CB and Waze: How Do Algorithms Affect Collaboration on the Road?

• In Event: Working with Algorithms, Thinking through Automation

Abstract

Waze is a navigation app that has gained attention for its ability to turn user inputs and data into “smart” wayfinding and alerting. Some scholars have hailed it as “new” and innovative (Hind & Gekker, 2014; Ramos 2016).

However, another popular technology has previously afforded drivers the ability to collaborate and even collectively act from within their own private cars: CB radio. In the 1970s, CB gained popularity through coverage of how it facilitated trucker strikes and inspired popular media such as Smokey and the Bandit (1977).

Waze also allows users to alert other drivers to the presence of police, and, much like police officers in the 1970s, modern day officers have been frustrated with this affordance of the technology. The Miami Police department was documented sending out false reports to the app to try to confuse it and disguise their position (NBC 6, 2015; Biersdorfer, 2016).

One major difference between the technologies, however, is the role of the algorithm. CB radio enabled direct person-to-person communication; users could be warned or warn through the use of voice. Waze, however, is a digital “platform” (Gillespie 2010), and actively structures and mediates the ways in which users can communicate with each other.

This paper will use interviews with Waze and former CB radio users to do a comparative study. How does the algorithm-in-practice (Christin 2017) affect collaborative publics of drivers? What has been gained and what has been lost in the transition of one technology to another?

Author

• Anna Gibson