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Whether we are discussing measures in order to "flatten the curve" in a pandemic or what to wear given the most recent weather forecast, we base arguments on patterns observed in data. This article presents an approach to practicing ethics when working with large datasets and designing data representations. We programmed and used web-based interfaces to sort, organize, and explore a community-run archive of radio signals. Inspired by feminist critique of technoscience and recent problematizations of digital literacy, we argue that one can navigate machine learning models in a multi-narrative manner. We hold that the main challenge to sovereignty comes from lingering forms of colonialism and extractive relationships that easily move in and out of the digital domain. Countering both narratives of techno-optimism and the universalizing critique of technology, we discuss an approach to data and networks that enables a situated critique of datafication and correlationism from within.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities already marginalized in pre-coronavirus societies, aggravated by socio-political technologies of racialization, sexism, homo- and transphobia. Dear Chaemin (directed by Bae, 2020) is an autofictional documentary series of three video letters sent from The Hague to the director's sister in Seoul amid isolation. The film juxtaposes the Korean and Dutch contexts of state surveillance, entangled with the b/ordering technologies against queer communities in Seoul and Asian communities in Europe. This paper explores autofictional documentary as an audiovisual method to engage with contemporary dynamics of international politics. First, I summarize the arguments made in the three chapters of the film Dear Chaemin. Second, I propose autofictional documentary as an effective cinematic mode that accounts for situated knowledges and critiques collective memories. Finally, I explore how the autofictional mode is further contextualized through the use of unconventional, non-lens-based audiovisual material.

Digital twins are gaining attention in healthcare, especially in fields like hospital management, simulating surgeries, or providing personalized health. As digital replicas based on users' data, digital twins can inform citizens in-depth about their lifestyle, medical data, and biomedical data. Hence, there is the assumption that digital twins could facilitate preventative healthcare at home, bringing healthcare closer to citizens, yet there are underexamined ethical concerns. In this paper, we explore the ethics of digital twins based on citizens' perspectives on digital twins in healthcare via recent literature and research. Although digital twins have great potential, citizens have concerns about surveillance, data ownership, data accuracy, and personal and collective agency.

Born as a multilingual blog in May 2020, 'COVID-19 from the Margins' has offered a space for authors to voice the silenced narratives of the COVID-19 pandemic in any language chosen and representing multiple South(s) of the world (Milan & Treré, 2019). The blog became an open-access book in February 2021, and since then it has travelled across the globe to bring to light narratives of devoiced groups during COVID-19, generating debate on stories narrated by, amongst others, forced migrants, gig workers, ethnic minorities, people in economic poverty, and survivors of domestic violence. The project is divided into five sections - "Human Invisibilities and the Politics of Counting," "Perpetuated Vulnerabilities and Inequalities," "Datafied Social Policies," "Technological Reconfigurations in the Datafied Pandemic," and "Pandemic Solidarities and Resistance from Below" - which together contribute to the decolonial, multilingual project of narrating the COVID-19 pandemic through the voices of the systematically silenced. In this short paper, we reflect on the 'COVID-19 from the Margins' experience and on its meaning towards a decolonial, multilingual narration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This contribution looks at cultural heritage institutions and their digital assets from a commons perspective. Since the beginning of digitization in the late 1990s and with the change of the medium from the analogue to the digital, the role and mission of cultural heritage institutions has changed. Challenges for managing their assets in the sense of a commons arise, on the one hand, due to the current legislation on copyright and intellectual property rights, and, on the other, because of the availability of digital cultural heritage as Big Data, which opens up possibilities for economic exploitation of these assets by private companies. Should digital assets be available open access, or should access and use be regulated? This short paper discusses the possibilities for this model of sovereign data governance within the legal regimes of intellectual property rights and the public domain.

Es gibt Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass die durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ausgelöste Krise zu strukturellen Veränderungen der Arbeitswelt geführt hat, die in engem Zusammenhang mit Digitalisierungsprozessen stehen. Einige Veränderungen sind in industriellen Produktionsprozessen, der mobilen Arbeit und auch der Plattformarbeit zu erwarten. Damit solche Veränderungen sich positiv auf die Arbeitswelt auswirken ist politische Gestaltung gefragt. Beobachtbar ist, dass einige Unternehmen ihre Digitalstrategien überdenken, teils forcieren und vermehrt mit neuen Möglichkeiten experimentieren. Hier ist es notwendig, Betriebsrät_innen und Beschäftigte frühzeitig in die Gestaltung neuer Ansätze einzubinden. Am offensichtlichsten hat sich die Arbeitswelt in der Krise durch die digitale Kommunikation im virtuellen Raum verändert. Menschen die bereits im Homeoffice arbeiten, sind jedoch verschiedenen Schwierigkeiten ausgesetzt. Virulent sind Fragen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, die Vermischung von beruflichem und privaten, sowie die Ausstattung des häuslichen Arbeitsplatzes. Aufgrund der Erschütterung der regulären Arbeitsmärkte nahm auch über digitale Plattformen vermittelte Arbeit zu. Die prekären Arbeitsbedingungen der Plattformarbeiter_innen haben sich während der Pandemie noch zugespitzt, gleichzeitig ist international aber eine politische Regulierung der Plattformarbeit in Sicht, die inzwischen auch in Deutschland in Ansätzen stattfindet. Diese Arbeit wurde durch das das Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (684 11 - “Denkfabrik Digitale Arbeitsgesellschaft”) und das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) gefördert (Förderkennzeichen: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“).

The COVID 19 crisis has had a massive impact on the world of work. Based on a standardized survey of 540 company sites and 34 qualitative case studies in six industries (automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering, logistics, healthcare and financial services), this study examines how companies’ digitalization and automation strategies have changed in the context of the pandemic. The analysis shows that the companies surveyed have by and large coped well with the crisis. However, an increasing polarization is becoming apparent. Digital pioneers intensified digitalization measures to a greater extent than those that were already behind in this respect before the pandemic. The focus of digitalization during the pandemic was particularly on supporting processes in administration, human resources management and sales. Automation also primarily played a role in these fields and only a minority of respondents expected employment losses in the medium term. Another key finding of this study is the correlation between technical and organizational innovation. It can be observed that those companies that invested more heavily in technical digitalization processes were also more inclined to make organizational changes with regard to management styles, working hours and work organization. This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (684 11 - "Denkfabrik Digitale Arbeitsgesellschaft") and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 - "Deutsches Internet-Institut").

Taking the notion of health as a leitmotif, this paper discusses some conceptual boundaries for using machine learning⁠ - a data-driven, statistical, and computational technique in the field of artificial intelligence⁠ - for epistemic purposes and for generating knowledge about the world based solely on the statistical correlations found in data (i.e., the "End of Theory" view⁠).The thrust of the argument is that prior theoretical conceptions, subjectivity, and values would - because of their normative power⁠ - inevitably blight any effort at knowledge-making that seeks to be exclusively driven by data and nothing else. The conclusion suggests that machine learning will neither resolve nor mitigate⁠ the serious internal contradictions found in the "biostatistical theory" of health⁠ - the most well-discussed data-driven theory of health. The definition of notions such as these is an ongoing and fraught societal dialogue where the discussion is not only about what is, but also about what should be. This dialogical engagement is a question of ethics and politics ⁠and not one of mathematics.

The shift to remote work poses particular challenges for teamwork. It makes spontaneous and informal communication more difficult and may weaken social relations in teams. This study based on an online survey of 1,516 individuals who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic examines the functioning of teamwork in remote-work contexts and attempts to answer the following questions: (1) What organizational and technical working conditions influence working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) How did collaboration in different forms of teamwork evolve under working-from-home conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic? (3) What effects of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic can be observed in terms of teamwork productivity? Overall, the study reveals quite surprising differences between different forms of team organization. The quality of team collaboration and team productivity slightly increased in agile teams, even in a situation where at least some members of the team were working from home. In contrast, respondents working in traditional teams reported slightly negative effects of working from home on teamwork quality and team productivity.

Contemporary models of digital inclusion and the digital divide assume that developing the digital literacy that enables individuals to participate in society is a sequential and linear process that is more or less similar for all individuals in all contexts and requires basic linguistic skills. This paper challenges these understandings, arguing that such a technical, normative perspective excludes marginalized and disadvantaged publics, such as low-(digital) literate citizens. Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of low-literate Dutch adults, we show that the often-described causal relation between (digital) literacies, (digital) participation, and (digital) inclusion is not as evident as it seems and neglects the important socio-cultural contexts through which (digital) literacies are often gained and enacted in everyday practice. Consequently, we argue that current conceptualizations of (digital) inclusion and (digital) participation need to be rethought in terms of the limitations, potential, and capabilities of low-literate people.

This paper asks what skills migrants need to be able to deal with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in a self-determined way in their everyday lives. We propose a conceptual framework to empirically identify migrant's awareness and perceptions of possible discrimination through AI. Following Bucher (2017, 40), we argue that by experiencing AI systems in their digital environments, people develop AI imaginaries that shape their attitudes, interactions, and practices with AI. We assume that experiences of discrimination evoke affects, feelings, and emotions that at first glance are not associated with AI technologies. The paper provides relevant research questions that address AI imaginaries. In addition to studying knowledge about and perceptions of AI, research should increasingly focus on users' attitudes towards AI, their evaluations of AI, and their feelings, emotions, and affects related to AI. Subsequently, we elaborate on dimensions of digital literacy based on these AI imaginaries. Finally, we will describe the digital skills that are necessary to confidently cope with discrimination by AI technologies.

The unprecedented rise of startups such as Google or Amazon has spurred an ongoing debate on the conceptualization of the corporate model these firms represent. Thus far, attention has centered on the analysis of their product and market strategies highlighting their platform nature as common feature and its defining characteristic. By applying and scaling the platform business model these companies have been able to capture value created outside the firm. The focus on the platform nature and the evolution of their external ecosystems, however, has left the work that is done inside these companies to create and provide online platforms largely unnoticed. Against this background, the article seeks to contribute to the debate by analyzing the inner mode of production as an essential component of their corporate model. The second nature of online platform firms, it is argued, is that they are tech companies. Building on this, the article aims to reconstruct how as tech companies they have learned and perfected to continuously develop and operate the internet applications that power their online platforms at global scale.

We explore the impact of automation and digitalization on labor in the US agrifood system during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study considers each of the primary nodes in the system stretching from consumer through grocery stores and restaurants to last-mile delivery, distribution, food processing, farming, and agri-inputs. Not only automation and digitalization, but also the role of platforms such as Amazon, and food delivery firms such as GrubHub, Instacart, and Uber Eats are discussed. For restaurants, we consider not only dine-in restaurants, but also ���ghost kitchens���. Furthermore, the possibility that farmers or distributors could disintermediate other nodes and deal directly with consumers is discussed. We conclude that, as a generalization, the further upstream one goes from the consumer, the less immediate and disruptive automation is likely to be for labor. However, our overall conclusion is that, given the current trajectories, labor is becoming increasingly precarious. If the current labor shortages continue, then automation is likely to accelerate. Platformization, while rampant in the relationships with final consumers, is likely to be less rapidly adopted further upstream where relationships are B-to-B and thus composed of actors that are wary of sharing data.

Die Umstellung auf Homeoffice während der COVID-19-Pandemie war eine Herausforderung für Teams. Die sozialen Kontakte und die Vielzahl informeller Begegnungen und Kommunikationsströme nahmen ab, die Interaktion fand vor allem virtuell statt und erforderte neue Kommunikationsmuster. In der vorliegenden, auf einer Befragung von 1.516 Erwerbstätigen beruhenden, Studie wurde untersucht (1) welche organisatorischen, aber auch technischen Bedingungen die Arbeit im Homeoffice während der COVID-19-Pandemie prägen, (2) wie sich die Zusammenarbeit in unterschiedlichen Formen der Teamarbeit unter den Bedingungen des Homeoffice während der COVID-19-Pandemie entwickelt hat und (3) welche Auswirkungen des Homeoffice sich während der COVID-19-Pandemie im Hinblick auf die Produktivität der Teamarbeit beobachten lassen. Die Studie zeigt überraschende Unterschiede zwischen unterschiedlichen Formen der Teamorganisation. Agile Teams konnten im Homeoffice die Qualität der Teamzusammenarbeit und die Teamproduktivität leicht steigern. Befragte, die in traditionellen Teams arbeiteten, berichteten hingegen leicht negative Auswirkungen des Homeoffice während der Pandemie auf die Qualität der Teamarbeit und die Teamproduktivität. Diese Arbeit wurde durch das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) gefördert (Förderkennzeichen: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 - "Deutsches Internet-Institut").

This discussion paper investigates two questions: To what extend can Tesla be regarded as a digital firm, and do we - as a result - see elements of a distinct "Tesla production system"? While the EV-startup is widely approached as a competing automaker focusing on the electric drive train, which it certainly is, this paper argues that it can only fully be understood as a digital firm - a digital car company with a digital product embedded in a digital ecosystem. Its roots in Silicon Valley, its software-first approach, and its strategic exploitation of user activity data point into this direction. In the second part, this paper explores to what extent Tesla's rootedness in software and its Silicon-Valley ancestry gave reason to introduce methods borrowed from software development on the shop floor. To a certain degree, concepts from agile software development found their way to the very assembly-line at Tesla. Although it might be exaggerated to speak of a distinct "Tesla Production system", indications for a considerable and possibly enduring alteration of Lean Production paradigm can be determined. This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 - "Deutsches Internet-Institut") and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of Germany (BMAS).

Es gibt Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass die durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ausgelöste Krise zu strukturellen Veränderungen der Arbeitswelt geführt hat, die in engem Zusammenhang mit Digitalisierungsprozessen stehen. Einige Veränderungen sind in industriellen Produktionsprozessen, der mobilen Arbeit und auch der Plattformarbeit zu erwarten. Damit solche Veränderungen sich positiv auf die Arbeitswelt auswirken ist politische Gestaltung gefragt. Beobachtbar ist, dass einige Unternehmen ihre Digitalstrategien überdenken, teils forcieren und vermehrt mit neuen Möglichkeiten experimentieren. Hier ist es notwendig, Betriebsrät_innen und Beschäftigte frühzeitig in die Gestaltung neuer Ansätze einzubinden. Am offensichtlichsten hat sich die Arbeitswelt in der Krise durch die digitale Kommunikation im virtuellen Raum verändert. Menschen die bereits im Homeoffice arbeiten, sind jedoch verschiedenen Schwierigkeiten ausgesetzt. Virulent sind Fragen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, die Vermischung von beruflichem und privaten, sowie die Ausstattung des häuslichen Arbeitsplatzes. Aufgrund der Erschütterung der regulären Arbeitsmärkte nahm auch über digitale Plattformen vermittelte Arbeit zu. Die prekären Arbeitsbedingungen der Plattformarbeiter_innen haben sich während der Pandemie noch zugespitzt, gleichzeitig ist international aber eine politische Regulierung der Plattformarbeit in Sicht, die inzwischen auch in Deutschland in Ansätzen stattfindet.

In this contribution to a 'call for evidence' by the House of Lords (UK), we investigate the pivotal role of the Internet during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Internet has enabled many to work from home, to shop and be educated online, and keep in touch with colleagues and friends. The swift move online of many activities raised concerns about the robustness and resilience of the Internet. Contrary to some concerns, expressed when national lockdowns were being imposed, the Internet did not collapse. However, while the Internet allowed many to work from home etc., not everyone has access to the Internet. Furthermore, there are many differences between those who do have access to the Internet - quite simply, some are able to access the Internet using connections that are a lot faster than others. This shapes what businesses and individuals can do online, with those with slower connections or connections shared between many users being disadvantaged compared to those whose connectivity is better. Finally, it is necessary to remember that not everything can move online. Some occupations, such as those with a greater knowledge content, are more amenable to the move online than those with a larger labour (physical) component.

We are currently witnessing a fundamental structural transformation of the scientific public sphere, characterized by processes of specialization, metrification, internationalization, platformization, and visibilization. In contrast to explanations of this structural transformation that invoke a technological determinism, we demonstrate its historical contingency by drawing on analytic concepts from organization theory and the case of the Open Access transformation in Germany. The digitization of academic journals has not broadened access to scientific output but narrowed it down even further in the course of the ���serials crisis���. For a long time, research institutions were not able to convince large academic publishers to adopt less restrictive forms of access to academic journals. It was only through the emergence of new and in part illegal actors (shadow libraries and preprint servers) that the existing path could be broken, and an Open Access path constituted. Following this analysis, we discuss consequences of the Open Access transformation for the public spheres of science and democracy. We conclude that Open Access publishing can only help to transform both communicative spaces towards the normative ideal of a public sphere when complemented by systematic support for non-profit publication infrastructures.

In the current public discussion, it is considered certain that we are living in a time of rapidly advancing automation, which is driven in particular by the use of robots. Accordingly, many academic publications use robot density as the central indicator of automation. The present study challenges this perspective. It examines two central questions: First, what approaches to automation and digitalization have been pursued in the automotive industry in Germany, Japan and the USA? Second, how have employment and its occupational composition in the automotive industry developed in the three countries? The first part of the study focuses on the development of automation and digitalization approaches in the automotive industry from the early 1990s until today. It combines a qualitative analysis of press articles and a quantitative evaluation of the development of the stock of industrial robots from 1993 to 2018 based on the statistics of the International Federation of Robotics. The second part of the study focuses on the change in employment structures using occupational statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA), the Federal Employment Agency (Germany) and the Statistics Bureau of Japan. The study questions the perception of an automation-related threat to employment and especially to production employment. At the same time, it discusses developments in Germany, Japan and the USA in comparison and highlights differences in automation and digitalization approaches as well as different paths of change in employment structures. Zugl.: Preprint (Manuscript Version) von Krzywdzinski, Martin (2021): Automation, digitalization, and changes in occupational structures in the automobile industry in Germany, Japan, and the United States: a brief history from the early 1990s until 2018, Industrial and Corporate Change, ISSN 1464-3650, Oxford University Press, Oxford, doi: 10.1093/icc/dtab019.

The platform economy has been criticized for exacerbating social inequalities in various ways. This study draws on these discussions and examines the extent to which social inequalities are being reproduced, reduced, or even increased within platform work. The first central question is that of the precariousness of this form of work and the vulnerability of the platform workers as a group. This is followed by a second question about the role of classical dimensions of inequality of education and gender within the group of platform workers. The study focuses on inequalities related to income, workload, and the subjective perception of platform work. It follows a comparative approach, building on institutionalist analyses developed in labor market and inequality research. The empirical analysis is based on case studies of 15 crowdwork platforms in the United States and Germany and on an online survey of crowdworkers in both countries. While platforms represent a global organizational model, they are embedded in different models of capitalism. The study shows that existing labor market segmentation and social welfare systems determine who works on platforms and to what extent. The weaker the social safety net, the more likely platform work is to be both a curse and a blessing: It offers a much needed and flexible source of income, albeit under extremely precarious conditions. The stronger the social safety net, on the other hand, the greater the market power of workers vis-à-vis the platforms.

This paper provides an investigation of the economy of the enterprise software Salesforce. The investigation looks at epistemologically distinct practices inscribed in enterprise software and challenges the notion of “digital Taylorism” by looking closer at current as well as historical practices of process management. While Taylor’s systematic approach involved a combination of distributed practices, Salesforce is an enterprise software platform that connects these practices digitally. Rather than examining the role of workers, the paper focuses particularly on the media techniques of Taylorism and the technologies in contemporary working environments that render organizational structures and courses of action available for algorithmic governance. Thereby, the paper seeks to contribute an additional theorization for organization studies and media theory. The mediated practices are conceptualized in four categories that allow for a contrast of Taylor’s approach with contemporary process management practices. In addition to an analysis of Taylor’s original texts and a document analysis of Salesforce whitepapers, this paper also presents empirical insights. The paper aims to shed light on the relation between techniques involved in Taylorist process management and governing modes of the enterprise software Salesforce.