Algorithms and Speech

One of the central questions in free speech jurisprudence is what activities the First Amendment encompasses. This Article considers that question in the context of an area of increasing importance – algorithm-based decisions. I begin by looking to broadly accepted legal sources, which for the First Amendment means primarily Supreme Court jurisprudence. That jurisprudence provides for very broad First Amendment coverage, and the Court has reinforced that breadth in recent cases. Under the Court’s jurisprudence the First Amendment (and the heightened scrutiny it entails) would apply to many algorithm-based decisions, specifically those entailing substantive communications. We could of course adopt a limiting conception of the First Amendment, but any nonarbitrary exclusion of algorithm-based decisions would require major changes in the Court’s jurisprudence. I believe that First Amendment coverage of algorithm-based decisions is too small a step to justify such changes. But insofar as we are concerned about the expansiveness of First Amendment coverage, we may want to limit it in two areas of genuine uncertainty: editorial decisions that are neither obvious nor communicated to the reader, and laws that single out speakers but do not regulate their speech. Even with those limitations, however, an enormous and growing amount of activity will be subject to heightened scrutiny absent a fundamental reorientation of First Amendment jurisprudence

Algorithms and Speech

One of the central questions in free speech jurisprudence is what activities the First Amendment encompasses. This Article considers that question in the context of an area of increasing importance – algorithm-based decisions. I begin by looking to broadly accepted legal sources, which for the First Amendment means primarily Supreme Court jurisprudence. That jurisprudence provides for very broad First Amendment coverage, and the Court has reinforced that breadth in recent cases. Under the Court’s jurisprudence the First Amendment (and the heightened scrutiny it entails) would apply to many algorithm-based decisions, specifically those entailing substantive communications. We could of course adopt a limiting conception of the First Amendment, but any nonarbitrary exclusion of algorithm-based decisions would require major changes in the Court’s jurisprudence. I believe that First Amendment coverage of algorithm-based decisions is too small a step to justify such changes. But insofar as we are concerned about the expansiveness of First Amendment coverage, we may want to limit it in two areas of genuine uncertainty: editorial decisions that are neither obvious nor communicated to the reader, and laws that single out speakers but do not regulate their speech. Even with those limitations, however, an enormous and growing amount of activity will be subject to heightened scrutiny absent a fundamental reorientation of First Amendment jurisprudence

The social poetics of analog virtual worlds : toying with alternate realities

textWhile online virtual worlds draw increasingly wider audiences of players and scholars alike, offline games continue to evolve into more complex and socially layered forms as well. This dissertation argues that virtual worlds need not exist as online, digital environments alone and probes three genres of non-digital gaming for evidence of the virtual: tabletop role-playing games, murder-mystery events, and localized alternate reality games. More broadly, then, this dissertation is about deliberate make-belief: practiced by adults, taken seriously by participants, engaged with for long hours at a time, performed in public, and integrated into everyday social relationships. Drawing on scholars who study games as social activities (McGonigal 2006, Montola 2012) and social institutions (Goffman 1974, Searle 1995), I present three ethnographic case studies that illustrate how complex forms of social gaming can conjure and sustain environments best understood as analog virtual worlds. Through the widespread use of mobile technologies and the concerted efforts of innovators, game spaces are increasingly permeating our everyday lives on- and offline. This dissolving boundary demands anthropologists to revisit questions of how, where, and with whom we play games. Dovetailing Martin Heidegger’s notions of worlding and poiesis to the semiotics of C.S. Peirce, this dissertation investigates how new forms of social gaming demonstrate the same qualities of shared intentionality, intersubjectivity, and performance essential to the production of new social meaning and cultural forms. Following, I situate the bold ethnographic case studies of make-belief in dialogue with scholars who figure exclusively online virtual worlds (Castronova 2005, Taylor 2006, Boellstorff 2008) and argue that analyzing both on- and offline virtual worlds together can help scholars better understand the fundamental nature of social interaction and shared intentionality, those everyday mechanisms that both sustain personal relationships on the one hand and maintain our broadest and most serious social institutions on the other.Anthropolog

Development and empirical testing of a game engagement scale : case r/Stopgaming

The thesis conceptualises gaming from leisurely and labour-like starting points and both measures and develops this perspective by pioneering a concept of game engagement. Putting forth this perspective is grounded by appeals to burnout in and out of professional contexts in the videogame industry, ludology and research on player experiences. These views coming together prompted a need to verify whether games are to be normatively held as engaging in only popular belief, or verifiably so in actuality. In so doing, both methodological and theoretical insight is provided. The engagement construct was adapted from the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale -9 (short form) and a survey study was conducted. Data was analysed using ordinal logistic regression and exploratory factor analysis. Results showed those not holding games dear to them may require substantial investment increases to reap adequate increases in engagement, if playtime is low, while a committed orientation towards gaming (in terms of subjective gamerhood and hours played) showed marked differences in engagement per incremental increase in playtime. These results are considered descriptive, rather than predictive. Future directions for game studies are suggested to uncover how players become disengaged and how rationalisation affects the gaming experience

Online Dispute Resolution Through the Lens of Bargaining and Negotiation Theory: Toward an Integrated Model

[Excerpt] In this article we apply negotiation and bargaining theory to the analysis of online dispute resolution. Our principal objective is to develop testable hypotheses based on negotiation theory that can be used in ODR research. We have not conducted the research necessary to test the hypotheses we develop; however, in a later section of the article we suggest a possible methodology for doing so. There is a vast literature on negotiation and bargaining theory. For the purposes of this article, we realized at the outset that we could only use a small part of that literature in developing a model that might be suitable for empirical testing. We decided to use the behavioral theory of negotiation developed by Richard Walton and Robert McKersie, which was initially formulated in the 1960s. This theory has stood the test of time. Initially developed to explain union-management negotiations, it has proven useful in analyzing a wide variety of disputes and conflict situations. In constructing their theory, Walton and McKersie built on the contributions and work of many previous bargaining theorists including economists, sociologists, game theorists, and industrial relations scholars. In this article, we have incorporated a consideration of the foundations on which their theory was based. In the concluding section of the article we discuss briefly how other negotiation and bargaining theories might be applied to the analysis of ODR

EXISTING WITHOUT PERMISSION: A VISUAL RHETORICAL ANALYSIS ON BANKSY’S NOLA CHILDREN AND THE BETRAYAL OF AUTHORITY

This study examines eight images by the world renowned—and incognito—graffiti street artist known only as Banksy. The eight images are all of lone children; fourteen paintings comprise the total of Banksy’s 2008 visit to post-Katrina New Orleans. For the research, the eight images of children are referred to collectively as the “NOLA Children Series.” Banksy critics and fans have provided their own names for each piece: Simpsons Boy, Umbrella Girl, Fridge Kite, Levee Boy, Life Preserver Swing, Girl on Stool, and Trumpet Boy 1 & 2. The primary research objective was to understand Banksy’s motives for creating these eight “dramas” as he did. Secondarily, the research also advances the interpretative framework for Visual Rhetoric. Close Textual Analysis and Kenneth Burke\u27s Dramatistic Pentad combine as methods informed by scholarship in visual design and visual rhetoric. The study concludes by noting Banksy’s condemnation of authority figures for their role in betraying the children of New Orleans. Recent studies confirm that the failed levees and failed leadership of 2005 still haunt those who were children when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Southeast Louisiana

Morality as a fundamental element in the decision-making process: A critical essay

Morality has been, for the past 2500 years, a central dimension when discussing human behaviour. Economics, however, adopted a simplified model of economic actor, the Homo Economicus, which largely ignores social and psychological dimension of the decision-making process in favour of an account that stresses utility maximization as the ultimate goal for the decision maker. This has resulted in several criticisms that have stressed, among other things, the lack of ontological realism of this model. Furthermore, contributions from the field of psychology and behavioural sciences have stressed the importance of morality in the decision-making process. In this dissertation, I will engage with contributions from several field of inquiry to criticise the current model of economic actor and discuss the implications that these findings have for policy making.A Moralidade tem sido, nos últimos 2500 anos, uma dimensão central quando se discute o comportamento humano. A Economia, contudo, adotou um modelo simplificado de ator económico, o Homo Economicus, que ignora largamente a dimensão social e psicológica do processo de tomada de decisão em favor de um relato que salienta a maximização da utilidade como o objetivo final da decisão. Isto resultou em várias críticas que sublinharam, entre outras coisas, a falta de realismo ontológico deste modelo. Mais, contribuições no campo da psicologia e das ciências comportamentais sublinharam a importância da moralidade no processo de tomada de decisão. Nesta dissertação, irei exploras as contribuições de várias áreas de estudo para criticar o atual modelo de ator económico e discutir as implicações que estas conclusões têm para a elaboração de políticas

“Acts of Pure Evil”: The Portrayal of Mass Shooting Events on Online Media Platforms

As media continues to integrate into everyday life, it is essential to critically examine the media and the messages that are forwarded to the public, who often lack personal knowledge of crime and justice issues, and thus rely on news media to glean information. This effort, also called media criminology, seeks to understand the media and the effect it has on understanding societal issues. This project forwards media criminology by examining online news articles, as media criminology has historically focused on traditional media formats, such as newspaper and television. Online news has surpassed these traditional formats and has become a main source of information, however, information in online news articles can often include opinions alongside facts. As such, this project utilizes a conflict criminology framework to analyze the messages used in the media to achieve hegemony. In order to fully grasp how the media forwards messages about crime and justice issues, eight mass shooting cases were chosen to discover what differences, if any, are present in the representation of mass shooting events across liberal and conservative mainstream news sites and news commentary sites. News sites were chosen based on their comparable consumer traffic and their political orientation as conservative or liberal. Mainstream news sites are those national news sites that are popular and considered reliable sources of information. The two mainstream news sites chosen for this project are NBC News and Fox News. Commentary sites are sites that feature information alongside opinion, and often engage in partisan reporting. The two news commentary sites chosen for analysis are Slate and Breitbart. Once cases and news sites were chosen, a word frequency query was performed on all articles, followed by thematic analysis for the portrayal of offenders and victims, as well as how cases were explained and what policies were forwarded. Results reveal that media bias does exist along political party lines of the news media when representing mass shooting cases. Offenders and victims alike were subjected to sympathetic and unsympathetic themes. Additionally, the explanations and subsequent policy discussions that were forwarded often aligned with the shooters’ motives, but also with the narratives that fit the news site’s political orientation

My watch begins : identification and procedural rhetoric on second screens and social networks.

Digital rhetoric creates opportunities for examining rhetoric as it evolves daily. This evolution may be described in terms of network circulation and immediate opportunities for publishing and creating. This project analyzes mobile applications and live feeds used during television broadcasts, where rhetoric is closely tied to the work of identifying with another point of view. Producers and designers of dual-screen applications prompt us to answer how we would act if we assumed the role of protagonist and saw the world through her or his eyes. These questions support the idea that identification is not just a relative of empathy or a way to engage emotionally with the text but also a way to approach problems and sharpen observation. From this dissertation’s findings we may reconsider the work of seeing and perspectival shifting as part of a sophisticated procedure of reflexive role play and public intellectualism. In addition, the analysis provides information about how mobile devices and second screens work to support consensus and a preferred reading (viewing) of popular narratives and group performances, thereby calling into careful consideration how we use such devices to influence others. Finally, the dissertation’s work helps us understand new forms of viral communication and the velocity (Ridolfo and DeVoss) at which they are transmitted. Consequently, we may approach textual artifacts as “living documents” and consider how such “living” properties may change our perceptions of authorship and composing. In Chapter One, “My Watch Begins: Complex Narrative, Transmedia, and Point of View,” I begin by offering an overview of my methodological approach to these applications. I situate the work of identification on mobile devices within the larger conversation surrounding transmedia and how it encourages viewers to participate in contemporary television narratives. This section provides explanations of how the terms procedural rhetoric (as introduced first by Ian Bogost), prosopopoiea (from ancient rhetoric), and point of view (from narrative theory) will function in this project, with most of the attention given to procedural and rhetorical studies of the various programs and websites associated with audience writings. This chapter also calls attention to the difference between empathy and perspective shifting. An example from contemporary culture that helps illustrate this difference and provides space for conversation is the viral blog post “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” This editorial, written in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, features identification techniques used as persuasive tools but does so in a problematic way that might be better handled with a nuanced and careful study of how identification operates in other settings. Central to this project are questions addressing how we discuss and document the acts of viewing/seeing/looking, and in what ways the process of seeing from multiple perspectives is currently being lauded in society and the academy. In Chapter Two, “If You See Something, Say Something: Syncing Audience Viewing and Response,” I reveal two opening examples that illustrate these premises: one from a Walking Dead advertisement that features the protagonist’s eye and one from a Department of Homeland Security ad-“If You See Something, Say Something.” These examples dovetail into a specific analysis of syncing devices, or dual screen viewing experiences, and the actual rhetoric accompanying the requests to see from multiple perspectives (“If you were Rick, you would ___”). I also call attention to shows where the act of identifying with the protagonist raises questions about the limitations of perspectives. To be specific, I suggest that the white middle-class male is the paradigm of identification exercises for shows that encourage participation from viewers. Examples from television suggest that women and minorities are less likely to be the characters with whom we align our interests; therefore, I argue we should interrogate this trend and think reflexively about the act of identifying. In Chapter Three, “Choreographing Conversation through Tagging, Tokens, and Reblogs,” I argue that analysis of audience reactions via live feeds and blogging platforms shows that textual artifacts, through increased circulation, promote a certain form of identification through consensus. This consensus reveals the tendency of viewers to gravitate toward preferred readings (viewings) of narratives and to identify with characters closely resembling themselves. By constituting viewers in a rhetoric specific to each fictional world, producers encourage identification and help secure appropriate and largely positive viewer behaviors through conversations online. Specifically, digital activities like “checking in” to a show and writing with specific hashtags become markers of narrative involvement. Producers, in turn, engage in reciprocal action by promoting or displaying fan activity on their own feeds, thereby sponsoring the work of the audience. While such activity often leads to conformity, I argue that these moments of group consensus may act as springboards for future conversation about other perspectives and narrative outcomes. In Chapter Four, “Texts as Bodies, Bodies as Texts: Tumblr Role Play and the Rhetorical Practices of Identification,” the rhetorical analysis of these online sites and mobile applications then leads to questions of how we perceive embodiment during identification. In this section I look closely at the writing found on the microblogging site Tumblr, where viewers of television narrative engage in role playing their favorite protagonists and creating dialogue with fellow role players. This practice, operating outside the jurisdiction of producer-designed apps, reveals new patterns of the work of identification. With attention to the ideas of Katherine Hayles and Deleuze and Guattari, we may reconsider how text, once circulated, acts as an extension of and a replacement for the physical body. Still, the work of these bloggers demonstrates that identification is still a personal investment that refers to and gives credit to the person behind the computer screen. This chapter reveals a productive tension between the embodied author’s work and the nature of writing as it moves through networks. In my conclusion I explain how these applications and online tools have implications for the writing classroom. Students are frequently told that good writers and thinkers must see a problem or an issue from multiple perspectives. This project focuses intensely on the work of shifting perspectives and how those perspectives are represented in writing. Its implications for teaching productive source integration and research may be applied to the first-year writing classroom but also the graduate class curriculum, where novice scholars learn to extend, oppose, and ally themselves with the scholars who have come before them

Lies on the Lips: Dying Declarations, Western Legal Bias, and Unreliability as Reported Speech

When one party is killed by another, there are often no witnesses to the murder other than the killer and the victim who is now absent. In some circumstances, the victim has enough life left to utter some final words to an individual who happens to be in the vicinity of the crime. Usually these statements, known in legal terms as dying declarations, relate to the circumstances of the victim\u27s death, including the identity of the perpetrator. If the crime is investigated by law enforcement authorities, the final words of the victim can be reported by the individual who received this last utterance. If the matter goes to trial, this report may be heard in a courtroom by judge and jury who will decide the fate of the accused, which may include loss of liberty or even death