Digital (mis)trust: ethnographic encounters with computational forms.

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Computer Science
• Digital Humanities

Background:

• Computational forms (practices, logics, technologies, infrastructures) play a significant role in social life.
• Issues of trust and mistrust, collectively termed (mis)trust, are central to understanding these computational forms.
• Existing approaches often view trust and mistrust as antonymic and solvable.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the multifaceted role of computational forms in mediating (mis)trust within social contexts.
• To analyze how (mis)trust is conceptualized, narrated, and designed for by various actors.
• To challenge the notion that (mis)trust can be solved or eradicated through technological means.

Main Methods:

• Ethnographic encounters and case studies across diverse settings.
• Analysis of computational thinking in democratic election discourses.
• Examination of computational technologies in bureaucratic systems.
• Investigation of computational practices in subjectivity production and data circulation.

Main Results:

• (Mis)trust is actively rendered as a concern and shaped through design and discourse.
• Computational thinking and technologies are integral to establishing order and assuring data flow.
• The study reveals the dynamic and mutable relationship between trust and mistrust.
• Technosolutionist approaches fail to resolve or eliminate (mis)trust.

Conclusions:

• Trust and mistrust exist in a mutable, intertwined relation, not as opposites.
• Computational forms continuously shape and are shaped by social (mis)trust.
• Understanding (mis)trust requires moving beyond simplistic, solvable frameworks to embrace its persistent, evolving nature.