Questions of privacy are critical to the study of contemporary media and society. When we’re more and more connected to devices and to content, it’s increasingly important to understand how information about ourselves is being collected, transmitted, processed, and mediated. Privacy and the Media equips students to do just that, providing a comprehensive overview of both the theory and reality of privacy and the media in the 21st Century. Offering a rich overview of this crucial and topical relationship, Andy McStay: • Explores the foundational topics of journalism, the Snowden leaks, and encryption by companies such as Apple • Considers commercial applications including behavioural advertising, big data, algorithms, and the role of platforms such as Google and Facebook • Introduces the role of the body with discussions of emotion, wearable media, peer-based privacy, and sexting • Encourages students to put their understanding to work with suggestions for further research, challenging them to explore how privacy functions in practice. Privacy and the Media is not a polemic on privacy as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but a call to assess the detail and the potential implications of contemporary media technologies and practices. It is essential reading for students and researchers of digital media, social media, digital politics, and the creative and cultural industries. ‘Privacy and the Media is a thoughtful survey of the privacy landscape. McStay reviews the intricate tensions and seeming contradictions to offer an accessible book for anyone curious about the contemporary debates in privacy.’ - danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated and founder of Data & Society ‘McStay’s great achievement here is to confront many of the pertinent and complex questions about media and privacy in a style that is both authoritative and easy to read... His book will prove an excellent companion for all students of this fascinating and crucial topic.’ - Mireille Hildebrandt, Vrije Universiteit Brussel ‘Clearly and accessibly written, this book is a great resource for anyone interested in the broad range of ways in which privacy and contemporary media are entangled and in the big picture of privacy/media relations today... I will definitely be assigning it for my students.’ - Helen Kennedy, University of Sheffield

Big Data: Machine Learning and the Politics of Algorithms

Big Data: Machine Learning and the Politics of Algorithms

Big Data: Machine Learning and the Politics of Algorithms

Key Questions

  • Why is ‘big data’ different from large amounts of data?
  • What is the significance of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)?
  • What does it mean for algorithms to have politics?
  • To what extent do labour metaphors developed in Chapter 7 apply to supervised machine learning?

Key Concepts

  • Big data
  • Machine learning
  • Black box
  • Algorithmic discrimination

Through personal media and technology, we generate a large amount of information about ourselves and we are doing this at an exponentially increasing rate. Consider, for example, that 90 per cent of the data currently in the world was created in the last two years (House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, 2016). Each time we use a networked device, watch ...

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