Media Distortions is about the power behind the production of deviant media categories. It shows the politics behind categories we take for granted such as spam and noise, and what it means to our broader understanding of, and engagement with media. The book synthesizes media theory, sound studies, science and technology studies (STS), feminist technoscience, and software studies into a new composition to explore media power. Media Distortions argues that using sound as a conceptual framework is more useful due to its ability to cross boundaries and strategically move between multiple spaces—which is essential for multi-layered mediated spaces. Drawing on repositories of legal, technical and archival sources, the book amplifies three stories about the construction and negotiation of the ‘deviant’ in media. The book starts in the early 20th century with Bell Telephone’s production of noise, tuning into the training of their telephone operators and their involvement with the Noise Abatement Commission in New York City. The next story jumps several decades to the early 2000s focusing on web metric standardization in the European Union and shows how the digital advertising industry constructed web-cookies as legitimate communication while making spam illegal. The final story focuses on the recent decade and the way Facebook filters out antisocial behaviors to engineer a sociality that produces more value. These stories show how deviant categories re-draw boundaries between human and non-human, public and private spaces, and importantly, social and antisocial.
Author(s): Elinor Carmi
Series: The Digital Formations
Edition: 1
Publisher: Peter Lang
Year: 2020
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 294
Tags: Information Technology: Social Aspects; Mass Media: Social Aspects; Spam (Electronic Mail): Social Aspects; Noise: Social Aspects
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1. Introduction: Listen Closely
Don’t Be Evil! But I’m Not!
Conducting Processes
Three Distortion Stories
Structure of the Book
2. Orchestrating Media Power through Sound
Re-processing Foucault
Sound as a Conceptual Framework
Processed Listening: Producing Knowledge in Mediated Spaces
Rhythmedia, or Orchestrating Sociality
Mediated Territories
Mediating Bodies
Come to the Dark Side, We Have Cookies
Conclusion: What’s in the Mix?
3. Noisy Behaviors on the Line
The Noise Abatement Commission in Early 20th Century New York City
Mapping City Noise
No Deal on the Street
Selling (the) Telephone
Shutting Street Noise
Controlling (the Other) Street Rhythm
Quieting Noisy Women
Connecting Bodies
Designing the Communication Line Model
Personal Immediacy
The Human Information Processors
A Design for Living
Silencing Dissent
Conclusion: Noise Against the Machine
4. Fabricating the European Union Safety Net
Opening the ‘Back-End’
Governing Softly
Baking Cookies into the Ecosystem
Inventing Private and Public Spaces
Lobbying to Spam
Composing the Data Subject
Standardizing Metrics
Bodies that Count
Bidding for Real-Time
User Control to Control Users
Keep Your Body Safe
Conclusion: Brave New Web?
5. Engineering the (anti)social
Filtering the Unwanted Using Four Mechanisms
Modulating Architecture
Who Listens to You?
Channeling through Your Friends
Amplified Listening Capacities
Every Breath You Take I’ll Be Listening to You
Ordering Algorithms
Money, Sorted
Standardizing the Digital Advertising Industry
Naturalizing Organic Feed
Maintaining the Immune System
You Better Work
Clicking Machine
Excessive Behaviors
Asking As If It Matters
Listening: The Silent Actions that Count
Majority Report
The Human Processors
Filtering the Rubbish
Feed the Panel
Conclusion: Fileting the Rhythms of Anti-Sociality
6. Conclusion: Transducing the Deviant
The Power of Sound
Creating a Dynamic Database with Processed Listening
Deviant Order: How Rhythmedia Orchestrates Sociality
