10 years as a UX designer and digital marketer in Rakuten(an e-Commerce company)
An insider of the“digital platform” trying to criticize itself
Research Interests
Why digital platforms(or“AI”) become“black-boxed” in the society?
From a perspective of Media studies / Software studies
How general users can tackle against the“black-boxed” platforms
From a perspective of Media Literacy / Software Literacy
What is a“black-box”?
"the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success. When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. ”
(Latour, 1999)
A black-box is not constructed by a platform itself but by users, who don’t care about technology inside. Because they believe they can get outputs successfully without thinking about processes.
2. Structure of the Doctoral Thesis
Research Question:
What actors have constructed and maintained the“black-box” of search engine rankings?
Study 1
Historical media discourses of PC magazines for general users:
How search engine rankings become“black-boxed” in the society?
Study 2
Historical media discourses among SEO community for webmasters:
How webmasters tried to“hack” algorithms of search engine rankings to open a“black-box”
3. What is Search Engine Rankings?
An ordered list of webpages generated by a search engine(Google) on a user’s query
Google Search Engine as “AI”
Historical Discourses about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in Japan
Atsushi Udagawa, The University of Tokyo
Agenda
1. Introduction
Work Experiences
Research Interests
2. Structure of the Doctoral Thesis
3. What is Search Engine Rankings?