Divergent Realities Across the Digital–Material Divide

Elizabeth Englezos

doi:10.5204/lthj.1483

Abstract

This article utilises the example of Australia’s social welfare agency ‘Centrelink’ and its Online Compliance Intervention (OCI) program to illustrate the process of digital translation and digital determinations of material reality. The article explains the digital translation process through the adaptation of various aspects of Charles Sanders Peirce’s philosophy such as the triadic sign model, signification, fallibilism and synechism. Semiotics, or the ‘study of meaning making’, highlights the subjective nature of data analysis. A semiotic approach not only explains the differing realities of digital and material space and the lack of distinction between digital and material phenomena, but also provides further insight into algorithmic determinations of reality and the inherent limitations on our knowledge of digital or material reality. The same data can produce divergent realities within digital space and between the material and digital spaces. The article concludes that the design of algorithms, the nature of their representations and the outcomes they generate lack the complexity and nuance of reality, and disregards social influences on meaning and interpretation. As illustrated by the real-life failure of Centrelink’s OCI, this article warns against interpreting the digital as an accurate rendering of the real.

Highlights

The all-pervasive nature of digital technology has resulted in a new world order where the digital space has become an increasingly important place of personal existence
According to Lars Elleström it is this third sign constituent beyond Saussure’s signifier and signified ‘that creates novelty’[25] by recognising the creation of Englezos new ‘mental content’ as part of the interpretive process.[26]. It is essential— when considering the digital translation of materialilty—that we recognise the importance of the object itself. It is the distinction between the representamen and the interpretant that makes Peirce’s triad so valuable when considering the semiotics of material reality and its representation within digital space
The inability for the material person to traverse the digital–material divide mandates a form of digital translation over which we will have varying degrees of control

Summary

Introduction

The all-pervasive nature of digital technology has resulted in a new world order where the digital space has become an increasingly important place of personal existence. For many digital interactions, this substitution will be incomplete, biased or unsatisfactory This is problematic where translation occurs in the absence of the material person and without their knowledge. This article considers the example of Australia’s social welfare agency, Centrelink, and its Online Compliance Intervention (OCI) program It illustrates the process of translation from material to digital and digital determinations of material reality. The article shows the error in assuming data and data outcomes are objective As a consequence, it argues for a more nuanced view of reality, one that acknowledges the limitations of translation and explains how and why society must avoid conflating digital and material realities

Digital Translation

Reality and What is Real

The Role of Algorithms

Findings

Conclusion