11 research outputs found
Acknowledged Goods: Cultural Studies and the Politics of Academic Journal Publishing
This essay explores the changing context of academic journal publishing and cultural studies' envelopment within it. It does so by exploring five major trends affecting scholarly communication today: alienation, proliferation, consolidation, pricing, and digitization. More specifically, it investigates how recent changes in the political economy of academic journal publishing have impinged on cultural studies' capacity to transmit the knowledge it produces, thereby dampening the field's political potential. It also reflects on how cultural studies' alienation from the conditions of its production has resulted in the field's growing involvement with interests that are at odds with its political proclivities
STRATEGIC IMPROPRIETIES: CULTURAL STUDIES, THE EVERYDAY, AND THE POLITICS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES
ALGORITHMIC IMAGINATIONS: RETHINKING âALGORITHMICâ AS A HEURISTIC FOR UNDERSTANDING COMPUTATIONALLY-STRUCTURED CULTURE
How we imagine our place within the structure of sociotechnical-human
relationshipsâspecifically, in domains of life affected by data-analytics and the
probabilistic bets institutions and people in power make on the future of our credit
worthiness, political leanings, shopping habits etc.âis our âalgorithmic imagination.â The
purpose of this panel is to explore the âalgorithmic imaginationâ as it manifests in
particular scholarly, historical, socio-cultural, and technical contexts. The panelists
prioritize how social actors, situated in distinct settings, go about constructing an
âalgorithmic imaginationâ in conversation/opposition with how computational systems have
âimaginedâ them; they will also reflect critically and self-reflexively on the implications
of an algorithmic imagination, so conceived. Collectively, the panelists demure from
monolithic understandings of the âalgorithmic imaginationâ while also embracing algorithmic
intersectionality. The primary contention of this panel is that the ways in which algorithms
have been âthought,â or imagined, have made it difficult to conceive of practicable
strategies for transforming algorithmic cultures and, indeed, for delinking them from both
state and corporate control. The panel, thus, makes three primary contributions. First, we
situate, define, and distinguish the concept, âalgorithmic imagination.â Second, the panel
provides analyses of key facets of the algorithmic imagination, in specific historical
settings and life-worlds defined by intersectionality. Lastly, it aims to contribute,
however provisionally, to a political theory that recognizes the deterministic power of
computational systems but rejects the notion that power is inherently democratic or
monolithically insurmountable