Every day, millions of publications are posted on social networks, about anything and everything: fashion, sports, cooking, politics, showbiz. In addition to its abundance and accessibility, the online conversation takes place in the absence of any external solicitation: it seems to offer a direct and authentic access to our most varied opinions. Since the 2000s, a group of start-ups and agencies have invested this unique material: their algorithms allow to capture and analyze these opinions, in order to monetize them with major brands and political parties. These instruments implement a “seismography” of the Internet, drawing a new regime of knowledge and government. A fundamental book to understand what happens to our digital footprints, that is, how the web reinvents the measure of opinion.
Baptiste Kotras holds a doctorate in sociology from Paris-Est University, a researcher at LISIS. He is interested in how digital traces upset the knowledge of citizens and merchants
http://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/la-voix-du-web-baptiste-kotras/9782021384130