Digital Self Audit - Platform’s Algorithms - Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task :

Assessment task 1: Digital Self Audit 

In this task you will undertake a self-audit of, and intervene in the creation of, your digital footprint/shadow and then critically reflect on this process to identify issues of significance. The aim of this task is to research how and when our personal data is collected and subsequently used by Internet platforms in order to manipulate our engagement, and then to critically reflect on the issues that arise because of this. 

To complete this task, first you should spend at least a week examining your own social media and data creation habits and capture moments in which these are made visible to you by the system. You should then spend an additional week or more experimenting with ways of pushing back on the system to provoke a response. During your data collection, you should choose to either opt-in or out-out of your platform(/s) of choice. 

Data can be captured in a range of forms; screen captures, diarised notes, mined data etc. Take the time to analyse this data closely: What do you notice about your social media habits? What affects do these platforms have on the way you go about your everyday activities? What kind of persona do online platforms reflect back to you? What gaps are evident between how you see yourself and what online platforms present? What happened when you adjusted the ways you interacted with the online platform? Can you identify aspects of the system that would benefit from a re-design? What socio-cultural implications exist in what you’ve noticed?

Phase One: 

Data collection should be conducted, initially, via a series of small experimentations; You may choose to focus on a single method of data collection as you identify modes that are suitable for your chosen topic area (please refer to page 3-4 for suggested topics). 

Experiments might involve the following: 

• Controlled disconnection 

• Teaming up with someone else to deliberately confuse or obscure data from a platform’s algorithms 

• Using specific & directed search terms over a period of time. 

• Employing a bot to do your social labour 

• Flooding a platform with content. 

• Start from scratch and set up a ‘finsta’ account. 

Data can be collected in a range of ways: Digital screen captures, reflective notes, diarised accounts (visual and written), video diaries, mined data and analytics, recordings of your interactions online, or any combination of the above. This phase of data collection should take place over a period of 1-2 weeks (at least). Please note, it may take some time to affect change and see results from your experimentation, therefore you are strongly encouraged to begin your data collection as early as possible. 

You may want to guide your research/experimentation by developing responses to the following questions: 

• Introduction: objective or purpose 

• Materials: what tools or materials did you use in your experiment? 

• Methods: what procedures you followed, and what tools/platforms did you use? 

• Results/Discussion/Analysis: what came about from the experiment? What did you learn from it? What research is informing your interpretation of the data? 

• Further research & experimentation: has this experiment raised any questions you would like to explore in further? What would change about your experimentation methods? 

• Conclusion: A brief synopsis of the experiment and outcome. 

Phase two: 

After this first phase of data collection, you should reflect on the initial topic you begun with and spend some time looking at your data to identify themes or recurring issues that may provide an opportunity for you to manipulate and/or push back against the system. Then, conduct a second phase of data collection where you are actively trying to change the content/results appearing in your feed/data. Continue this data collection for a period of 1-2 weeks (at least). 

Once you have collected all your data from both phase one and two, take the time to analyse it closely. You are aiming to present a collection of salient moments/issues that you have identified throughout both phases of your data collection. You should present your analysis as a series of annotated images/visuals that highlight these moments/issues in your data. You are encouraged to present your analysis in the form of insightful data visualisations. 

Reflection: 

Once you have finalised your research, you should then write a critical reflection (300 words) summarising your digital self-audit. Please include at least 3 references to supporting scholarly research. You could consider the following questions as you formulate your reflection: 

What do you notice about your social media habits? What affects do these platforms have on the way you go about your everyday activities? What kind of persona do online platforms reflect back to you? What gaps are evident between how you see yourself and what online platforms present? What happened when you adjusted the ways you interacted with the online platform? How hard was it to achieve your result and did it work? Can you identify aspects of the system that would benefit from a re-design? What socio-cultural implications exist in what you’ve noticed? What supporting scholarly research has informed, or validates, what you’ve observed? How?

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