Pre-Conference Workshops

18 October 2023

Conference registration is available here.

Conference program is available here.

AoIR hosts several preconference workshops the day before the main conference. Attendees must register for the full conference to attend a preconference workshop. All workshops have a US$10 fee applied charged during registration. Refunds on workshop fees are only available if entire registration is cancelled, and then will be subject to the cancellation and refund policies of the organization. This fee does not apply to the Doctoral Colloquium. If you are accepted into the Doctoral Colloquium do not register for any preconference workshops. The Doctoral Colloquium and the preconference workshops occur simultaneously on 18 October 2023. In order to attend a workshop you do have to register for the full conference.

 

AoIR Early Career Scholars Workshop

Morning Session – 18 October 2023

Organizers: Eedan Amit-Danhi, University of Groningen; Ludmila Lupinacci, University of Leeds; Florence Madenga, University of Pennsylvania; Asaf Nissenbaum, University of Amsterdam; Luiza Santos, State University of Ponta Grossa.

Purpose:These half-day workshops bring early career researchers together to address unique issues they face, develop strategies to achieve career goals, and foster a professional network. We define early career scholars as people who have finished the requirements for their terminal degree but have not yet advanced to the next level in their field or industry (e.g. in North America this would be tenure). AoIR’s strength is its communication. This workshop fosters community among emerging scholars and bridges the divide between junior and senior scholars. We aim to continue working toward making this community as inclusive and representative as possible.

The workshop addresses both challenges and opportunities unique to early career scholars in the many fields and forms of scholarship represented at AoIR. First, we have to negotiate the transition from graduate student to early career professional that requires a higher level of autonomy and to meet the challenge of figuring out the pragmatic and social aspects of a new work environment. Second, we must work quickly to establish ourselves in our fields and, often, secure funding. Third, we have increased service responsibilities. Fourth, after being guided by our advisors and committees for several years, we transition into mentorship roles. Fifth, we must learn to navigate to the next level of our careers while managing various degrees of precarity and ensuring time with family and friends. Being a junior scholar also comes with unique opportunities that we will explore. While recognition of internet scholarship has come a long way since AoIR’s inception, junior scholars still may find themselves facing certain hurdles in gaining recognition for their research (i.e. subject, method, etc.) in terms of promotion. In fact, some of the challenges we face are also opportunities to work towards changing the ways in which internet scholarship is perceived and valued within the academic structure.

The issues we will cover depend greatly on the participants and will be driven by your questions and concerns. AoIR is an international and diverse organization, and we know that our experiences as scholars and educators vary by country, institution type, and field and are framed by our own identities (race, gender, etc.). Our goal is to discuss shared challenges and opportunities while understanding differences so that we can build our own professional networks at the same time that we create a diverse and inclusive community of scholars who will eventually become future career mentors within AoIR.

Format: Based on feedback from previous workshops, we will maintain a three-session format. The first session will consist of a fish-bowl discussion for workshop participants. This discussion is intended as a get-to-know others event as well as an opportunity to discuss the issues and opportunities we face collectively. The second session will be a panel of established scholars who can share their insight and experiences. We define established scholars as those individuals who have continued to research and publish within their field, and who have been promoted within their given professional system. In the final session, participants will form small groups with senior scholars to address topics relevant to them (type of institution, academic system, etc.). Time will be left for follow-up questions and group discussion. We also are planning an informal social activity following the workshop.

Audience: This workshop is geared toward early career scholars who have completed their doctoral degree. Please do not register for this workshop if you have not completed your degree, and should instead apply to the AoIR doctoral colloquium.

Goals:

1) Provide a safe, inclusive and accepting space for the next generation of AoIR scholars to start building strong ties with each other, more established researchers, and the AoIR community..

2) Promote understanding of the breadth of academic work, including our shared experiences and differences.

3) Connect with established academics to build a stronger community of support for our careers.

4) Develop strategies to build and maintain a junior scholar community outside of the annual conference.

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AI-systems for the public interest at the AoIR2023

Morning Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Theresa Züger, Hadi Asghari, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society

The number of AI projects aiming to serve the common good or a public interest is increasing rapidly. But often the information on these projects, their initiators, funders, methods and objectives is not transparent, hindering the goal of serving the public. Many AI applications touch upon sensitive areas with public wellbeing at stake, such as public health, mobility, and justice systems. In this interdisciplinary workshop we will connect public interest theory to the debate about AI projects and foster exchange amongst existing projects that use AI to serve the public interest to explore common challenges, methods, and standards.

This workshop introduces the concept of public interest AI and aims to bring together researchers and practitioners in this field. We wish to host a discussion on the criteria, necessary processes and societal conditions for AI systems to serve the public interest. We invite submissions on case studies as well as broader research on this topic, including issues around data collection, data sharing, who audits public interest driven systems,and other aspects of the AI lifecycle.

The motivation to use AI for a common good is claimed widely. Aside from the popularity of the claim, the qualities that stand for the common good or public interest of AI are rather fuzzy. From a research perspective the lack of empirical data to analyze what kind of criteria and which actors define AI in the public interest is problematic. We hope this workshop can contribute to an exchange of recent empirical and conceptual research findings on AI systems serving the public interest.

We hope to spark an interdisciplinary discussion on public interest AI and the economic, organizational and technological conditions underpinning its success and sustainable impact.

This workshop addresses AI methods from an interdisciplinary perspective bringing the goal of serving public interest to the forefront. We encourage submissions that report on work in progress, case studies or present a synthesis of empirical insights on AI in the public interest. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • AI for public health and medicine
  • AI for sustainability
  • AI for mobility
  • AI for accessibility
  • AI for journalism
  • AI for equality & equitable
  • AI AI and fairness, transparency, and accountability questions

Submission:

  • Extended abstracts (2 pages) and short papers (up to 9 ‘standard’ pages excl. references). The submission should contain your research question(s), methodological approach, and possible findings;
  • Contain author names, affiliations, and email addresses; and submitted in PDF to piai_aoir2023@hiig.de
  • All AoIR2023 attendees are welcome to attend this workshop, however, priority will be given to those who have submitted work.

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Building an Alternative Social Media Network

Morning Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Jessa Lingel-University of Pennsylvania, Robert Gehl-York University, Ashwin Nagappa-Queensland University of Technology

Like older alternative media, alternative social media (ASM) are social media sites built to challenge centralized media power (Gehl, 2017, p. 343). In the case of social media, “centralized media power” typically means the Meta properties (e.g., Facebook, Instagram), Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, or TikTok. It almost goes without saying that such platforms have gained incredible power over everything from democratic discourse, the political economy of the internet, and mediated subjectivity. They also have been implicated in terrible events, from the spread of disinformation (Van Dijck et al., 2021) to the normalization of ubiquitous surveillance (Zuboff, 2019) to ecological destruction (Hogan, 2015). Critical scholarship, including work from the AoIR community, has been crucial in identifying the serious shortcomings of corporate social media (e.g. Gehl, 2017; Karppi, 2018; Lingel, 2017). But what do we know of active resistance to corporate social media? What alternatives have been developed, and what communities and practices have surfaced to challenge existing sociotechnical norms and values? Over the past decade, there have been many alternatives built in response to the problems and shortcomings of corporate social media. Some are long gone, such as Lorea, a system built by the indignados in Spain in the early 2010s, or Twister, a peer-to-peer Twitter alternative built by a Brazilian software developer in support of the Movimento Passe Livre protests. Some are gaining traction, such as Mastodon and the rest of the fediverse, which has been built in large part as a reaction to harassment and trolling on Twitter. In addition to left-leaning, progressive platforms, alternatives to centralized, corporate social media also also include right-wing social media as well, including far-right sites such as Gab, Parler and Truth Social. And there are no doubt some being built right now which will emerge before the upcoming AoIR conference. Alternative social media is thus a complex area of inquiry, making for an exciting, challenging and interdisciplinary field of scholarship. This workshop is meant to accelerate alternative social media studies, not only as a topic but as a network of intellectual production. Scholars working in this area need to develop new theoretical, methodological, and ethical approaches outside of those developed in relation to study of corporate social media. We also need to get scholars in this field together to build and develop a robust, interdisciplinary research network. To these ends, we encourage and welcome research from different areas that address the need for and value of studying platforms, practices and communities that are often on the margins of the internet and internet studies.
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The Future of Conspiracy: New Epistemologies and Imaginaries in Scholarship

Afternoon Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Zelly C Martin-University of Texas at Austin, Alice E Marwick-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Yvonne M Eadon-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Stephen C Finley-Louisiana State University, Brooklyne Gipson-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Rachel Kuo-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Inga K Trauthig-University of Texas at Austin, Samuel C Woolley-University of Texas at Austin

Conspiracy theories are increasingly present in mainstream American political discourse, from those around Covid-19 to the idea that Democrats conspired to “steal” the election from President Trump. While researchers from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds (psychology, folklore, history, and so forth) have taken up conspiracy theories as an object of study, many contemporary scholars have focused on right-wing conspiracies, such as Stop the Steal (DeCook & Forestal, 2022), QAnon (Bloom & Moskalenko, 2021), and the Great Replacement Theory (Ekman, 2022). Most recently, researchers have interrogated the blurry boundaries between left- and right-leaning conspiracy adherents on topics like anti-vaccination and spirituality (Chia et al., 2021; Griera et al., 2022). A key element of current scholarship on conspiracies is the extent to which social media facilitates their spread (Enders et al., 2021; Theocharis et al., 2021) and/or allows conspiratorial knowledge-production to thrive (Marwick & Partin, 2022). Although the stereotype of the “conspiracy theorist” is a “white, working-class, middle-aged man” (Drochon, 2018, p. 344) people from all identity groups believe in conspiracies (Bost, 2018). For American communities of color, though, conspiracy theories may be a natural reaction to the invalidation of their embodied experiences (Bogart et al., 2021; Dozono, 2021). The same could be said of other marginalized groups in America, such as queer folks and women (Ngai, 2001). In what ways is “conspiracy-believing” a legitimate response to feeling displaced in the public sphere, and perhaps even an attempt to reconfigure a sense of community and recognition (Parmigiani, 2021)? What might we learn by destigmatizing and rethinking conspiracism? What can researchers learn by examining conspiracies taken up by members of different marginalized groups? This preconference workshop is a natural, important succession to recent contributions at AoIR on the topic of conspiracy. We build on the 2021 AoIR panel from Allena Chia and others focused on networked conspirituality and the 2022 panel chaired by Alice Marwick on feminist disinformation, but push the boundaries of conspiracy studies beyond extant work, which primarily focuses on the alt-right, health, and Western understandings of conspiracy (Halafoff et al., 2022; Mahl et al., 2022, 2022; Marwick et al., 2022). We thus answer calls to expand understandings of conspiracy beyond Western epistemology (Mahl et al., 2022) to contribute to a fuller conceptualization of “conspiracy-believing” (Parmigiani, 2021). This workshop, then, explores these questions: _What new avenues of conspiracy are understudied when we prioritize the loudest conspiracy theories? What can we learn from other disciplines studying conspiracy? How do conspiracy theory beliefs stem from embodied experience? What are the boundaries of knowledge-production that we encounter when we demarcate conspiracy from disinformation and from embodied experience?_ Panelists will approach the topic of conspiracy theories from disparate fields of study, including communication, information studies, political science, religion, and African and African American studies; different methodologies; and address such topics as:

  • Identity and epistemology on conspiracy TikTok,
  • Gaia.com, a streaming video platform that features yoga classes alongside conspiracy content,
  • How geopolitical and racial histories undergird particular narrative themes in justifications of ethnonationalist and right-wing discourse in Asian communities, and
  • The overlap between conspiracy theory knowledge-production and feminist knowledge-production.

We invite those interested in conspiracy as it applies to epistemology, knowledge production, technological artifacts, gender/race/class, and reception. This might include early career scholars who are delving into the study of conspiracy theories, established scholars interested in new avenues of research on conspiracy, and researchers at any stage interested in diverse approaches to the study of knowledge production. Attendees will be capped at 30 to allow everyone the option to participate in a robust discussion. We ask that interested attendees plan for a highly interactive event. We request active participation given the opportunity to be invited to submit to our planned volume on conspiracy theory futures.
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Image Analysis Workshop

Full day Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Ganaele Langlois-York University, Matt Canute-Simon Fraser University, Rory Sharp-York University, Sasha Akhavi-York University, Anthony Burton-Simon Fraser University, Mel Racho-York University, Craig Fahner-York University

Though incredibly common, the circulation of images on social media platforms is difficult to study. The reasons for this are technical as well as conceptual. There is an urgent need to further explore the visceral and affective impacts of the endless flow of images users see online (Schlag, 2018). The many visual genres online, from photography to meme (McSwiney et al., 2021), from still to gif (Martinez, 2019), add complexity to researchers’ efforts to understanding role played by images in problematic informational environments, such as in mis/disinformation. And the growing capacity to automatically create visual content through AI only exacerbates this theoretical and methodological conundrum (Crawford and Paglen, 2021). However, image collection requires large storage capacity and specific scraping scripts.

This workshop will showcase open access software tools and methods to assist researchers in exploring the networked, cultural, and affective impacts of images on social media platforms (Dvorak and Parikka, 2021). We start from the premise that overall, images online articulate together new technical affordances with social and cultural impacts: they are mobilized to generate economies of attention and distraction, to cultivate, manage and in turn disorganize affects, defining horizons of existence, shaping interpretations of the worlds (Juris, 2008). This workshop will present a series of quantitative, qualitative, and exploratory software-assisted approaches to examine the role played by images on social media. These software-assisted methods can be used separately or in conjunction with each other. The objective of this workshop is to showcase multi-methodological strategies, from large scale scraping and visualization to the curation of smaller image samples, from formal visual analysis to participatory methods for exploring the relationships between images and affect. We will be teaching workshop participants to use the following tools, going through the steps of collecting images from social media platforms and exploring them using top-down and bottom-up approaches (Davila, 2019):

“Zeeschuimer ”. We have adapted this open-source web browser plugin created by the Digital Methods Initiative that allows for image and metadata scraping of Instagram and TikTok feeds. Participants will use this tool in conjunction with the research persona method (Bounegru et al., 2022), where fictitious user profiles are curated to elicit algorithmic recommendation processes.

“Image Flow” is an open-source tool with the ability to extract and collect images from social media websites such as reddit, twitter, 4chan, and Facebook public groups using varying degrees of search terms. This tool enables more thematic collecting of images.

Exploratory Image visualization: A key capacity of Image Flow is to enable the visualization of clusters of images (using an adapted version of PixPlot). Using images collected from both Zeeschuimer and Image Flow, we will visualize images clustered by semantic image similarity, comparing the spread of images. This tool allows for a view from the top, which we will contrast with a view from the bottom with the last tool below.

“Image and Affect” is an open-source and collaborative browser plugin tool that enables users to record their affective states while encountering images on their social media feeds. This exploratory approach responds to the immense importance of visual information in relation to affect production and circulation that is otherwise overlooked by strictly textual approaches to content analysis on the internet. Whether in the form of memes, infographics or photographs, images stand to have a greater impact on users’ affective states, transferring information while also producing potentially visceral responses during otherwise innocuous everyday browsing. By developing a tool that speaks directly to the significance of affectively charged images, we propose a conception of both affects and users that is the opposite of the kind of sentiment analysis and extractivism that dominates corporate social media platforms. Specifically, the tool makes it possible for users to understand affect as layered, ambiguous and changing, rather than dealing with systems that either pin down or provoke an affective response to produce personalized recommendations or shape responses and behaviours. This tool does not aim to capture or freeze affect, but rather help users record and understand complex affective responses that would not become otherwise conscious. Combined with Image Flow, this tool enables new critical, exploratory and participatory methods to engage users in understanding their entanglements with information flows on social media.
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The Social Moving Image: Meme Analysis with Tiktok Metadata

Full day Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Lucia Bainotti-University of Amsterdam, Elena Pilipets-University of Siegen, Marloes Geboers-University of Amsterdam (with Stijn Peeters-University of Amsterdam, Jason Chao-University of Siegen)

How can we study the social moving image on TikTok? To which extent can we repurpose TikTok metadata for the analysis of networked video cultures? Which new forms of memeification and templatability can we identify? While visual social media analysis can draw on a series of established methodological protocols for working with static images (Rose 2023), researching online video platforms raises new empirical questions.

During this six-hour workshop, we invite participants to explore and collaboratively develop TikTok methodologies by “metadating” and “metapicturing” collections of TikTok videos through their different networked characteristics—original and listed sounds, hashtags, effects, duets, emojis, and stickers. If metadata, according to Lev Manovich, is what allows computers to “connect data with other data” (2002), “metapicturing” (Rogers 2021) can be seen as an analytical technique for inventive, ethical, and contextual data remix. Presenting a set of ‘online-grounded’ possibilities for arranging content into “pictures of pictures” (Mitchell 1995), this hybrid approach allows for making sense of TikTok videos in their multimodality.

The workshop invites media and visual studies scholars to critically engage in practical tutorials and methodological discussions on the quali-quantitative analysis of TikTok video memes. Retaining sensitivity to the contextual nuance of memetic (sub)cultures, methodological affordances of digital research tools tested in a series of Digital Methods Initiative projects (Bainotti et al. 2022; Geboers et al. 2022; Pilipets et al. 2023) will be introduced in three parts:

Part I Listed Sounds: Metapicturing Audiovisual Content with Lucia Bainotti and Stijn Peeters/UvA

In the first part of the workshop, we present how to analyze TikTok audio-visual content and detect the presence of memetic templates by “following the sound” and arranging audio-visual content in a specific type of metapicture—“video stripes”—with the 4CAT Capture and Analysis Toolkit (Peeters & Hagen 2022). Video stripes are horizontal collages of selected sequential frames extracted from TikTok videos. By displaying dynamic video content statically, this technique is developed to highlight the visual patterns and gestural forms assumed by TikTok audio memes.

The entry point for the analysis is a specific platform affordance: the listed sounds indexed by TikTok, which users utilize as templates for their content (Abidin & Kaye 2021). Participants will learn how to repurpose this affordance and “follow” (Rogers 2019) these sounds to investigate associated visual vernaculars and memetic practices of templatability, hijacking, and subversion.

Part II Disguised speech templates: Video stacking and ethical fabrication with Elena Pilipets and Jason Chao/University of Siegen

In the second part, participants will learn how to analyze a TikTok video collection with particular attention to the interplay of video effects, duets, and embodied memetic production through speech. We will first learn how to extract static frames from videos using Video Frame Extractor (Chao 2022). With the aid of Speech-To-Text
Converter (Chao 2022), we will then demonstrate how to recognize disguised speech templates in videos that were published with the polyphonic “original sound”. Finally, we will visualize a subset of selected videos by repurposing techniques of analytical display known as image stack and montage.

A stack here is not only “a sort of computationally generated moodboard” (Colombo 2018) but arguably also a method of “ethical fabrication” (Markham 2012) that allows for bricolage-style transfiguration of dynamic video content (Pilipets 2023).

Part III (Con)Textual analysis of co-hashtags, emojis and video stickers with Marloes Geboers/UvA

Within soundscapes, we shift emphasis to the textual signifiers of meaning as provided by combinations of co hashtags and stickers. The latter allows creators to embed texts and emojis within videos. They can align with the expressive meaning of the visual content and particular sounds, but they can also subvert, or infuse videos with ambiguity. We will discuss a series of methodological designs for contextualizing video content through the analysis of linkages between visual and textual elements.

Similar to part I and II, we will work with image montage outputs. Only this time, we sample videos using the textual data dimensions provided by co-hashtags and stickers. We follow research designs that attune to various research aims, ranging from detecting tactical activities to mapping discursive temporal dynamics. In this way, we repurpose discursive patterns for the interpretational work involved in assessing the meta-picture.

Participants will work together with workshop facilitators in an interdisciplinary setting, combining qualitative interpretative protocols of close- and cross-reading with data-intensive methods of visual design and storytelling. All participants are required to bring a laptop. TikTok datasets and step-by-step walkthrough documents will be provided as a basis for exploration and further methodological development. No technical knowledge is required.

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20 Years of Situational Analysis: Workshopping Methods for Mapping Complex Information Systems

Afternoon Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Gabriel Pereira-London School of Economics, Abel Guerra-London School of Economics, Annette Markham-RMIT University, Aleesha Rodriguez-QUT, Riccardo Pronzato-IULM University, ‪Ane Kathrine Gammelby-Aarhus University

Various schools of the interpretive, feminist, and posthuman turns have focused on the tensions and interplays of discourse and materiality, agency and structure. A key qualitative method that emerged from this debate is situational analysis (SA), proposed by Adele Clarke (2003; 2005) and further developed by other scholars (e.g. Clarke, Friese, and Washburn, 2015; Markham & Gammelby, 2018). SA proposes a series of methods for researchers to continuously and reflexively map situations. By centering situations, rather than restraining the analysis to particular pieces of text, situational analysis asks us to not only pay attention to, but repeatedly map, lay out, visualize, and connect relevant actors in a situation of concern. SA thus offers a useful toolset for interpretively considering how different agents interact, empowering researchers to systematically interpret complex situations.

This half-day pre-conference marks the anniversary of 20 years of SA by exploring and workshopping this valuable method for mapping and understanding information systems and the Internet across their varied human, more-than-human, and nonhuman interactions. The workshop will begin with a brief conceptual presentation of the core concepts and methods of SA. This will be followed by a showcase of three practical cases (health-related Facebook groups, TikTok’s algorithm, and SA as a pedagogical tool), demonstrating SA in practice. Finally, a hands-on exercise will split workshop participants, giving time to experiment with and practice the techniques of SA.
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Undergraduate Teaching Workshop

Afternoon Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Holly Kruse-Rogers State University, Kelly Boudreau-Harrisburg-University of Science and Technology.

Teaching is a big part of most of our academic lives, whether we are graduate teaching assistants or junior or senior faculty members; tenure-track, tenured, or contingent faculty; experienced educators or instructors relatively new to teaching. In the classroom (on campus or virtual), our students’ understandings of social media and internet use don’t always align with broader press or research narratives. This workshop endeavors to bring educators together to discuss the difficulties and joys of teaching in, on, and around the internet. Questions for discussion will focus on (but not be limited to): What do we learn from our students about the internet, how are we using the internet to teach, and what’s the best way of bringing AoIR research into our classrooms? How do we use the internet in teaching when our students don’t have broadband access, aren’t digitally-savvy, and when our institutions do not offer robust technical infrastructures or support? As professors with teaching experience that spans types of institutions, student populations, and institutional support, we understand that there are no one-size fits all solutions to teaching in ever-changing technological and social contexts. The experience of running two workshops has made us more aware of the ways in which teaching loads, expectations of service to students and administration, and institutional terminologies differ around the world. The workshop is therefore discussion/conversation-based so we can all learn from and with one another.

Virtual participation may be accommodated by allowing auditors to view the in-person conversation over Zoom.. All registered participants will be able to contribute their thoughts via a shared Google Doc. Our session will begin with a welcome that emphasizes AoIR’s principles. Having this statement written in the shared Google doc and visible for all participants means that it’s in sight and front of mind: This workshop adheres to AoIR’s Statement of Principles and Statement of Inclusivity, which is a commitment to academic freedom, equality of opportunity, and human dignity. This means that in this workshop, just like in the rest of the AoIR conference, no harassment or discrimination will be permitted, and members must commit to the inclusion and recognition of all members. We appreciate the participants in this session arriving with a shared sense of purpose, community, and respect as we discuss teaching today. https://aoir.org/diversity-and-inclusivity/

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Workshop on Responsible Recommender Systems

Full day Session – 18 October 2023


Organizers: Jean Burgess-Queensland University of Technology, Natali Helberger-University of Amsterdam, Julian Thomas-RMIT University, Sanne Vrijenhoek-University of Amsterdam, Patrik Wikström-Queensland University of Technology, Stanislaw Piasecki-University of Amsterdam, Nick Seaver-Tufts University, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez-Queensland University of Technology, Jeffrey Chan-RMIT University

Recommender systems are among the most ubiquitous automated systems in the digital environment. Using data and algorithms to connect users with content and each other, and found in everything from short-stay accommodation platforms to dating apps, news websites and social media, recommenders are a locus for social anxiety, pointed critique, and policy scrutiny — as well as considerable ongoing research and innovation.

Through a combination of presentations, discussions, and exercises, this full-day workshop explores the technical, regulatory, economic and sociocultural aspects of recommenders, situating them in their historical and industry contexts, and articulating their future prospects.

The workshop is facilitated by an international group of leading researchers from law, communication and media, anthropology, and computer science. Participants new to this topic will gain a fundamental understanding of recommenders’ scope and significance; colleagues already actively engaged in recommender research will have the opportunity to contribute insights from their own work.