Massimo Airoldi
Biographic Data
| ID | 584717 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Massimo Airoldi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Massimo |
| FAMILY NAME | Airoldi |
| SIGNATURE | AIROLDI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Milan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6639-8715 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 97 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
With eyes of a machine: A three-step guide for applying machine learning to visual content analysis in social research
This paper presents a practical guide to machine learning–assisted visual content analysis for social scientists. Combining machine automation with human expertise and reflexivity, the proposed methodological framework bridges the gap between computer vision and social research. Our custom approach combines inductive, deductive, and abductive logics of scientific inquiry and consists of three complementary steps: (a) Pattern exploration—employing…
The sociocultural roots of artificial conversations: The taste, class and habitus of generative AI chatbots
Research on AI has extensively considered biases related to gender and race. However, much less attention has been dedicated to another sociological tenet: that of class. Inspired by Bourdieu’s work on cultural stratification and distinction, this work sheds light on the sociocultural roots of artificial sociality, and on how these become manifest as ‘habitus’ within the outputs of generative AI models. We conducted 39 interviews with three AI ch…
The nested relationality of perceived legitimacy: Mapping taste hierarchies with granular digital traces
Algorithmic consumer culture
This article conceptualizes algorithmic consumer culture, and offers a framework that sheds new light on two previously conflicting theorizations: that (1) digitalization tends to liquefy consumer culture and thus acts primarily as an empowering force, and that (2) digitalized marketing and big data surveillance practices tend to deprive consumers of all autonomy. By drawing on critical social theories of algorithms and AI, we define and historic…
Why Sociological Theory Matters in the Age of Algorithms: Considerations on Ori Schwarz’s Sociological Theory for Digital Society - Ori Schwarz, Sociological Theory for Digital Society: The Codes That…
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Digital traces of taste: Methodological pathways for consumer research
With the increasing digitalization and datafication of consumption brought by platforms such as Amazon, Netflix and Spotify, digital traces of taste are constantly generated as by-products of consumers' everyday communications and activities. However, these data have not been fully exploited in the cross-disciplinary study of taste phenomena. This paper represents a first attempt to develop a comprehensive methodological framework for “augmenting…
The techno-social reproduction of taste boundaries on digital platforms: The case of music on YouTube
Understanding a digital movement of opinion: The case of #RefugeesWelcome
Recent work on digital political engagement has extensively shown that social media platforms enhance political participation and collective action. However, the idea that citizen voice through social media can give rise, under given conditions, to a specific digital force combining properties of social movements and public opinion has received less attention. We fill this gap by analysing the digital discussion around the Twitter hashtag #Refuge…
Ethnography and the digital fields of social media
Qualitative researchers struggle to study the transient fields of social network sites like Twitter through conventional ethnographic approaches. This paper suggests that, in order to step further, we should distinguish between the relatively stable ‘contextual’ fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, ‘meta-fields’ resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata. Both these two intertwined la…
Integrare survey e big data nella pratica della ricerca
International audience
Crowds and value. Italian Directioners on Twitter
This paper addresses crowd-based dynamics of value creation in participatory culture. Based on a corpus of 114,931 tweets associated with One Direction and similar boy bands, we draw on recent theories of crowd-based organization in digital media as well as classical crowd theory to build a theoretical model of collective value creation. In our model, the achievement of value in the form of trending and individual microcelebrity is based on affec…
Follow the algorithm: An exploratory investigation of music on YouTube
This article presents an exploratory study of the network of associations among 22,141 YouTube music videos retrieved by ‘following’ the platform's recommender algorithm, which automatically suggests a list of ‘related videos’ to the user in response to the video currently being viewed. As YouTube's recommendations are predominantly based on users’ aggregated practices of sequential viewing, this study aims to inductively reconstruct the resultin…
Ethnography and the digital fields of social media
Qualitative researchers struggle to study the transient fields of social network sites like Twitter through conventional ethnographic approaches. This paper suggests that, in order to step further, we should distinguish between the relatively stable ‘contextual’ fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, ‘meta-fields’ resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata. Both these two intertwined la…
Follow the algorithm: An exploratory investigation of music on YouTube
This article presents an exploratory study of the network of associations among 22,141 YouTube music videos retrieved by ‘following’ the platform's recommender algorithm, which automatically suggests a list of ‘related videos’ to the user in response to the video currently being viewed. As YouTube's recommendations are predominantly based on users’ aggregated practices of sequential viewing, this study aims to inductively reconstruct the resultin…
The techno-social reproduction of taste boundaries on digital platforms: The case of music on YouTube
The nested relationality of perceived legitimacy: Mapping taste hierarchies with granular digital traces
Crowds and value. Italian Directioners on Twitter
This paper addresses crowd-based dynamics of value creation in participatory culture. Based on a corpus of 114,931 tweets associated with One Direction and similar boy bands, we draw on recent theories of crowd-based organization in digital media as well as classical crowd theory to build a theoretical model of collective value creation. In our model, the achievement of value in the form of trending and individual microcelebrity is based on affec…
Follow the algorithm: An exploratory investigation of music on YouTube
This article presents an exploratory study of the network of associations among 22,141 YouTube music videos retrieved by ‘following’ the platform's recommender algorithm, which automatically suggests a list of ‘related videos’ to the user in response to the video currently being viewed. As YouTube's recommendations are predominantly based on users’ aggregated practices of sequential viewing, this study aims to inductively reconstruct the resultin…
Ethnography and the digital fields of social media
Qualitative researchers struggle to study the transient fields of social network sites like Twitter through conventional ethnographic approaches. This paper suggests that, in order to step further, we should distinguish between the relatively stable ‘contextual’ fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, ‘meta-fields’ resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata. Both these two intertwined la…
Integrare survey e big data nella pratica della ricerca
International audience
Understanding a digital movement of opinion: The case of #RefugeesWelcome
Recent work on digital political engagement has extensively shown that social media platforms enhance political participation and collective action. However, the idea that citizen voice through social media can give rise, under given conditions, to a specific digital force combining properties of social movements and public opinion has received less attention. We fill this gap by analysing the digital discussion around the Twitter hashtag #Refuge…
Digital traces of taste: Methodological pathways for consumer research
With the increasing digitalization and datafication of consumption brought by platforms such as Amazon, Netflix and Spotify, digital traces of taste are constantly generated as by-products of consumers' everyday communications and activities. However, these data have not been fully exploited in the cross-disciplinary study of taste phenomena. This paper represents a first attempt to develop a comprehensive methodological framework for “augmenting…
The techno-social reproduction of taste boundaries on digital platforms: The case of music on YouTube
Algorithmic consumer culture
This article conceptualizes algorithmic consumer culture, and offers a framework that sheds new light on two previously conflicting theorizations: that (1) digitalization tends to liquefy consumer culture and thus acts primarily as an empowering force, and that (2) digitalized marketing and big data surveillance practices tend to deprive consumers of all autonomy. By drawing on critical social theories of algorithms and AI, we define and historic…
Why Sociological Theory Matters in the Age of Algorithms: Considerations on Ori Schwarz’s Sociological Theory for Digital Society - Ori Schwarz, Sociological Theory for Digital Society: The Codes That…
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The nested relationality of perceived legitimacy: Mapping taste hierarchies with granular digital traces
With eyes of a machine: A three-step guide for applying machine learning to visual content analysis in social research
This paper presents a practical guide to machine learning–assisted visual content analysis for social scientists. Combining machine automation with human expertise and reflexivity, the proposed methodological framework bridges the gap between computer vision and social research. Our custom approach combines inductive, deductive, and abductive logics of scientific inquiry and consists of three complementary steps: (a) Pattern exploration—employing…
The sociocultural roots of artificial conversations: The taste, class and habitus of generative AI chatbots
Research on AI has extensively considered biases related to gender and race. However, much less attention has been dedicated to another sociological tenet: that of class. Inspired by Bourdieu’s work on cultural stratification and distinction, this work sheds light on the sociocultural roots of artificial sociality, and on how these become manifest as ‘habitus’ within the outputs of generative AI models. We conducted 39 interviews with three AI ch…
Sociology (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Social and Cultural Dynamics (5 works) · Social Media and Politics (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Music History and Culture (4 works)