Upodatkovljenje javnega mnenja : od normativne utopije do algoritemske distopije

slovenian

2019

volume 26, supl.

Evropski inštitut za komuniciranje in kulturo - EURICOM
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

The paper discusses major changes in the reconceptualisations of public opinion across three fundamental historical periods and their dominant paradigms: (1) the early period of public opinion as a normative utopia soon to be crumbled by the economic changes that transformed the social role of the press, and empirical sociological analyses of "latent" (dis)functions of public opinion; (2) the period of empirical substitution of public opinion by opinion polls based on quantitative methods of systematic data collection and statistical analysis, and Gallup's "prima facie" theory of permanent referendum; (3) a period of big data in which systematic "opinion measurement" by collecting interview response data is increasingly being replaced by the permanent, automated identification and prediction of opinion and behavioural patterns of individuals from (meta) data they largely unknowingly generate and place in social networks, and in which the ideas of early normative critique of social control dysfunction of public opinion are updated by a critical analysis of corporate practices of panoptic data surveillance. The key question here is whether the notions of public, public opinion and the public sphere in the era of "datafication of public opinion" still (can) sustain a historical critical engagement.

12.08.2021