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Computer software and data-processing algorithms are becoming an everyday part of Higher Education. How might this be affecting research in the social sciences and the formation of the professional identities of academics? Ben Williamson argues that these are important challenges for social science researchers in HE, asking us to consider how digital devices and infrastructures might be shaping our professional practices, knowledge production, and theories of the world.

Computer code, software and algorithms have sunk deep into what Nigel Thrift has described as the “technological unconscious” of our contemporary “lifeworld,” and are fast becoming part of the everyday backdrop to Higher Education. Academic research across the natural, human and social sciences is increasingly mediated and augmented by computer coded technologies. This is perhaps most obvious in the natural sciences and in developments such as the vast human genome database. As Geoffrey Bowker has argued, such databases are increasingly viewed as a challenge to the idea of the scientific paper (with its theoretical framework, hypothesis and long-form argumentation) as the “end result” of science:

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In the Shadow: a powerful short film. An artistic work made up of dozens of animated paintings, and a sharp criticism of the consumerist society, it plunges us brutally into the neuroses of the modernity.

C’est probablement l’un des meilleurs romans et films que j’ai vu depuis Matrix. Aldous Huxley a écrit Brave New World en 1932, il y a presque quatre-vingts ans, mais le livre se lit comme s’il aurait pu être écrit hier. Ce qui est particulièrement intéressant pour moi, c’est la façon dont Huxley a pu prévoir plusieurs innovations actuelles, telles que le suivi par satellite, les écrans interactifs, les injonctions de consommation, la superficialité de la société, le génie génétique, la promiscuité sexuelle partout, etc. Huxley est bien plus important que Orwell, qui s’est inspiré 10 ans plus tard par ses œuvres! Si Orwell présente la société totalitaire en 1984 par le biais de la censure et de la manipulation de mots et d’informations, Huxley montre de manière beaucoup plus subtile comment la société de consommation et la recherche de l’hédonisme créent une société amoureuse de sa propre servitude.

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