During last year’s different platforms have emerged on the Internet and have become common in our everyday living. These new digital companies have succeed in positioning themselves as cultural intermediaries in a growing trend towards the digitization of society favoured by the irruption of different technologies, new forms of value-creating human activities and the decentralization effect that Internet culture helps to create. In this sense, the growing importance of digital ecosystems in human processes & decisions has nurtured an algorithmic culture that symbolizes our current declining of autonomy in the social sphere. This disruption in the cultural landscape has been supported by the introduction of different “black-boxes” that impede to ascertain what the inner workings of these new socio-technological brokers are. On the contrary, we can observe how different grassroots initiatives that promote technological appropriation and digital empowerment like the Maker Movement are also becoming globally recognized and institutionally supported. These movements rely on Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and Hardware for opening black-boxes and promoting critical thinking about technology in citizenship. In this contribution we would like to explore the several convergences and divergences that are present in these two different cultures to shed some light in the complicated new techno-realities that have risen. Finally, we conclude with a set of several key guidelines that can help to policy-makers to promote new updated legislations.

1. Algorithmic Culture &
Maker Culture;
Breaches & Bridges in
the Platform Economy
27/9/2017
Dr. Raúl Tabarés
#JIIPSUMMERSCHOOL
The Hague

2. A moment of history to
reflect upon the
relationship between
technology & humankind…

3. 3 ▌

5. …a moment of history to
reflect upon the
relationship of politics &
technology in society.

8. A moment to think about a
digital society.

11. 11

14. 14 ▌

15. 15 ▌

16. 16 ▌

17. 17 ▌

19. 19 ▌

21. The rising of different platforms on the Internet has disrupted many industries during the last
decades. These new companies have succeed in positioning themselves as cultural
intermediaries in a growing trend towards the digitization of services and human processes.
The introduction of different technologies that have helped to create new forms of value for
human activities has also paved the way for the popularization of different black-boxes that
impede to ascertain what are the inner workings of these new socio-technological mediators.
At the same time and thanks to the emerging Internet Culture, different grassroots initiatives
have risen during the last decades like the “Maker Movement” and are starting to be
supported by different institutions.
These philosophies are reliant on Open Source Software and Open Hardware in order to
promote technological appropriation and critical thinking about technology in citizenship.
These two trends that can be framed as “Algorithmic Culture” and “Maker Culture” presents
different convergences and divergences that can help policy-makers to navigate in the
already abrupt waters of the post-industrial society
21 ▌
Introduction

22. Index
Introduction Maker Culture
Platform economy
and its
discontents
Breaches & Bridges
22 ▌
Algorithmic
Culture
Discussion

23. Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Uber or AirBnB are some of the companies that have turned out
to be usual in our everyday living for connecting with friends, watching movies, renting a flat
during our holidays or just taking a ride.
Platform economy is defined as a “term that encompasses a growing number of digitally
enabled activities in business, politics, and social interaction” (Kenney & Zysman, 2016).
This paradigm shift in business has been driven by the growing digitalization of sociality (Van
Dijck, 2013) and the decentralization effect that Internet culture provokes on society (Castells,
1997) favoring this transition to digital services created by nascent start up´s.
The term “platform” has been promoted by these new companies under the influence of
“Californian Ideology” (Barbrook & Cameron, 1996) to promote a neutral and egalitarian
ecosystem where the users of these services can be supported and treated in an equal way.
These digital ecosystems are trying to position themselves as cultural intermediaries while
they look for sustainable business models (Gillespie, 2010) and they are totally depend on
the contribution of human beings and the digitization of value-creating human activities
(Kenney & Zysman, 2016).
23 ▌
Platform Economy & its
discontents

24. The emergence of Web 2.0 (O´Reilly, 2005) and Social Media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010)
paradigms have fuelled the growing datasets (Helmond, 2015) that are available in different
UGC platforms (Van Dijck, 2009) .
This has made possible “digital labor” (Scholz, 2012) or “free labor” (Terranova, 2000) that is
characterized by the exploitation of commons by capital (platform owners) on the Internet
(Fuchs, 2010; Fuster-Morell, 2010; Tufekci, 2010).
The evolution of these platforms have focused in the need of developing Big Data tools
(Boellstorff & Maurer, 2015) that have dramatically decreased the costs of collection and
storage of data but also to develop much more advanced processing techniques for large
datasets (Boyd & Crawford, 2011; Gray, 2014).
The rising of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next frontier in this evolution and it has a
paramount importance in order to create new services and applications that can be
monetized like self-driving cars (Stilgoe, 2017), banking (Pasquale, 2015) and conversational
interfaces (Geller, 2012).
24 ▌
Platform Economy & its
discontents

25. “If the industrial revolution was organized around
the factory, today´s changes are organized around
these digital platforms, loosely defined.
Indeed, we are in the midst of a reorganization of our
economy in which the platform owners are
seemingly developing power that may be even more
formidable than was that of the factory owners in the
early industrial revolution”
(Kenney & Zysman, 2016).

26. – Dominant position in Social Media & Digital Advertising
– Dominant position in Digital Devices & App Ecosystem
– Dominant position in Social Search & Digital Advertising
– Dominant position in e-Commerce & Cloud Services
– Dominant position in Corporate & Home Systems
26 ▌
The Big Five

27. – Emerging dominant positions in Accommodation
Services (especially in SME´s)
– Emerging dominant position in Tourism Information
Services (especially in SME´s)
– Emerging dominant position in Urban Transportation
– Emerging dominant position in Blogging/Opinion
Contents
– Emerging dominant positions in Media Streaming 27 ▌
And the others…

28. 28 ▌

30. Winner takes it all

33. The evolution of platforms towards the processing of high quantities of data has paved the
way for the consolidation of what it has been framed as an “algorithmic culture” (Striphas,
2015) contributing to create new cultural identities that are enclosed in the digital and private
realm (Hallinan & Striphas, 2014).
The great embodiment of algorithms in platforms (code, systems, devices, etc.) makes so
difficult to delimitate its components into a particular service and several high-skills for
understanding their inner workings (Dourish, 2016).
Moreover, the opacity that accompanies this objects (i.e. patents) and the doubts about how
these companies gather, store and manage data (not open to public scrutiny) contribute to
create formidable black-boxes (Pasquale, 2015) that denies the possibility to look into the
fundamentals behind these omnipresent technological systems.
Data treatment is nothing new regarding competitive advantages in the business domain,
especially in media industries where test audiences, ratings and other techniques have been
deployed by different companies in the past (Hallinan & Striphas, 2014).
Nevertheless, recent advances in computing have created new unthinkable scales.
Data driven industries reward economies of scale and centralized control of infrastructure in
order to gather, store, classify, manage and reuse the “new oil”.
33 ▌
Algorithmic Culture

34. Algorithmic Culture is defined as “the use of
computational processes to sort, classify, and
hierarchize people, places, objects, and also the
habits of thought, conduct, and expression that
arise in relationship to those processes”
(Striphas, 2012).

36. 36 ▌

38. The origins of “Maker Movement” (Dougherty, 2012) can be traced back to the ´20s (pirate
radio), DIY philosophy, Cyberculture and Hacker Culture. It has been enabled by an expiration
of patents and new open source technologies in the digital fabrication domain (Birtchnell &
Urry, 2013) that have favored the rising of open-design & low-cost innovations in
manufacturing.
In addition, the growing presence of makerspaces, Fab Labs, Media Labs and other spaces
(Niaros et al, 2017) where social production is fostered has promoted a new wave of social
and collective innovation based on open source technologies. That´s why this phenomenon
has attracted a growing interest recently from different stakeholders.
A recent trend towards the institutionalization of these spaces have been observed in China
(XinCheJian, Mass Innovation) , USA (Maker Cities, National Week of Making) and Europe (EC,
national and regional authorities) by different administrations and private companies.
There are important nodes like Shenzhen where different companies have adopted open
source BBPP in order to gain competitiveness (informal networks for sharing designs,
material lists, etc.) (Lindtner, 2015).
Maker Culture has a great potential to reconnect society with manufacturing and promote a
critical technolocial culture but at the same time has to overcome several challenges (gender,
inclusion) and myths (techno-utopianism, techno-solutionism)
38 ▌
Maker Culture

39. “This contemporary maker culture is concerned not
only with open Internet technology and digital
things, but also with physical things such as
hardware designs, sensors, and networking devices
that bridge the digital and physical worlds. While the
earlier movement was concerned with the workings
of software code and the workings of the Internet,
this contemporary maker movement is concerned
with hardware designs and the workings of the
Internet of Things.”
(Lindtner, 2014)

43. 43 ▌
http://openmaker.eu/
http://odmplatform.eu/
Call for submissions
open until 10/18!!!

44. “Freemium” Services -
Centralization -
Proprietary Technologies -
Proprietary Knowledge -
Opacity -
Growth -
On-Line engagement -
44 ▌
Breaches
Community Services
Decentralization
Free Technologies
Free Knowledge
Transparency
Sustainability
On-Line & Off-Line
Engagement

45. - Community Oriented (use of Social Media channels for promotion,
use of crowdbased platforms for fundraising, innovation, etc.)
- Open structures & Open platforms
- Contradictions & Tensions
- Beta approach
- Co-creation of value
- Techno-optimism & Techno-solutionism
- Lack of diversity in their representatives/managers - male elites?
45 ▌
Bridges

46. - “Platform technologies as legislations/norms of life”
- Lack of social institutions for steering R&D process in the Platform
Economy (AI risks, algorithm biases, privacy, etc.)
- Outdated regulations for disruptions provoked by platforms
(especially in urban areas)
- Insufficient financial regulation instruments
- Growing need for digital skills/literacy/empowerment in citizenship
- Political support for creating new jobs (specially for new low-
skilled job sectors)
- Reductions in the working week
46 ▌
Discussion

47. Boyd, D., & Crawford, K. (2011). Six Provocations for Big Data. In A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of
Internet and Society (pp. 1–17). http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1926431
Dijck, J. Van. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dougherty, D. (2012). The Maker Movement. Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 7(3), 11–14.
Human-Computer Interaction: Extending Boundaries (pp. 295–304). ACM.
Dourish, P. (2016). Algorithms and their Others: Algorithmic Culture in Context. Big Data & Society, (December), 1–11.
http://doi.org/10.1177/2053951716665128
Gillespie, T. (2010). The Politics of Platforms. New Media & Society, 12(3), 347–364.
http://doi.org/10.1002/9781118321607.ch28
Hallinan, B., & Striphas, T. (2014). Recommended for you: The Netflix Prize and the production of algorithmic culture. New
Media & Society, 1461444814538646-. http://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814538646
Helmond, A. (2015). The Platformization of the Web: Making Web Data Platform Ready. Social Media + Society. Volume 1 (2).
DOI: 10.1177/2056305115603080
Kenney, M., & Zysman, J. (2016). The Rise of the Platform Economy. Issues in Science and Technology, 32(3), 61.
Lindtner, S., (2014). Hackerspaces and the Internet of Things in China: How makers are reinventing industrial production,
innovation, and the self. China Information. 28: 145.
Niaros, V., Kostakis, V., & Drechsler, W. (2017). Making (in) the Smart City: The Emergence of Makerspaces. Telematics and
Informatics. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.05.004
Pasquale, F. (2015). The black box society: The secret algorithms that control money and information. London: Harvard
University Press.
Tabarés-Gutiérrez, R. (2016). Approaching maker´s phenomenon. Interaction Design and Architecture(s), (30), 19–29.
Tabarés-Gutiérrez, R. (2017) Conversational Interfaces; Speaking with Irresponsible Black-Boxes. 4S 2017 Conference.
Boston.
Winner, L. (1980). Do Artifacts Have Politics ? Daedalus, 109(1), 121–136. Retrieved from https://blog.itu.dk/I-II-
E2013/files/2013/11/winner-l-do-artifacts-have-politics.pdf
47 ▌
Bibliography

48. Dr. Rául Tabarés
raul.tabares@tecnalia.com
@faraondemetal
https://es.linkedin.com/in/rtabares
www.tecnalia.com
Thanks a lot and keep
in touch!