Algorithmic Culture and Data Ethics

Abstract

This thesis study examines how features of algorithms that run on social networks and on the Internet affect culture and society. Algorithm which was once mainly debated in Computer Sciences has now become a topic of everyday life discussions. Even though, algorithms did exist before, there are new discussions surrounding them about their societal and cultural impact, emerging from their technological capacities and their application on various areas of life. In this respect, the main interest of this research is to find out what makes algorithms a new concern, why they become a part of the debates in social sciences and how they become prominent in the flow and activities of daily life. In modern information societies, the works of culture are increasingly being handed to computational processes which is called as Algorithmic Culture (Striphas, 2015). It is thought that this change has created social, cultural and economic outcomes which are conceptualized as information diet, economy politics of algorithms and surveillance. In order to deal with cultural, social and economic problems emerging from attribution of culture’s work to computational processes, this study suggests data ethics. In this regard, an ethics map is created including problems rising from data-driven algorithms and related data practices, features of algorithms and types of algorithms. The map has the purpose to conceptualize ethical problems and to discuss them with case studies empirically. The study suggests regulatory responses for the problems and aims to initiate an ethics discussion before the ‘unethical’ is stabilized.