School of Social and Political Science

Description

Knowledge graphs (KGs) are the data underbellies of the world’s largest platforms, like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. They are the massive, dynamic systems that help digital technologies make “meaning” out of data (Iliadis, et al. 2020). They are powerful non-linear databases that synthesise multiple heterogeneous data sets and sources to reveal previously unseen insights and patterns. They empower AI tasks such as natural language search and recommendation systems, shaping our knowledge outputs in everyday use (Akter and Rahoman, 2023). These systems produce knowledge about the “real world” but are designed to support specific use cases in platform markets, often not considering data sources outside their corporate purview or interests.

This talk will explore KGs as – quite literally – the dark side of platform markets, in both what they produce and how they operate below the interface. First, they have the ability to generate a type of market made external ignorance, surfacing only the content and information that serves their parent company’s business objectives. Second, because of their technical complexity and black-boxed nature, little is known outside of computer science about what they are, how they work, and their epistemological power (Halford, et al., 2013).  Using Airbnb as an accessible empirical case, this paper will discuss the details of its KG to shed light on its generative properties and the value it brings to the platform both in recommending sellable and obscuring undesirable aspects of places to users.  More broadly, it helps us explore how can we first shed light on and then make sense of the marketized nature of information we encounter daily. 

Dr. Addie McGowan

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Data Civics & AdTech Project
Sociology, School of Social and Political Science
Edinburgh Futures Institute 
University of Edinburgh

Reviews and Online Content Editor
Journal of Cultural Economy 
 

Venue
Room G.01, High School Yards Teaching Centre
57 High School Yards
Edinburgh, EH1 1LZ

https://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/maps?building=0318
 

And online - STIS Seminar Zoom Link (updated 2nd Oct 25):
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/82140544359?pwd=Eoxde3Vj_00WiBRxOt47aCdJ0Dy3CITi.T-3gLpgTSI0MkJAy
Passcode:RJxn7F5R