Evaluation as Governance:
The Practical Politics of Web-based Feedback
Over the past decade, web-based review and rating schemes have become increasingly popular as techno-scientific solutions to public problems. eBay’s feedback forum, Amazon’s product reviews, Avvo’s lawyer ratings, RateMyTeachers’ student assessments or Google’s search rankings—all these schemes use networked information technologies to solicit public assessments of people, products, services and organisations. In doing so, the argument goes, they make hidden qualities transparent, hold individuals and organisations to account and ensure democratic participation on a larger scale than conventional modes of governance. Also policy-makers have embraced these novel applications and started web-based review and rating schemes in areas like healthcare, policing or local politics with the goal of “ushering in a new world of accountability” (HM Government 2009, p. 4).
In this project, I take a closer look at the mundane, everyday practices that go into establishing and maintaining these schemes and the ways in which they reconfigure networks of governance and accountability. Building on recent arguments in Science and Technology Studies (STS), Neo-Foucauldian governance theory and critical accounting studies, I develop a relational view of governance and accountability as a contingent and situated accomplishment. Instead of taking the analytic status and agency of people, technology and institutions for granted, I ask how the subjects and objects of governance come about in practice: who, which or what is governing what, which or whom—and with what implications? How can a better understanding of these messy practices contribute to theoretical debates about transparency, accountability and ‘democratic’ participation? And what are the analytic, conceptual and methodological devices to answer these questions?
Empirically, I explore these themes by following postings, ratings and reviews in two different settings, using a range of ethnographic strategies, including participant observation, interviews, documentary analysis and exploratory prototyping: web-based patient feedback and search engine optimization (SEO).
The project is generously supported by a DAAD Doctoral Scholarship and a PGP Corporation Scholarship.
Related publications
Ziewitz, M. (forthcoming). How to attend to screens? Technology, ontology and precarious enactments. Encounters.
Related talks and presentations
“What is it with experience? Postings, governance and multiplicity in web-based patient feedback,” Knowledge, Innovation and E-health Research Group Seminar, Warwick Medical School, United Kingdom, March 2, 2011
“Researching search: Ethnographic stories from the search marketing industry,” Business School, University of Exeter, United Kingdom, February 2, 2011
“How to attend to screens? Mundane encounters at the int(er/ra)face,” PhD Workshop “Framing Screens: Knowledge, Interaction, Practice”, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, September 29, 2010
“Accountability multiple? The practical politics of web-based patient feedback,” 4S Annual Meeting 2010, Tokyo, Japan, August 26, 2010
“Innovation in governance as a practical accomplishment,” First Berlin Forum Innovation in Governance, Technical University Berlin, Germany, May 20, 2010
“Governance and accountability in/of/through internet-based rating systems,” ESRC Workshop “Imagining and Demystifying Empirical Socio-Legal Research,” Loughborough University, United Kingdom, April 6, 2009
