TY - JOUR
T1 - Platform enclosure of human behavior and its measurement
T2 - Using behavioral trace data against platform episteme
AU - Wu, Angela Xiao
AU - Taneja, Harsh
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the excellent feedback received at Data & Society?s ?Contested Data? Academic Workshop. We thank danah boyd and Dan Bouk for organizing this amazing event. Thanks also goes to Jessa Lingel and Josh Greenberg for their incisive comments. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Digital trace data from giant platforms are gaining ground in the study of human behavior. This trend accompanies contestations regarding representativeness, privacy, access, and commercial origin. Complementing existing discussions and focusing on knowledge production, we draw attention to the different measurement regimes within passively captured behavioral logs from industries. Taking an institutional perspective on measurement as a management technology, we compare platforms with third-party audience measurement firms. Whereas the latter measure to provide “currency” for a multi-sided advertising market, the former measure internally for their own administrative purposes (i.e. prescribing behavior through design). We demonstrate the platform giants’ two-fold enclosure of first the user ecology and subsequently the previously open market for user attention. With platform trace data serving as a lifeline for scholarly research, platform episteme extends itself to enclose knowledge production. We conclude by suggesting ways in which academic quantitative social sciences may resist these platform enclosures.
AB - Digital trace data from giant platforms are gaining ground in the study of human behavior. This trend accompanies contestations regarding representativeness, privacy, access, and commercial origin. Complementing existing discussions and focusing on knowledge production, we draw attention to the different measurement regimes within passively captured behavioral logs from industries. Taking an institutional perspective on measurement as a management technology, we compare platforms with third-party audience measurement firms. Whereas the latter measure to provide “currency” for a multi-sided advertising market, the former measure internally for their own administrative purposes (i.e. prescribing behavior through design). We demonstrate the platform giants’ two-fold enclosure of first the user ecology and subsequently the previously open market for user attention. With platform trace data serving as a lifeline for scholarly research, platform episteme extends itself to enclose knowledge production. We conclude by suggesting ways in which academic quantitative social sciences may resist these platform enclosures.
KW - Audience measurement
KW - Internet studies
KW - computational social science
KW - digital trace data
KW - knowledge production
KW - platform episteme
KW - quantitative methodology
KW - user analytics
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U2 - 10.1177/1461444820933547
DO - 10.1177/1461444820933547
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087304136
SN - 1461-4448
VL - 23
SP - 2650
EP - 2667
JO - New Media and Society
JF - New Media and Society
IS - 9
ER -