Construct · 1 fields · 2 citations

algorithmic accountability: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaningalgorithmic folk theoriescompare the meanings
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algorithmicaccountability1 CONSTRUCTAlgorithmic accountabilityDIAKOPOULOS · COMPUTATIONAL POWER

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Computational journalism studies

Holding opaque computational systems answerable for their consequential decisions

Nicholas Diakopoulos framed the construct in 2015 in Digital Journalism, defining algorithmic accountability as the practice of exposing and holding to account the consequential decisions made by opaque computational systems, originally cast as a task for investigative journalism, which reverse-engineers and scrutinizes the "computational power structures" that increasingly govern access, pricing, ranking, and risk. The idea reframes accountability from a property of human institutions to something that must be actively established for systems whose logic is hidden, proprietary, or emergent, by observing their inputs and outputs when the code itself cannot be seen. Wieringa's 2020 systematic review consolidated the concept across disciplines, asking what exactly must be accounted for (the actors, the forum, the norms, and the consequences) when accounting for algorithms. The construct is distinctive because it locates the problem in the relationship between a powerful system and the public it affects, and because its founding meaning is investigative and journalistic rather than purely technical or legal.[1][2]

Unit
A single consequential algorithmic decision held answerable to those it affects
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Pursued through investigative reverse-engineering of system inputs and outputs, audit studies, and frameworks specifying who is answerable to whom, for what, and by what norm

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Nearby constructs

algorithmic imaginary1 fields · 2 citationsanchor · a standalone constructuser resistance4 names · 4 citationsjangle · one construct, many modelsaccountability2 fields · 2 citationsjingle · one word, two constructs

References

  1. Diakopoulos, N. (2015). Algorithmic accountability: Journalistic investigation of computational power structures. Digital Journalism, 3(3), 398-415. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2014.976411
  2. Wieringa, M. (2020). What to account for when accounting for algorithms: A systematic literature review on algorithmic accountability. Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* '20), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3351095.3372833

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