[Air-L] Book announcement: Machine Habitus

[Massimo Airoldi]

Dear AoIR friends,
my book on the (cultural) sociology of algorithms is out with Polity in the UK – and now finally in the US too! I think it may be of interest to the AoIR community…

Machine Habitus reviews critical perspectives about a) the social shaping of machine learning and b) the algorithmic shaping of society, developing a Bourdieusian theoretical framework for unpacking the culture in the code.

More info and promo code below!
Cheers,
Massimo


**NEW BOOK!**

Machine Habitus<https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=machine-habitus-toward-a-sociology-of-algorithms--9781509543274>
Toward a Sociology of Algorithms<https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=machine-habitus-toward-a-sociology-of-algorithms--9781509543274>

By MASSIMO AIROLDI
Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan

“I strongly suspect that Massimo Airoldi’s Machine Habitus is a concept that will be utilised and debated for years to come. At its centre, this book is a lively and original take on how we can understand social connections and society itself in a world laced with algorithms. I’d suggest reading and engaging with the ideas contained here, otherwise you will be missing out on an agenda setting text.” David Beer, University of York

“One of the first books that uses sociological theory to make sense of machine-learning algorithms. Hence, for anyone interested in understanding algorithms and their growing role in our societies, this book is essential reading.” Simon Egbert, Universität Bielefeld

We commonly think of society as made of and by humans, but with the proliferation of machine learning and AI technologies, this is clearly no longer the case. Billions of automated systems tacitly contribute to the social construction of reality by drawing algorithmic distinctions between the visible and the invisible, the relevant and the irrelevant, the likely and the unlikely – on and beyond platforms.

Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this book develops an original sociology of algorithms as social agents, actively participating in social life. Through a wide range of examples, Massimo Airoldi shows how society shapes algorithmic code, and how this culture in the code guides the practical behaviour of the code in the culture, shaping society in turn. The ‘machine habitus’ is the generative mechanism at work throughout myriads of feedback loops linking humans with artificial social agents, in the context of digital infrastructures and pre-digital social structures. This theoretical perspective sheds fresh light on user-machine interactions and on broader processes of techno-social reproduction, laying the sociological foundations for critically understanding and investigating our increasingly algorithmic culture.

Use promo code POL21 and order via https://www.politybooks.com/ to get 20% off (promo code is valid until 30/06/2022)

UK December 2021 / US March 2022  ||  PB 978-1-5095-4328-1   ||  £15.99 / $22.95 / €19.90  ||  ebook available

For further information and to order your copy, visit https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=machine-habitus-toward-a-sociology-of-algorithms--9781509543274


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