EIT-Colloquium: Algorithmic ImaginariesUpcoming Talk@EIT

28 May 2018

Dr. Astrid Mager will visit us on May 28th to present her research.

Algorithmic Imaginaries

What role do norms, values and ideologies play in the construction and governance of search engines? How are visions and values translated into socio-technical design practices? How do place and cultural context matter in the development of search engines? These are the questions to be discussed in my talk by drawing on my ongoing research on search engines in the European context.

Using a case-study approach, I will analyze three European search engine projects that aim to develop alternatives to corporate, non-transparent and centrally controlled search engines (Google): The privacy-friendly search engine StartPage (NL), which has the central goal to protect fundamental rights and make them enforceable in practice by offering a search tool that respects users’ privacy. The initiative Open Web Index (D/ EU) trying to diversify the quasi-monopolistic search engine landscape by providing a publicly funded, open, and independent index of the web that different programmers can use to create their own search and ranking instruments on top of it. The peer-to-peer search engine YaCy (D) that aims at broadening access to web information and empowering users by offering infrastructure to collectively create a de-centralized web index running on the machines of users instead of US technology companies.

Using the notion “sociotechnical imaginary” (Jasanoff and Kim 2009) and building on a first analysis of online materials and qualitative interviews conducted with the three developer teams, I will discuss visions and values driving European search engines, challenges developers encounter in their daily work practices, and consequences these pose in regard to “social innovation” (Mulgan 2006).

Astrid Mager is a senior post-doc at the Institute of Technology Assessment, Austrian Academy of Sciences. She is currently working on her habilitation project „Algorithmic Imaginaries. Visions and values in the shaping of search engines“ (funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), project no. V511-G29): https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ita/en/projects/algorithmic-imaginaries/overview/

When: 28 May 2018, 10:30-12:00
Where: Informatikum, Room G-123, Vogt-Kölln-Straße 30, 22527 Hamburg-Stellingen