Re: coding Algorithmic Cultures of the Pandemic - The Example of Social Distancing (additional Corona-related funding)

The project "Re:coding algorithmic culture" aims to explore the question of how computer algorithms generate, reproduce and undermine the existing relations of power, inequality and cultural bias in the digital age. The additional module maps emerging socio-cultural norms of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as "social distancing" and "staying at home" and explores them in their materializations in sociotechnical systems, codes and infrastructures and in its uneven impact on society. The project focuses here on 'digital discrimination' as a question of material, socio-technical and digital infrastructure practices. Furthermore, alternative models, guidelines and a framework for reconstructing social contact in a pandemic at the intersection of social sciences and informatics will be provided. The critical analysis and alternative framework, models and guidelines will work towards challenging the rec-inscribing and amplification of social inequalities within sociotechnical systems and social interaction norms of the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond. The application writing team for the additional module included Prof. Dr. Claude Draude and Loren Britton (Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems), Ipek Burçak (Visual Communication) and Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Tuider and Dr. Pinar Tuzcu, (Sociology of Diversity). As has already been the case within previous labs in our ongoing project the labs in the additional module will consist of one person from each department in our project: sociology, informatics and visual communication.