many youth engaging with the digital environment suggests that youth may no longer be just passive consumers of digital technologies but that — given the right circumstances — can become more active co-designers and co-shapers of the digital environment. This promise of enhanced participation is supported by two strands of research. First, from a purely descriptive perspective, my research shows increased participation when studying youth behavior in various areas, including privacy and news. Second, from an analytical and normative perspective, we can observe a trend — and should support the potential — of stronger youth engagement and an increase in opportunities for youth to participate as we shape the future of our digital society. The implementation of participatory research methods and the child rights discourse illustrate this participatory potential. Together, the two perspectives suggest a “participatory promise,” in which young people have an integral and constitutive role when embracing the benefits and addressing the challenges of the digital environment and shaping its future