Malte Ziewitz

Overview

Professor Malte Ziewitz (he/him) studies the changing role of governance and regulation in, of, and through digitally networked environments – the dynamics at work, the values at stake, the design options at hand. 

His work has been supported by an NSF Career Award, a McCloy Fellowship, a PGP Corporation Scholarship, and grants from the Economic and Social Research Council, the Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the NSF. As Principal Investigator, he headed the How's My Feedback? project, a collaborative design experiment to rethink and evaluate online review and rating websites.

Previously, Malte was a postdoctoral fellow at New York University's Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and Information Law Institute. He also worked as a junior researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research. He holds a D.Phil. from Oxford University, an M.P.A. from Harvard University, and a First State Exam in Law from the University of Hamburg.

At Cornell, he directs the Digital Due Process Clinic, serves as a Faculty Fellow at the Milstein Program for Technology & Humanity, and is a House Fellow (and frequent diner) at William Keeton House.

Research Focus

Science & technology studies; sociology of (e)valuation; mundane governance; digital media; audit cultures; ethnography; ethnomethodology

Publications

• Meisner C, Duffy B, and Ziewitz M (2022). The Labor of Search Quality Rating: Making Algorithms More Human or Humans More Algorithmic? New Media & Society. OnlineFirst: 14614448211063860.

• Ziewitz, M. and R. Singh (2021). Critical companionship: Some sensibilities for studying the lived experience of data subjects. Big Data & Society 8(2): 20539517211061120.

• Ziewitz, M. (2019). Rethinking gaming: The ethical work of optimization in web search engines. Social Studies of Science 49(5): 707-731.

• Ziewitz, M. and M. Lynch (2018). It's important to go to the laboratory: Malte Ziewitz Talks with Michael Lynch. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 4: 366-385.

• Ziewitz, M. (2017). A not quite random walk: Experimenting with the ethnomethods of the algorithm. Big Data & Society 4(2): 1-13.
• Ziewitz, M. (2017). Experience in action: Moderating care in web-based patient feedback. Social Science & Medicine 175: 99-108.
• Ziewitz, M. (2016). Governing algorithms: Myth, mess, and methods. Science, Technology, and Human Values 41(1): 3-16.
• Ziewitz, M. and C. Pentzold (2014). In search of internet governance: Performing order in digitally networked environments. New Media & Society 16(2): 306-322.
• Barocas, S., Hood, S. and M. Ziewitz (2013). Governing algorithms: A provocation piece. Discussion paper for Governing Algorithms conference, May 16-17, 2013.
• Ziewitz, M. and I. Brown (2013). A prehistory of internet governance. In Research Handbook on Governance of the Internet, ed I. Brown, 3-26. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

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