Search

This article explores the growing role of traces and footprints in social science, giving an outline of the main concepts and empirical questions discussed in this special issue. Remarkably, the study of traces (unobtrusive, necessarily interpretative, theory-driven and data-fueled at the same time) considers them as unwillingly insightful and strategic materials. However, the difference between information "intentionally transmitted" and information "accidentally leaked" gets fuzzy especially in online communication and social network. In this sense, by interpreting the "digital data deluge" as a social trace deluge, issues of algorithmic environments, users' participation, datafied biases, and transparency are addressed. Finally, it is argued that traces, data exhaust, and residual information help overcoming standard dichotomies in social science (e.g., human vs. non-human realms, quantitative vs. qualitative, online vs. offline activities), both methodologically and theoretically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a neo-Kohlbergian approach, we explore the moral reasoning of 486 young Italian users of social network sites exposed to moral dilemmas concerning online hate speech. The aims are to understand what moral reasoning schemas they use as they face homophobic, racist, or sexist online hate speech, and what influence personal values and moral disengagement might have on their moral reasoning process. The results reveal the prevalence of Maintaining Norms reasoning (conformity to rules and authority) in making moral decisions concerning online hate speech and confirms the mediating role of Hate Speech Moral Disengagement in the relationship between personal values and the moral reasoning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at creating a bridge between media and migration studies and critical algorithm studies. By adopting a media ecological approach and a mutual shaping of technology and society perspective, in this paper, we explore the factors that lead, especially in Italy, to discriminant and stigmatizing image search results, related to specific groups of immigrants living in the country. We performed a content analysis of Google-Images search results with regard to the largest immigrant communities hosted in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Results show that the depiction of Romanian, Albanian, Moroccan, and Algerian immigrant communities on Google.it is flattened on a univocal stigmatized representation that shows them as criminals, which is not the case in other countries. Most of these stigmatizing images derive from local online newspapers, which questions the interplay between newsmaking choices and routines, and algorithms logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and journalistic accounts have devoted growing interest to the centralizing trends characterizing platforms and the "platform society." They often oppose this model to the alleged openness, horizontality, and "equality" they attach to "networks." Such depictions seem willing to give up on a thorough consideration of network structure, which appears nowadays less fundamental to reflect on the digital world (and society) than it was 25 years ago. Or even question whether the network society model, as proposed by Castells, is unsuitable for describing contemporary society. In our opinion, the dichotomy opposing the (alleged) openness and egalitarian nature of networks (and of the network society), to the current centralization trends characterizing the platform society, as well as the subsequent assumption that networks are an outdated heuristic tool, derive from a misunderstanding of networks' structure and dynamics. Scholars have shown that the structure of most complex networks can be defined as "scale-free," following a power-law distribution. Complex networks, indeed, show the tendency for some nodes to become more interconnected than others (thus becoming "hubs"). In this, the understanding of network structure proposed in Castells (1996), contrary to the rhetoric considering networks intrinsically as "egalitarian," is still a conceptual and analytical tool of the utmost importance for understanding the so-called "platform society." This paper focuses on networks, network models, and the network society, reviewing what was proposed in Castells (1996). We argue that the social and platform ecosystem we are witnessing today can be understood from the perspective of scale-free networks and is, indeed, consistent with the premises provided in 1996. When observing networks, we address both structure and agency, and both the macro (network morphology) and micro (networked individualism and sociability) levels [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]