Jenny L Davis
The Australian National University, School of Sociology, Faculty Member
- Jenny Davis is a sociologist at the Australian National University. Her two major projects focus on technological aff... moreJenny Davis is a sociologist at the Australian National University. Her two major projects focus on technological affordances and experimental investigations into role-taking (role-taking.com).edit
Rating features on social media platforms affect visibility algorithms and act as symbolic markers of evaluation. This paper addresses the social effects of content ratings through a case study of Reddit. Reddit is a social news site on... more
Rating features on social media platforms affect visibility algorithms and act as symbolic markers of evaluation. This paper addresses the social effects of content ratings through a case study of Reddit. Reddit is a social news site on which users in topic-based communities (subreddits) create posts upon which others upvote, downvote, and comment. Vote scores indicate convergence with, and divergence from, community norms. Analysing data from the platform's three most popular subreddits, we ask: How do rating features afford emotional expression and content engagement? Findings from a Variable-Lag Granger Causality model show that for a portion of Reddit users (14.5%), vote scores predict subsequent emotional expression, with upvotes preceding positive sentiments and downvotes preceding negative sentiments. This is the first systematic test of how ratings influence emotional expression on a social media platform. Findings also show that downvoted content receives higher levels of engagement than upvoted content. Together, these findings suggest a paradox in which divergence from community norms, as indicated by vote score patterns, have emotional consequences and attention rewards.
Research Interests:
Systems based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly normalized as part of work, leisure, and governance in contemporary societies. Although ethics in AI has received significant attention, it remains unclear where the burden of... more
Systems based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly
normalized as part of work, leisure, and governance in
contemporary societies. Although ethics in AI has received
significant attention, it remains unclear where the burden of
responsibility lies. Through twenty-one interviews with AI
practitioners in Australia, this research seeks to understand how
ethical attributions figure into the professional imagination. As
institutionally embedded technical experts, AI practitioners act as
a connective tissue linking the range of actors that come in
contact with, and have effects upon, AI products and services.
Findings highlight that practitioners distribute ethical
responsibility across a range of actors and factors, reserving a
portion of responsibility for themselves, albeit constrained.
Characterized by imbalances of decision-making power and
technical expertise, practitioners position themselves as mediators
between powerful bodies that set parameters for production;
users who engage with products once they leave the proverbial
workbench; and AI systems that evolve and develop beyond
practitioner control. Distributing responsibility throughout
complex sociotechnical networks, practitioners preclude simple
attributions of accountability for the social effects of AI. This
indicates that AI ethics are not the purview of any singular player
but instead, derive from collectivities that require critical guidance
and oversight at all stages of conception, production, distribution,
and use.
normalized as part of work, leisure, and governance in
contemporary societies. Although ethics in AI has received
significant attention, it remains unclear where the burden of
responsibility lies. Through twenty-one interviews with AI
practitioners in Australia, this research seeks to understand how
ethical attributions figure into the professional imagination. As
institutionally embedded technical experts, AI practitioners act as
a connective tissue linking the range of actors that come in
contact with, and have effects upon, AI products and services.
Findings highlight that practitioners distribute ethical
responsibility across a range of actors and factors, reserving a
portion of responsibility for themselves, albeit constrained.
Characterized by imbalances of decision-making power and
technical expertise, practitioners position themselves as mediators
between powerful bodies that set parameters for production;
users who engage with products once they leave the proverbial
workbench; and AI systems that evolve and develop beyond
practitioner control. Distributing responsibility throughout
complex sociotechnical networks, practitioners preclude simple
attributions of accountability for the social effects of AI. This
indicates that AI ethics are not the purview of any singular player
but instead, derive from collectivities that require critical guidance
and oversight at all stages of conception, production, distribution,
and use.
Research Interests:
Identity theory (IT) and social identity theory (SIT) are eminent research programs from sociology and psychology, respectively. We test collective identity as a point of convergence between the two programs. Collective identity is a... more
Identity theory (IT) and social identity theory (SIT) are eminent research programs from sociology and psychology, respectively. We test collective identity as a point of convergence between the two programs. Collective identity is a subtheory of SIT that pertains to activist identification. Collective identity maps closely onto identity theory's group/social identity, which refers to identification with socially situated identity categories. We propose conceptualizing collective identity as a type of group/social identity, integrating activist collectives into the identity theory model. We test this conceptualization by applying identity theory hypotheses to the ''vegan'' identity, which is both a social category and part of an active social movement. Data come from comments on two viral YouTube videos about veganism. One video negates prevailing meanings of the vegan identity. A response video brings shared vegan identity meanings back into focus. Identity theory predicts that nonverifying identity feedback elicits negative emotion and active behavioral response, while identity verification elicits positive emotion and an attenuated behavioral response. We test these tenets using sentiment analysis and word counts for comments across the two videos. Results show support for identity theory hypotheses as applied to a collective social identity. We supplement results with qualitative analysis of video comments. The findings position collective identity as a bridge between IT and SIT, demonstrate innovative digital methods, and provide theoretical scaffolding for mobilization research in light of emergent technologies and diverse modes of activist participation.
Research Interests:
Researchers increasingly draw on social media data to answer big questions about social patterns and dynamics. However, as with any data source, social media data present both opportunities and significant challenges. One major critique... more
Researchers increasingly draw on social media data to answer big questions about social patterns and dynamics. However, as with any data source, social media data present both opportunities and significant challenges. One major critique of social media data is that the data are not generalizable outside of the platforms from which the data originate. Problems of generalizability stem from non-universal participation rates on various platforms, demographically biased samples, as well as limited access to data based on infrastructural constraints and/or user privacy practices. We suggest that instead of empirical generalizability, social media data are theoretically generalizable in the formal theory tradition. Through a case example in which we use YouTube comments to test and extend a key tenet of identity theory, we show how social media data can instantiate theoretical variables and thus generalize to theoretical propositions. Mediated through formal theory, social media data maintain the capacity to address broad social questions while upholding methodological integrity.
Research shows a clear intersection between humor and political communication online as " big data " analyses demonstrate humorous content achieving disproportionate attention across social media platforms. What remains unclear is the... more
Research shows a clear intersection between humor and political communication online as " big data " analyses demonstrate humorous content achieving disproportionate attention across social media platforms. What remains unclear is the degree to which politics are fodder for " silly " content production vis-à-vis humor as a serious political tool. To answer this question, we scraped Twitter data from two cases in which humor and politics converged during the 2016 US presidential election: Hillary Clinton referring to Trump supporters as a " basket of deplorables " and Donald Trump calling Hillary Clinton a " nasty woman " during a televised debate. Taking a " small data " approach, we find funny content enacting meaningful political work including expressions of opposition, political identification, and displays of civic support. Furthermore, comparing humor style between partisan cases shows the partial-but incomplete-breakdown of humor's notoriously firm boundaries. Partisan patterns reveal that the meeting of humor and social media leave neither unchanged.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
As a concept, affordance is integral to scholarly analysis across multiple fields—including media studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, ecological psychology, and design studies among others. Critics, however,... more
As a concept, affordance is integral to scholarly analysis across multiple fields—including media studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, ecological psychology, and design studies among others. Critics, however, rightly point to the following shortcomings: definitional confusion, a false binary in which artifacts either afford or do not, and failure to account for diverse subject-artifact relations. Addressing these critiques, this article demarcates the mechanisms of affordance— as artifacts request, demand, allow, encourage, discourage, and refuse—which take shape through interrelated conditions: perception, dexterity, and cultural and institutional legitimacy. Together, the mechanisms and conditions constitute a dynamic and structurally situated model that addresses how artifacts afford, for whom and under what circumstances.
Research Interests:
Purpose À Role-taking, perspective taking, and empathy have developed through parallel literatures in sociology and psychology. All three concepts address the ways that people attune the self to others' thoughts and feelings. Despite... more
Purpose À Role-taking, perspective taking, and empathy have developed through parallel literatures in sociology and psychology. All three concepts address the ways that people attune the self to others' thoughts and feelings. Despite conceptual and operational overlap, researchers have yet to synthesize existing research across the three concepts. We undertake the task of theoretical synthesis, constructing a model in which role-taking emerges as a multidimensional process that includes perspective taking and empathy as component parts. Approach À We review the literatures on role-taking, perspective taking, and empathy across disciplines. Focusing on definitions, measures, and interventions , we discern how the concepts overlap, how they are distinct, and how they work together in theoretically meaningful ways. Findings À The review identifies two key axes on which each concept varies: the relative roles of affect and cognition, and the relative emphasis on self and structure. The review highlights the cognitive nature of perspective taking , the affective nature of empathy, and the structural nature of role-taking. In a move toward theoretical synthesis, we propose a definition that centers
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Women who choose to stay in abusive relationships occupy a morally ambiguous identity category. They are at once pitied for their victimhood and shamed for their participation in it. We examine debates over women who stay using the highly... more
Women who choose to stay in abusive relationships occupy a morally ambiguous identity category. They are at once pitied for their victimhood and shamed for their participation in it. We examine debates over women who stay using the highly publicized case of Janay Rice, who actively defended her professional football player husband, Ray Rice, following the release of a video in which he knocked her unconscious. Specifically, we engage in sentiment analysis and qualitative coding of discourse on Twitter following key points in the case (N ¼ 3,761). We show that negative sentiment towards Ray Rice, the media, and the National Football League act as clear mechanisms of boundary reinforcement through which abusers, exploiters, and enablers of abuse are morally censured. In contrast, Janay Rice becomes the site of a boundary war. Moral detractors accuse Janay of greed, mental incapacity , and jeopardizing women's safety and empowerment. Moral defenders neutralize Janay through allusions to pure victimhood and medical disorder, and valorize Janay as courageous , empowered, and devoted to her family. These moral debates, though centering on a single incident, represent the collective negotiation of meanings around women who stay. K E Y W O R D S : morality work; boundary work; symbolic boundaries; intimate partner violence; gender; social media. Kai T. Erikson (1962) famously argued that moral boundaries are formed, debated, and reinforced at the public scaffold (p. 310). Through the spectacle of punishment, society stakes collective claim on acceptable and unacceptable behavior, defining a social image against those who break established norms and threaten established values. Today, the public scaffold is not a physical structure, but an ecology of digital and electronic platforms. Both professional journalists and everyday citizens utilize these platforms to respond to, and frame stories about, the public affairs of everyday life. In what follows, we use one such platform—Twitter—to analyze public sentiment toward a particular public affair—the recorded beating of Janay Rice at the hands of her professional football player husband (then fiancé), Ray Rice. In doing so, we interrogate the debate surrounding women who stay as a moral identity category. Using both sentiment analysis and qualitative coding, we show that although clear moral boundaries censure abusive men and exonerate abused women, the lines blur when the abused elects to maintain a connection with her partner. No longer pure victims, yet injured parties nonetheless, the moral position of women who stay is a subject of public debate. While the extensive moral derision of Ray acted as a means of boundary reinforcement, Janay became the object of a boundary war.
Parents who seek weight loss treatment for their children find themselves pulled between double moral burdens. Blamed and shamed for the weight itself while culpable for the psychological effects of encouraging weight loss, parental... more
Parents who seek weight loss treatment for their children find themselves pulled between double moral burdens. Blamed and shamed for the weight itself while culpable for the psychological effects of encouraging weight loss, parental stigma comes from multiple directions. Through interviews with parents who send their children to weight loss camps (N = 47), we ask: how do parents maintain a moral sense of self? We show that parents distribute moral blame for their children's weight and disavow moral blame for encouraging weight loss. We further interrogate how parents' own weight status informs moral management strategies. We find parents' bodies and biographies affect the ways distribution and disavowal take form. Parents with self-identified weight problems internalize significant self-blame for children's weight gain, while parents without personal weight problems more freely allocate blame to outside actors and factors. However, when disavowing the effects of encouraging weight loss, parents with current or past weight issues rely on a shared experience that is unavailable to their slender counterparts. Our findings elucidate the moral tensions of parents who embark on weight loss intervention for their children while highlighting the interplay between primary and associative moral stigma in a family context.
For parents of children with disabilities, stigmatization is part of everyday life. To resist the negative social and emotional consequences of stigma, parents both challenge and deflect social devaluations. Challenges work to upend the... more
For parents of children with disabilities, stigmatization is part of everyday life. To resist the negative social and emotional consequences of stigma, parents both challenge and deflect social devaluations. Challenges work to upend the stigmatizing structure, while deflections maintain the interaction order. We examine how parents of children with disabilities deploy deflections and challenges, and how their stigma resistance strategies combine with available models of disability discourse. Disability discourse falls into two broad categories: medical and social. The medical model emphasizes diagnostic labels and treats impairment as an individual deficit, while the social model centralizes unaccommodating social structures. The social model's activist underpinnings make it a logical frame for parents to use as they challenge disability stigma. In turn, the medical model's focus on individual " improvement " seems to most closely align with stigma deflections. However, the relationship between stigma resistance strategies and models of disability is an empirical question not yet addressed in the literature. In this study, we examine 117 instances of stigmatization from 40 interviews with 43 parents, and document how parents respond. We find that challenges and deflections do not map cleanly onto the social or medical models. Rather, parents invoke medical and social meanings in ways that serve diverse ends, sometimes centralizing a medical label to challenge stigma, and sometimes recognizing disabling social structures, but deflecting stigma nonetheless.
This article examines how social media can incorporate into the higher education setting in meaningful ways using optional participation, active content production, and active moderation. The authors use two authoethnographic case... more
This article examines how social media can incorporate into the higher education setting in meaningful ways using optional participation, active content production, and active moderation. The authors use two authoethnographic case studies. The first case pertains to pedagogical use through a student created and maintained Facebook group for a Sociology of Gender course. The second case pertains to the construction and maintenance of a participatory learning culture through a departmental Facebook page. The article includes accounts from each case and an analysis of the successful components.