IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2016 - 43

wide range of entertainment choices. It is much easier to keep those people as long-term subscribers
than people who wish to remain in a confined filter
bubble. The same is true for all subscription entertainment services and for retailers like Amazon who
want customers to buy as many products as possible
on their site.
Much of the research at the Lear Center is informed
by a commitment to respect audiences, to respect their
need for information and their desire for entertainment,
and acknowledge that media and entertainment play
powerful roles in human lives. Scholars and practitioners must pay attention to the automated, commercially
driven and highly sophisticated recommendation systems that are transforming our media ecology. But they
must not presume that these big data-driven systems
are somehow dehumanizing or anti-social. The twentieth century media model was based on delivering content and products to audiences according to their
demographics - the color of their skin, their gender, age
and income - ultimately reinforcing outdated stereotypes. Technologies that take into account what people
actually care about, and what gives them pleasure, will
lead to a media ecosystem that is more accountable to
society and more intent on expanding people's horizons
rather than constricting them.

Author Information
Johanna Blakley, PhD, is the managing director of the
Norman Lear Center at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. Email: johanna
.blakley@usc.edu.

No matter how much data there is,
it is no easy task predicting what
someone might like.
References
[1] T. Baker and J. Blakley, "You are what you watch (and listen to, and read): How Americans' entertainment habits
track their political values," Norman Lear Center White Paper,
2008; http://learcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/
entertainmentandpolitics.pdf.
[2] J. Blakley, "Social media and the end of gender," TEDWomen
Talk, 2010; http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_
media_and_the_end_of_gender.html.
[3] E. Pariser, "Beware online 'filter bubbles,'" TED Talk,. 2011;
https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_
bubbles?language=en.
[4] A. Madrigal, "How Netflix reverse engineered Hollywood,"
Atlantic, Jan. 2, 2014; http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/
2014/01/how-netflix-reverse-engineered-hollywood/282679/.
[5] C. Thompson, "If you like this, you're sure to love that,"
New York Times Mag., Nov. 21, 2008; http://www.nytimes
.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23Netflix-t.html.
[6] ACM Conference Series on Recommender Systems; https://
recsys.acm.org/.
[7] A. Azaria, A. Hassidim, S. Kraus, A. Eshkol, O. Weintraub, I.
Netanely, "Movie recommender system for profit maximization,"
in Intelligent Techniques for Web Personalization and Recommendation: Papers from the AAAI 2013 Workshop., 2013; http://
azariaa.com/Content/Publications/Movie.pdf.
[8] T. D. Lauretis, Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory,
Film, and Fiction. Indiana Univ. Press, 1987.

Corrections
1) In the September 2016 issue of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, the spelling of an author's name,
Marc C. Canellas, appeared incorrectly in the print copy and on the IEEE Xplore copy of the article.
The incorrect spelling appears on page 2 and on page 50 of the print copy. The correct spelling is Marc C.
Canellas. Note that the spelling was corrected in the QMags digital copy of the issue sent via email to subscribers of T&S Magazine.
2) Also in the September 2016 issue of IEEE T&S Magazine, on page 16 in an article by MG Michael, a date was
shown incorrectly. The date shown near the top left of the page was 35 000 BC. The correct date should have
read: 3,500 BCE.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2016.2635058

DECEmbEr 2016

∕

IEEE TEchnology and SocIETy MagazInE

http://www.learcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_ https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/ http://www.nytimes http://https:// http://recsys.acm.org/ http://http:// http://www.azariaa.com/Content/Publications/Movie.pdf

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