The Material Political Economy of Prediction
We are pleased to invite you to an upcoming seminar by Prof Donald MacKenzie (University of Edinburgh) on The Material Political Economy of Prediction.
Abstract
Digital advertising involves bidding for individual advertising opportunities (the display of a particular ad on a particular phone or laptop screen in around a second’s time), a task that inherently involves the prediction of the value of each opportunity. This paper analyzes a simple but instructive case: the advertisement of free-to-play mobile phone games.
It will begin by sketching the traditional (since 2012) individualized approach to prediction, and then discuss how that was severely disrupted in the case of iPhones by a 2021 Apple privacy initiative. It will then describe the latent conflict between Apple’s preferred de-individualized approach and other market participants’ efforts to rebuild at least partial individualization, and discuss the de-agencing of advertising’s human practitioners that the latter efforts seem to involve.
The ’material political economy’ in the talk’s title refers to the economically significant and broadly political issues of where, materially, things happen (in the user’s phone, or on external servers?) and when: immediately, or only after a delay? The talk draws upon 110 interviews with 87 practitioners of digital advertising, of whom 12 have particular interests in games, other apps and their advertising.
Author Bio
Donald MacKenzie is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. His work constitutes a crucial contribution to the field of science and technology studies and social studies of finance. His current research is on the sociology of markets, focussing on automated trading. He worked in the past on topics ranging from the sociology of nuclear weapons to the meaning of proof in the context of computer systems critical to safety or security.
Wednesday 20 January 2024, 13:00 – 14:30
Crystal Mcmillan Building, room 3.15If you prefer to attend virtually, please connect with Iñaki {inaki.goni@ed.ac.uk} to arrange for your online participation.
References
Beauvisage, Thomas. 2023. Sociologie du cookie publicitaire. Habilitation thesis: Université Paris Sciences et Lettres.
Beauvisage, Thomas, and Kevin Mellet. 2020. “Mobile Consumers and the Retail Industry: The Resistible Advent of a New Marketing Scene.” Journal of Cultural Economy 13(1): 25-41.
Mann, Michael. 1984. “The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 25(2): 185-213.
Nieborg, David B. 2015. “Crushing Candy: The Free-to-Play Game in its Connective Commodity Form.” Social Media + Society 1(2): 1-12.
Nieborg, David B. 2017. “Free-to-Play Games and App Advertising: The Rise of the Player Commodity.” Pp. 28-41 in Explorations in Critical Studies of Advertising, edited by James F. Hamilton, Robert Bodle, and Ezequiel Korin. New York: Routledge.