Algorithmically Embodied Emissions
The idea of algorithmically embodied emissions is an attempt to conceptualise how the various choices facilitated by algorithmic systems as they are deployed by multi-sided platforms, such as commercial search engines or various social media and recommender systems, contribute to climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental destruction.
Publications in the project
Haider, J., Rödl, M. & Joosse, S. (2022). Algorithmically embodied emissions: The environmental harm of everyday life information in digital culture. Information Research, 27, colis2224. https://doi.org/10.47989/colis2224
Popular science summaries on Data & Society: Points and The Conversation.
Climate Denial by Googling
Climate change denial is not very widespread in Sweden, but how does it appear more popular? Following the traces of appeals to “please google” (“googla gärna”) a specific term, in this project we investigate how climate deniers’ appeals to people to "do their own research" proliferate through online and offline media. These carefully curated terms are meant to sow doubt onto scientific consensus and create the illusion of a much broader support for climate denial in Sweden than there actually is.
Publications in the project
A commentary on the existence of increasingly AI-powered web search has been published by Tech Policy Press. https://www.techpolicy.press/ai-powered-web-search-gives-climate-deniers-and-conspiracy-theorists-free-rein/
Investigating Algorithms as Communication participants
This Formas-funded project “Creating meaning on the climate crisis: An investigation of commercial algorithms as communication participants” (2023–2026) examines how information infrastructures such as Google, Facebook et al contribute to creating meaning on the climate crisis. These algorithmic information systems, including their underlying AI models and algorithmic designs, are invisible but omnipresent communication participants in today´s society. They filter, select and sort information, making decisions about visibility and relevance.
Algorithmic Ignorances and the Environment
Algorithmic information systems, e.g. commercial search engines or social media, but also citizen science apps, contribute to what we know and how we know it, but also to what is unknown, silenced and invisible. This project examines some of the ways in which such ignorances and absences related to the climate and other environmental crises are created and maintained and places them in a wider theoretical and societal context.
As part of this project, we hosted two combined public symposia and academic workshops under the title of “Networked Silences: Algorithms & meaning-making in times of climate change.” They were held in October 2022 at SLU Uppsala and in October 2023 in collaboration with AI Lund at Lund University.
Publications in the project
Haider, J., & Rödl, M. (2023). Google Search and the creation of ignorance: The case of the climate crisis. Big Data & Society, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231158997
Fighting Windmills
This project provides an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how (dis/mis)information about sustainable energy initiatives is configured in society's dominant information infrastructures. It examines how information about wind power in Sweden is made visible and invisible on social media and in search engines and how it is related to other issues. It further asks what this means for the public understanding of the problem space configured around the issue of sustainable energy.
The team also includes Elisa Tattersall-Wallin, Björn Ekström, and David Gunnarsson Lorentzen (all at SSLIS, the Swedish School of Library and Information Science) and Nora Söderberg (at SLU).
Publications in the project
Final project report:
Haider, J., Ekström, B., Tattersall Wallin, E., Gunnarsson Lorentzen, D., Rödl, M. & Söderberg, N. (2023). Tracing online information about wind power in Sweden: An exploratory quantitative study of broader trends. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-29496
Björn Ekström and Elisa Tattersall-Wallin published an academic paper on the collected data from Google Search:
Ekström, B. & Tattersall Wallin, E. (2023). Simple questions for complex matters? An enquiry into Swedish Google search queries on wind power. Nordic Journal of Library and Information Studies, 4(1), 34-50. https://doi.org/10.7146/njlis.v4i1.136246
Nature Representations in Selfies
Online platforms are an increasingly important way to identify, find out about, and conduct nature experiences. Yet, platforms also shape how people talk about and communicate about nature experiences—for example, through influencer culture, or the desire for social recognition. Thereby, platforms and their user-created content affect public societal ideas about ‘good’ or ‘desirable’ engagements with nature. Selfies taken in nature are one such instance, where the online shapes our understanding of outdoor spaces: nature is presented as a backdrop to individual identity performances, as pristine, tidy, and removed from civilisation.
Publications in the project
Rödl, M., Haider, J., & Joosse, S. (2023). The quest for “nature” in selfies: How platforms shape nature/society relationships. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 67(9), 1928–1951. https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2023.2265548
An artistic video based on the publication was produced by Dutch filmmaker Tessa Joosse and shown at the exhibition “Moulding Nature” at Färgfabriken in Stockholm. It can be viewed on their website.
