Dissertation Grant: Critical Algorithmic Literacy: World-Building Around and with Algorithms

该奖项支持一个关于算法的社会影响的博士论文研究项目，该项目侧重于算法素养，即更好地理解算法如何、为什么以及以什么影响发挥作用的能力。在这些影响中，至关重要的是算法如何调解各种社会实践和过程，以及塑造我们理解自己和我们生活现实的方式；研究人员指的是算法带来诸如算法能力之类的影响的能力。更具体地说，该研究项目将探索关键的算法素养，它被定义为“读”和“写”算法所说和所指的社会实践和过程，并将调查知识构建和意义创造过程作为一种自下而上的治理工具的可能性，可用于对抗算法权力。更好地理解算法素养，特别是当它与算法能力相交时，可以帮助我们以最佳方式管理算法的社会影响。该项目从根本上关注的是确保算法公平公正地为所有人工作。具体地说，这项研究产生的见解可以为政策制定者如何管理算法、活动家和倡导组织如何吸引和教育他们的(潜在)支持者、教育机构如何帮助学生学习算法以及技术开发人员如何设计他们的系统提供信息。这项关于算法素养的研究项目有三个关键目标。首先，它努力拓宽围绕算法的知识构建和意义创造过程的视野，这将开辟探索算法知识和素养的新途径。通过拒绝标准的知识层次结构，算法设计者和用户可以开始考虑更广泛的知识实践。其次，该项目试图超越对知识和识字的叙述，这些叙述暗示着某些“无知”的人，他们的知识必须得到纠正，才能在世界上取得成功。在这样做的过程中，这项研究挑战了现有的方法，即考虑将算法素养视为对个人和世界都具有变革性的可能意味着什么。最后，该项目采用了一种新的算法能力方法，前提是个人和集体与算法能力的对抗。这种方法将提高我们对算法能力体验的理解，以及对抑制或促进响应动作曲目的因素的理解。该项目的成果承诺推动科学技术研究、科学技术中的伦理和价值观以及信息和通信技术领域的发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports a doctoral dissertation research project on the societal impacts of algorithms that focuses on algorithmic literacy, meaning the ability to better understand how, why, and with what effect algorithms function. Critical among such effects are the ways in which algorithms mediate various social practices and processes, and shape the ways we understand ourselves and our lived realities; the researcher refers to the capacity of algorithms to bring about such effects as algorithmic power. More specifically, the research project will explore critical algorithmic literacy, defined as the social practices and processes of "reading" and "writing" what algorithms say and mean, and it will investigate the possibility of knowledge-building and meaning-making processes as a bottom-up tool of governance that can be used to confront algorithmic power. Better understanding algorithmic literacy, particularly as it intersects with algorithmic power, can assist us in optimally managing the societal impacts of algorithms. The project is fundamentally concerned with ensuring algorithms work fairly and justly for all. Specifically, the insights produced from this research can inform how policymakers approach governing algorithms, how activist and advocacy organizations engage and educate their (potential) supporters, how educational institutions help students learn about algorithms, and how technology developers design their systems.This research project on algorithmic literacy has three key goals. First, it strives to broaden visions of knowledge-building and meaning-making processes around algorithms will open up new avenues of inquiry on algorithmic knowledge and literacy. By rejecting normative hierarchies of knowledge, algorithm designers and users can begin to consider a wider range of knowledge practices. Second, the project attempts to move beyond narratives of knowledge and literacy that imply certain "ignorant" individuals, whose knowledge must be corrected in order for them to succeed in the world. In doing so, the research challenges existing approaches to consider what it might mean to view algorithmic literacy as transformative of both the individual and the world. Finally, the project adopts a novel approach to algorithmic power, premised on individual and collective confrontations with it. This approach will improve our understanding of the experience of algorithmic power and of the factors that stifle or facilitate repertoires of action in response. The results of the project promise to advance the fields of Science and Technology Studies, Ethics and Values in Science and Technology, and Information and Communication Technology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.