Phillip Brooker
Biographic Data
| ID | 259446 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Phillip Brooker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Phillip |
| FAMILY NAME | Brooker |
| SIGNATURE | BROOKER P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1189-4647 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Thinking Like a Machine: Alan Turing, Computation and the Praxeological Foundations of AI
As part of ongoing research bridging ethnomethodology and computer science, in this article we offer an alternate reading of Alan Turing’s 1936 paper, “On Computable Numbers”. Following through Turing’s machinic respecification of computation, we hope to contribute to a deflationary position on AI by showing that the activities attributed to AIs are achieved in the course of methodic hands-on work with computational systems and not in isolation b…
Accumulating a Body of Knowledge: Tailing the Detectives
Doing the Organization’s Work—Transcription for All Practical Governmental Purposes
By comparing two distinct governmental organizations (the US military and NASA) this paper unpacks two main issues. On the one hand, the paper examines the transcripts that are produced as part of work activities in these worksites and what the transcripts reveal about the organizations themselves. Additionally, the paper analyses what the transcripts disclose about the practices involved in their creation and use for practical purposes in these …
Computational ethnography: A view from sociology
This commentary elaborates on the ideas and projects outlined in this special issue, from a specifically sociological perspective. Much recent work in sociology proposes 'methods mashups' of ethnography and digital data/computational tools in different and diverse ways. However, typically, these have taken the form of applying (with or without tweaks) the principles of ethnography to new domains and data types, as if ethnography itself is stable …
Rape myths in practice: The everyday work of accounting for rape survivors
‘Rape mythologising’ has been found to be a reason why survivors of rape feel blamed, and might contribute to low rates of reporting or conviction. No research to date examines whether ‘rape mythologising’ occurs in the conversations of sexual health staff when discussing rape cases. Conversation Analysis was used to analyse a focus group conversation between five sexual healthcare clinic staff who routinely provided support to rape survivors, on…
Just what are we doing when we're describing AI? Harvey Sacks, the commentator machine, and the descriptive politics of the new artificial intelligence
In dialogue with the work of Heather Love and colleagues, this article makes use of a peculiar 'descriptive assemblage' proposed by Harvey Sacks (1963) - that of the 'commentator machine' - to open up issues of 'descriptive politics' in the field of contemporary Artificial Intelligence (AI). We do so by reviewing the gameplay of Google DeepMind's AlphaGo - an algorithm designed to outperform human players at the game of Go - with a focus on the i…
My unexpectedly militant bots: A case for Programming-as-Social-Science
This article examines bots - software applications that automate web-based tasks, and which often mimic human interaction and communication - to consider sociological responses to software design and computer programming. Leveraging design methodologies for critical sociological purposes (a) allows us to envision programming as a means of opening up 'black boxes' by engaging more directly with the code through which software applications are exec…
Programming Visuals, Visualising Programs
This article examines the role of visualisations in astrophysics programming work, showing that visualisations are not only outputs for those producing them, but can help those developing them understand how to do their work. Studies of visualization in programming have mainly been of social and cultural factors influencing scientific research. We concentrate on the material aspects of scientific work, as of interest in their own right and on met…
Researching with Twitter timeline data: A demonstration via "everyday" socio-political talk around welfare provision
Increasingly, social media platforms are understood by researchers to be valuable sites of politically-relevant discussions. However, analyses of social media data are typically undertaken by focusing on 'snapshots' of issues using query-keyword search strategies. This paper develops an alternative, less issue-based, mode of analysing Twitter data. It provides a framework for working qualitatively with longitudinally-oriented Twitter data (user-t…
Counter-Discourse Activism on Social Media: The Case of Challenging “Poverty Porn” Television
In this paper we investigate how online counter-discourse is designed, deployed and orchestrated by activists to challenge dominant narratives around socio-political issues. We focus on activism related to the UK broadcast media's negative portrayal of welfare benefit claimants; portrayals characterised as "poverty porn" by critics. Using critical discourse analysis, we explore two activist campaigns countering the TV programme Benefits Street . …
Doing stigma: Online commenting around weight-related news media
Weight stigma results from the mediatisation of ‘obesity’: conceptually, a medicalised problem resulting from personal bodily irresponsibility. We undertake a frame analysis of 1452 comments on a thematically related online news article published via The Guardian, about the status of ‘obesity’ as a disability in European Union (EU) employment law. We identify three themes: (1) weight as a lifestyle choice or disability, (2) weight as an irrespons…
The value of social media data: Integrating crowd capabilities in evidence-based policy
What would Wittgenstein say about social media
Much of the excitement in social media analytics revolves around, a) capturing large-scale collections of naturally-occurring talk, b) repurposing them as data, and, c) finding ways to speak sociologically about them. Researchers have raised concerns over the use of social media data in research (for example, boyd and Crawford, 2012; Housley et al, 2014; Tinati et al, 2014), exploring the ontological and epistemological grounding of the emerging …
Doing social media analytics
In the few years since the advent of 'Big Data' research, social media analytics has begun to accumulate studies drawing on social media as a resource and tool for research work. Yet, there has been relatively little attention paid to the development of methodologies for handling this kind of data. The few works that exist in this area often reflect upon the implications of 'grand' social science methodological concepts for new social media resea…
Collaborative Music-Making with Digital Audio Workstations: The 'nth Member' as a Heuristic Device for Understanding the Role of Technologies in Audio Composition
This article examines amateur music-making using a digital audio workstation, showing how audio and software are used as resources for creating compositions. The article has two aims. Firstly, to depict how digital music-making is formed from routine interactional techniques. Secondly, to probe how researchers might account for such multi-modal activity through a heuristic device: the 'nth member.' Whereas sociology has typically been concerned w…
The value of social media data: Integrating crowd capabilities in evidence-based policy
Doing social media analytics
In the few years since the advent of 'Big Data' research, social media analytics has begun to accumulate studies drawing on social media as a resource and tool for research work. Yet, there has been relatively little attention paid to the development of methodologies for handling this kind of data. The few works that exist in this area often reflect upon the implications of 'grand' social science methodological concepts for new social media resea…
Computational ethnography: A view from sociology
This commentary elaborates on the ideas and projects outlined in this special issue, from a specifically sociological perspective. Much recent work in sociology proposes 'methods mashups' of ethnography and digital data/computational tools in different and diverse ways. However, typically, these have taken the form of applying (with or without tweaks) the principles of ethnography to new domains and data types, as if ethnography itself is stable …
Researching with Twitter timeline data: A demonstration via "everyday" socio-political talk around welfare provision
Increasingly, social media platforms are understood by researchers to be valuable sites of politically-relevant discussions. However, analyses of social media data are typically undertaken by focusing on 'snapshots' of issues using query-keyword search strategies. This paper develops an alternative, less issue-based, mode of analysing Twitter data. It provides a framework for working qualitatively with longitudinally-oriented Twitter data (user-t…
Doing stigma: Online commenting around weight-related news media
Weight stigma results from the mediatisation of ‘obesity’: conceptually, a medicalised problem resulting from personal bodily irresponsibility. We undertake a frame analysis of 1452 comments on a thematically related online news article published via The Guardian, about the status of ‘obesity’ as a disability in European Union (EU) employment law. We identify three themes: (1) weight as a lifestyle choice or disability, (2) weight as an irrespons…
What would Wittgenstein say about social media
Much of the excitement in social media analytics revolves around, a) capturing large-scale collections of naturally-occurring talk, b) repurposing them as data, and, c) finding ways to speak sociologically about them. Researchers have raised concerns over the use of social media data in research (for example, boyd and Crawford, 2012; Housley et al, 2014; Tinati et al, 2014), exploring the ontological and epistemological grounding of the emerging …
Just what are we doing when we're describing AI? Harvey Sacks, the commentator machine, and the descriptive politics of the new artificial intelligence
In dialogue with the work of Heather Love and colleagues, this article makes use of a peculiar 'descriptive assemblage' proposed by Harvey Sacks (1963) - that of the 'commentator machine' - to open up issues of 'descriptive politics' in the field of contemporary Artificial Intelligence (AI). We do so by reviewing the gameplay of Google DeepMind's AlphaGo - an algorithm designed to outperform human players at the game of Go - with a focus on the i…
Collaborative Music-Making with Digital Audio Workstations: The 'nth Member' as a Heuristic Device for Understanding the Role of Technologies in Audio Composition
This article examines amateur music-making using a digital audio workstation, showing how audio and software are used as resources for creating compositions. The article has two aims. Firstly, to depict how digital music-making is formed from routine interactional techniques. Secondly, to probe how researchers might account for such multi-modal activity through a heuristic device: the 'nth member.' Whereas sociology has typically been concerned w…
My unexpectedly militant bots: A case for Programming-as-Social-Science
This article examines bots - software applications that automate web-based tasks, and which often mimic human interaction and communication - to consider sociological responses to software design and computer programming. Leveraging design methodologies for critical sociological purposes (a) allows us to envision programming as a means of opening up 'black boxes' by engaging more directly with the code through which software applications are exec…
Doing social media analytics
In the few years since the advent of 'Big Data' research, social media analytics has begun to accumulate studies drawing on social media as a resource and tool for research work. Yet, there has been relatively little attention paid to the development of methodologies for handling this kind of data. The few works that exist in this area often reflect upon the implications of 'grand' social science methodological concepts for new social media resea…
Collaborative Music-Making with Digital Audio Workstations: The 'nth Member' as a Heuristic Device for Understanding the Role of Technologies in Audio Composition
This article examines amateur music-making using a digital audio workstation, showing how audio and software are used as resources for creating compositions. The article has two aims. Firstly, to depict how digital music-making is formed from routine interactional techniques. Secondly, to probe how researchers might account for such multi-modal activity through a heuristic device: the 'nth member.' Whereas sociology has typically been concerned w…
Counter-Discourse Activism on Social Media: The Case of Challenging “Poverty Porn” Television
In this paper we investigate how online counter-discourse is designed, deployed and orchestrated by activists to challenge dominant narratives around socio-political issues. We focus on activism related to the UK broadcast media's negative portrayal of welfare benefit claimants; portrayals characterised as "poverty porn" by critics. Using critical discourse analysis, we explore two activist campaigns countering the TV programme Benefits Street . …
Doing stigma: Online commenting around weight-related news media
Weight stigma results from the mediatisation of ‘obesity’: conceptually, a medicalised problem resulting from personal bodily irresponsibility. We undertake a frame analysis of 1452 comments on a thematically related online news article published via The Guardian, about the status of ‘obesity’ as a disability in European Union (EU) employment law. We identify three themes: (1) weight as a lifestyle choice or disability, (2) weight as an irrespons…
The value of social media data: Integrating crowd capabilities in evidence-based policy
What would Wittgenstein say about social media
Much of the excitement in social media analytics revolves around, a) capturing large-scale collections of naturally-occurring talk, b) repurposing them as data, and, c) finding ways to speak sociologically about them. Researchers have raised concerns over the use of social media data in research (for example, boyd and Crawford, 2012; Housley et al, 2014; Tinati et al, 2014), exploring the ontological and epistemological grounding of the emerging …
Programming Visuals, Visualising Programs
This article examines the role of visualisations in astrophysics programming work, showing that visualisations are not only outputs for those producing them, but can help those developing them understand how to do their work. Studies of visualization in programming have mainly been of social and cultural factors influencing scientific research. We concentrate on the material aspects of scientific work, as of interest in their own right and on met…
Researching with Twitter timeline data: A demonstration via "everyday" socio-political talk around welfare provision
Increasingly, social media platforms are understood by researchers to be valuable sites of politically-relevant discussions. However, analyses of social media data are typically undertaken by focusing on 'snapshots' of issues using query-keyword search strategies. This paper develops an alternative, less issue-based, mode of analysing Twitter data. It provides a framework for working qualitatively with longitudinally-oriented Twitter data (user-t…
My unexpectedly militant bots: A case for Programming-as-Social-Science
This article examines bots - software applications that automate web-based tasks, and which often mimic human interaction and communication - to consider sociological responses to software design and computer programming. Leveraging design methodologies for critical sociological purposes (a) allows us to envision programming as a means of opening up 'black boxes' by engaging more directly with the code through which software applications are exec…
Rape myths in practice: The everyday work of accounting for rape survivors
‘Rape mythologising’ has been found to be a reason why survivors of rape feel blamed, and might contribute to low rates of reporting or conviction. No research to date examines whether ‘rape mythologising’ occurs in the conversations of sexual health staff when discussing rape cases. Conversation Analysis was used to analyse a focus group conversation between five sexual healthcare clinic staff who routinely provided support to rape survivors, on…
Just what are we doing when we're describing AI? Harvey Sacks, the commentator machine, and the descriptive politics of the new artificial intelligence
In dialogue with the work of Heather Love and colleagues, this article makes use of a peculiar 'descriptive assemblage' proposed by Harvey Sacks (1963) - that of the 'commentator machine' - to open up issues of 'descriptive politics' in the field of contemporary Artificial Intelligence (AI). We do so by reviewing the gameplay of Google DeepMind's AlphaGo - an algorithm designed to outperform human players at the game of Go - with a focus on the i…
Doing the Organization’s Work—Transcription for All Practical Governmental Purposes
By comparing two distinct governmental organizations (the US military and NASA) this paper unpacks two main issues. On the one hand, the paper examines the transcripts that are produced as part of work activities in these worksites and what the transcripts reveal about the organizations themselves. Additionally, the paper analyses what the transcripts disclose about the practices involved in their creation and use for practical purposes in these …
Computational ethnography: A view from sociology
This commentary elaborates on the ideas and projects outlined in this special issue, from a specifically sociological perspective. Much recent work in sociology proposes 'methods mashups' of ethnography and digital data/computational tools in different and diverse ways. However, typically, these have taken the form of applying (with or without tweaks) the principles of ethnography to new domains and data types, as if ethnography itself is stable …
Thinking Like a Machine: Alan Turing, Computation and the Praxeological Foundations of AI
As part of ongoing research bridging ethnomethodology and computer science, in this article we offer an alternate reading of Alan Turing’s 1936 paper, “On Computable Numbers”. Following through Turing’s machinic respecification of computation, we hope to contribute to a deflationary position on AI by showing that the activities attributed to AIs are achieved in the course of methodic hands-on work with computational systems and not in isolation b…
Accumulating a Body of Knowledge: Tailing the Detectives
Computer Science (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Political science (8 works) · Social media (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works) · Data science (5 works) · Law (5 works) · World Wide Web (5 works) · Politics (4 works) · Public relations (4 works)