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The wisdom of the crowd. The mass in the digital platforms’ era.
March 21 2018

Bât. Max Weber, Salle de séminaire 2, 10h30-12h30

Université Paris Nanterre


The wisdom of the crowds has long been a topic of interest in many fields such as philosophy, psychology, and, more recently, mass communication studies. In the 19th century the French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) defined a crowd as a group of individuals united by a common idea, belief, or ideology. In his classical book « The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind » (1895) Le Bon asserted that these bonding ideas, beliefs and ideologies were never created by members of the crowd, and that crowds accepted them superficially, without any form of examination of evidence.

Such an unflattering view is quite different from contemporary perceptions. Nowadays the wisdom of the crowd is often sought-after. Aggregate decision making and opinions are often considered to be more reliable than those of any single individual, especially in the online domain. In my talk, I will discuss some notable examples of this phenomenon: e-commerce platforms (e.g. Recommender System), search engines, collaborative platforms (e.g. Wikipedia), crowdfunding, and data journalism.

Contacts

Contact

Hélène de Foucaud - hdefouca(AT)parisnanterre.fr

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Université Paris Nanterre
Bât. Max Weber, Salle de séminaire 2, 10h30-12h30 _____