Robbie Fordyce
Biographic Data
| ID | 660198 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robbie Fordyce |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robbie |
| FAMILY NAME | Fordyce |
| SIGNATURE | FORDYCE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0244-8151 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Financialising leisure: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), collectables and commodification without limit
The profile of blockchain-based technologies such as collectable non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has ascended rapidly in recent years. This ascent is evident by major sponsorships of sporting teams, leagues and stadiums, licencing deals, NFT ‘drops’, and advertising campaigns. This article explains and analyses these complex and fast-changing developments using a political economy of communication approach that is linked to the field of leisure studie…
Industries of Infrastructural Futures, Automated Cultures, and Algorithmic Dynamics
We approach the conference topic of industry through four studies that explore a new media landscape where value and power are increasingly produced through the operalisation of machinic and affective relations and subjectivities. We explore technologies of automation, artificial intelligence and algorithmic regimes and the new possibilities for enacting and imagining political futures that they afford. The papers focus on four case studies: WeCh…
Banning “braingasm: An investigation of misogynistic politics in 8Chan’s, U.S. platforms’ and CCP’s regulation of ASMR
This article analyses a global attack on ASMR women producers who produce "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response" videos initiated by 8Chan, U.S. platforms and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). We consider ASMR as a form of feminine labour that employs bodily and sensory effects to generate affective pleasures, and it troubles boundaries and expectations about women's social positions. The very fact that such labour became the target of 8Chan men…
Computational Methods for Improving the Observability of Platform-Based Advertising
The advertising ecosystem has been progressively reshaped by computational advertising models facilitated and controlled by digital media platforms. Meta and Alphabet, two of the dominant players in this ecosystem, have contributed significantly to industry disintermediation via the design and market dominance of their advertising systems, which in turn are symbiotic with their own business models, and feed on large amounts of consumer data gener…
Oaths and the ethics of automated data: Limits to porting the Hippocratic oath from medicine to data science
This paper argues that the proposal for a ‘Hippocratic oath for data science’ is a severely limited form of data ethics for automated culture. Drawing on the oath used within medical professionalism, proponents as diverse as Wired and the European Data Protection Supervisor have argued for a Hippocratic oath for data science as a way of introducing a soft regulatory environment. In this paper, we analyse the history of the Hippocratic oath and th…
Automated culture: Introduction
Automation has a long history in cultural production, but the contemporary moment presents a range of new possibilities and demands for the deployment of automated and autonomous systems in the shaping of our cultural and social worlds. The cultural implications of the deployment of automated systems for producing, curating, and distributing a growing range of cultural texts and artifacts extend beyond the realm of content to encompass their pace…
Darkness, Datafication, and Provenance as an Illuminating Methodology
Data are generated and employed for many ends, including governing societies, managing organisations, leveraging profit, and regulating places. In all these cases, data are key inputs into systems that paradoxically are implemented in the name of making societies more secure, safe, competitive, productive, efficient, transparent and accountable, yet do so through processes that monitor, discipline, repress, coerce, and exploit people. (Kitchin, 1…
Critical data provenance as a methodology for studying how language conceals data ethics
This paper contributes to a project that maps the concept of ‘data provenance’ into qualitative data research. Data provenance is a concept from computer science that allows us to trace the history of sets of data to determine the accuracy and validity of a database. We transform this into a critical concept by arguing that data provenance can be used to trace the acts of governance and rhetoric. We then analyse the forms of discursive power that…
Shedding light on ‘dark’ ads
Targeted advertising lies at the heart of digital economic models and has been scrutinized with respect to the potential pathologies of discriminatory job and housing advertising along with concerns about harmful forms of manipulation and the invasive character of online data harvesting. This article takes as its focus the non-transparent forms of cultural association reproduced by targeted advertising. We call into question the ready distinction…
Esports and the Platforming of Child’s Play During covid-19
The coronavirus pandemic has significantly restricted children’s opportunities for play and socialisation with friends in physical outside spaces. As a consequence, children’s participation in educational, play and entertainment activities are now predominantly taking place online. One form of online play which has become immensely popular with a young audience, is esports. However, esports and the platforming of play have been associated with pu…
Comparative analysis of China's Health Code, Australia's Covidsafe and New Zealand's Covid Tracer Surveillance Apps: A New Corona of Public Health Governmentality
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown of cities worldwide generated a dramatic increase in the use of public health trac(k)ing technologies. This article presents an empirical analysis of China's Health Code on WeChat and Alipay, Australia's COVIDSafe and New Zealand's COVID Tracer. We ask: how does app-based public health monitoring differ from prior forms of state tracking and corporate surveillance, and interface with …
Games of Empire Ten Years On
The panel will retrospectively evaluate the significance of the seminal text Games of Empire (2009) for new media and game studies, reflecting on the contribution of autonomous Marxism to the study of digital culture today, as well as the methodological move it performed in tracing continuities and discontinuities between sites of production and play. Each paper will take one or two key concepts from the original book, including Empire, multitude…
Play, History and Politics: Conceiving Futures Beyond Empire
The worlds of games are important places for us to think about time, as demonstrated by historical game studies in evaluating the past, but there is a role for games to help us consider the future as well. Because games are, to some extent, systems, they facilitate a systems thinking approach that connects the material to the immaterial. Because games also tend to be action-based, they allow thinking through of acts as well as representations. Ga…
(Re-)Orienting the Video Game Avatar
This article explores the cultural appropriation of the term avatar by Western tech culture and what this implies for scholarship of digital games, virtual worlds, social media, and digital cultures. The term has roots in the religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent and was subsequently imported into video game terminology during a period of widespread appropriation of Eastern culture by Californian tech industries. We argue that the use of…
Dwarf Fortress: Laboratory and Homestead
The "fortress simulator" game Dwarf Fortress (Bay 12 Games, 2006-present) allows players the space to conduct experiments in economics. The player is not granted an avatar in the world, but this does not mean the player is granted the role of a transcendent deity either. Instead, the player operates on the relational level-completely managing all economic interactions and assigning social codes to different spaces. Lacking a "win" condition, play…
Temporal escapes: Deployments of 'time work' as a methodology for addressing subjective experiences of time
Comparative analysis of China's Health Code, Australia's Covidsafe and New Zealand's Covid Tracer Surveillance Apps: A New Corona of Public Health Governmentality
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown of cities worldwide generated a dramatic increase in the use of public health trac(k)ing technologies. This article presents an empirical analysis of China's Health Code on WeChat and Alipay, Australia's COVIDSafe and New Zealand's COVID Tracer. We ask: how does app-based public health monitoring differ from prior forms of state tracking and corporate surveillance, and interface with …
Shedding light on ‘dark’ ads
Targeted advertising lies at the heart of digital economic models and has been scrutinized with respect to the potential pathologies of discriminatory job and housing advertising along with concerns about harmful forms of manipulation and the invasive character of online data harvesting. This article takes as its focus the non-transparent forms of cultural association reproduced by targeted advertising. We call into question the ready distinction…
Critical data provenance as a methodology for studying how language conceals data ethics
This paper contributes to a project that maps the concept of ‘data provenance’ into qualitative data research. Data provenance is a concept from computer science that allows us to trace the history of sets of data to determine the accuracy and validity of a database. We transform this into a critical concept by arguing that data provenance can be used to trace the acts of governance and rhetoric. We then analyse the forms of discursive power that…
(Re-)Orienting the Video Game Avatar
This article explores the cultural appropriation of the term avatar by Western tech culture and what this implies for scholarship of digital games, virtual worlds, social media, and digital cultures. The term has roots in the religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent and was subsequently imported into video game terminology during a period of widespread appropriation of Eastern culture by Californian tech industries. We argue that the use of…
Dwarf Fortress: Laboratory and Homestead
The "fortress simulator" game Dwarf Fortress (Bay 12 Games, 2006-present) allows players the space to conduct experiments in economics. The player is not granted an avatar in the world, but this does not mean the player is granted the role of a transcendent deity either. Instead, the player operates on the relational level-completely managing all economic interactions and assigning social codes to different spaces. Lacking a "win" condition, play…
Temporal escapes: Deployments of 'time work' as a methodology for addressing subjective experiences of time
Dwarf Fortress: Laboratory and Homestead
The "fortress simulator" game Dwarf Fortress (Bay 12 Games, 2006-present) allows players the space to conduct experiments in economics. The player is not granted an avatar in the world, but this does not mean the player is granted the role of a transcendent deity either. Instead, the player operates on the relational level-completely managing all economic interactions and assigning social codes to different spaces. Lacking a "win" condition, play…
Games of Empire Ten Years On
The panel will retrospectively evaluate the significance of the seminal text Games of Empire (2009) for new media and game studies, reflecting on the contribution of autonomous Marxism to the study of digital culture today, as well as the methodological move it performed in tracing continuities and discontinuities between sites of production and play. Each paper will take one or two key concepts from the original book, including Empire, multitude…
Play, History and Politics: Conceiving Futures Beyond Empire
The worlds of games are important places for us to think about time, as demonstrated by historical game studies in evaluating the past, but there is a role for games to help us consider the future as well. Because games are, to some extent, systems, they facilitate a systems thinking approach that connects the material to the immaterial. Because games also tend to be action-based, they allow thinking through of acts as well as representations. Ga…
(Re-)Orienting the Video Game Avatar
This article explores the cultural appropriation of the term avatar by Western tech culture and what this implies for scholarship of digital games, virtual worlds, social media, and digital cultures. The term has roots in the religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent and was subsequently imported into video game terminology during a period of widespread appropriation of Eastern culture by Californian tech industries. We argue that the use of…
Darkness, Datafication, and Provenance as an Illuminating Methodology
Data are generated and employed for many ends, including governing societies, managing organisations, leveraging profit, and regulating places. In all these cases, data are key inputs into systems that paradoxically are implemented in the name of making societies more secure, safe, competitive, productive, efficient, transparent and accountable, yet do so through processes that monitor, discipline, repress, coerce, and exploit people. (Kitchin, 1…
Critical data provenance as a methodology for studying how language conceals data ethics
This paper contributes to a project that maps the concept of ‘data provenance’ into qualitative data research. Data provenance is a concept from computer science that allows us to trace the history of sets of data to determine the accuracy and validity of a database. We transform this into a critical concept by arguing that data provenance can be used to trace the acts of governance and rhetoric. We then analyse the forms of discursive power that…
Shedding light on ‘dark’ ads
Targeted advertising lies at the heart of digital economic models and has been scrutinized with respect to the potential pathologies of discriminatory job and housing advertising along with concerns about harmful forms of manipulation and the invasive character of online data harvesting. This article takes as its focus the non-transparent forms of cultural association reproduced by targeted advertising. We call into question the ready distinction…
Esports and the Platforming of Child’s Play During covid-19
The coronavirus pandemic has significantly restricted children’s opportunities for play and socialisation with friends in physical outside spaces. As a consequence, children’s participation in educational, play and entertainment activities are now predominantly taking place online. One form of online play which has become immensely popular with a young audience, is esports. However, esports and the platforming of play have been associated with pu…
Comparative analysis of China's Health Code, Australia's Covidsafe and New Zealand's Covid Tracer Surveillance Apps: A New Corona of Public Health Governmentality
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown of cities worldwide generated a dramatic increase in the use of public health trac(k)ing technologies. This article presents an empirical analysis of China's Health Code on WeChat and Alipay, Australia's COVIDSafe and New Zealand's COVID Tracer. We ask: how does app-based public health monitoring differ from prior forms of state tracking and corporate surveillance, and interface with …
Oaths and the ethics of automated data: Limits to porting the Hippocratic oath from medicine to data science
This paper argues that the proposal for a ‘Hippocratic oath for data science’ is a severely limited form of data ethics for automated culture. Drawing on the oath used within medical professionalism, proponents as diverse as Wired and the European Data Protection Supervisor have argued for a Hippocratic oath for data science as a way of introducing a soft regulatory environment. In this paper, we analyse the history of the Hippocratic oath and th…
Automated culture: Introduction
Automation has a long history in cultural production, but the contemporary moment presents a range of new possibilities and demands for the deployment of automated and autonomous systems in the shaping of our cultural and social worlds. The cultural implications of the deployment of automated systems for producing, curating, and distributing a growing range of cultural texts and artifacts extend beyond the realm of content to encompass their pace…
Computational Methods for Improving the Observability of Platform-Based Advertising
The advertising ecosystem has been progressively reshaped by computational advertising models facilitated and controlled by digital media platforms. Meta and Alphabet, two of the dominant players in this ecosystem, have contributed significantly to industry disintermediation via the design and market dominance of their advertising systems, which in turn are symbiotic with their own business models, and feed on large amounts of consumer data gener…
Industries of Infrastructural Futures, Automated Cultures, and Algorithmic Dynamics
We approach the conference topic of industry through four studies that explore a new media landscape where value and power are increasingly produced through the operalisation of machinic and affective relations and subjectivities. We explore technologies of automation, artificial intelligence and algorithmic regimes and the new possibilities for enacting and imagining political futures that they afford. The papers focus on four case studies: WeCh…
Banning “braingasm: An investigation of misogynistic politics in 8Chan’s, U.S. platforms’ and CCP’s regulation of ASMR
This article analyses a global attack on ASMR women producers who produce "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response" videos initiated by 8Chan, U.S. platforms and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). We consider ASMR as a form of feminine labour that employs bodily and sensory effects to generate affective pleasures, and it troubles boundaries and expectations about women's social positions. The very fact that such labour became the target of 8Chan men…
Financialising leisure: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), collectables and commodification without limit
The profile of blockchain-based technologies such as collectable non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has ascended rapidly in recent years. This ascent is evident by major sponsorships of sporting teams, leagues and stadiums, licencing deals, NFT ‘drops’, and advertising campaigns. This article explains and analyses these complex and fast-changing developments using a political economy of communication approach that is linked to the field of leisure studie…
Sociology (13 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (5 works) · Data science (4 works) · Digital Games and Media (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Engineering (3 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (3 works)