Matías Valderrama Barragán

Research Interests: Digital Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, Critical Data Studies, Surveillance Studies, Platform Accountability, Social Theory.

Supervisors: Prof. Noortje MarresLink opens in a new window and Prof. Celia LuryLink opens in a new window

Research Topic:

Drawing upon the work of interrelated fields such as Digital Sociology, Media Studies and Science and Technology Studies, my research project aims to understand how different actors establish, demonstrate, contest or undermine the connection between social media platforms and societal harms. To this end, I am conducting a controversy mapping of the Facebook Files/Papers, a disclosure of Meta's internal research by former employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen. My research examines how these leaks were framed and made public, as well as the multiple strategies of actors in journalism, research, politics and activism to make and unmake the connection between Meta's platforms and multiple issues of social concern.

PhD Working title: Platforms on Trial. Making and not making connections between social media platforms and societal harms during the Facebook Files/Papers controversy.

Background:

I am a third-year ESRC-funded PhD researcher. I hold an MA and BA in Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In my Master’s thesis, I used digital methods to map a controversy around a hydroelectric project in the south of Chile. I have worked on Fondecyt research projects and studies for NGOs on the social implications of multiple digital technologies in Chile, such as environmental sensors, drones, predictive models, and self-tracking devices.

Grants:

ESRC PhD Studentship grant number ES/P000711/1.

Publications:

Tironi, M., & Valderrama, M. (2022). Worth-making in a datafied world: Urban cycling, smart urbanism, and technologies of justification in Santiago de Chile. The Information Society, 38(2), 100-116. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2022.2027587Link opens in a new window

Valderrama, M. (2021). The Child Alert System and predicting the risk of violations of children’s rights. Derechos Digitales. https://www.derechosdigitales.org/wp-content/uploads/02_Informe-Chile-EN_180222.pdf

Tironi, M., & Valderrama, M. (2021). Microclimates of (in)security in Santiago: Sensors, sensing and sensations. In Klimburg-Witjes, N., Poechhacker, N. & Bowker, G.C. (Eds.) Sensing In/Security: Sensors as Transnational Security Infrastructures (pp. 50-75). Mattering Press. http://doi.org/10.28938/9781912729111Link opens in a new window

Tironi, M., & Valderrama, M. (2021). Experimenting with the Social life of homes: sensor governmentality and its frictions. Science as Culture, 30(2), 192-215. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2021.1893682 

Tironi, M. & Valderrama, M. (2019). The militarization of the urban sky in Santiago de Chile: the vision multiple of a video-surveillance system of aerostatic balloons. Urban Geography, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2019.1706939

Valderrama, M., & Velasco, P. (2018). Programming creation? An exploration of the socio-technical field of YouTube in Chile. Cuadernos.info, (42), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.7764/cdi.42.1370

Tironi, M. & Valderrama, M. (2018). Acknowledging the idiot in the smart city: Experimentation and citizenship in the making of a low-carbon district in Santiago de Chile. En: A. Karvonen, F. Cugurullo & F. Caprotti (Eds.) Inside Smart Cities (pp. 165-181). New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351166201-11

Tironi, M. & Valderrama, M. (2018). Unpacking a citizen self-tracking device: Smartness and idiocy in the accumulation of cycling mobility data. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(2), 294–312. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775817744781

Valderrama, M. (2016). Siguiendo los hipervínculos de controversias socio-técnicas: el caso de HidroAysén [Following the hyperlinks of socio-technical controversies: the case of HidroAysén]. Virtualis 7(14), 170-205. http://www.revistavirtualis.mx/index.php/virtualis/article/view/193

Valderrama, M. (2016). Los rastros digitales de lo social: Hacia una agenda de estudios digitales latinoamericanos [Digital traces of the social: Towards an agenda for Latin American digital studies]. Contenido. Cultura y Ciencias Sociales 7, 126-149. http://www.revistacontenido.com/los-rastros-digitales-de-lo-social-hacia-una-agenda-de-estudios-digitales-latinoamericanos/ 

Valderrama, M. (2016). El devenir de la identidad digital: del yo proteico al yo identificado [The turn of digital identity: from the protean self to the identified self]. Paakat: Revista de Tecnología y Sociedad, 6(11), http://www.udgvirtual.udg.mx/paakat/index.php/paakat/issue/view/51

Conferences:

Valderrama, M. (2021, February 23). El Giro Digital De La Sociología: Problematizando El Entretejimiento Entre Lo Social y Lo Digital. [The digital turn of sociology: Problematising the entanglement between the social and the digital] [Paper Presentation]. IV ISA Forum of Sociology, Porto Alegre, Brazil – Virtual Meeting.

Valderrama, M., Tironi, M., Lury, C., Wark, S., Simon, A., Parra, D. (2020, August 18-21). Inhabiting the algorithm. The making of a smartphone app to explore how people became habituated to algorithmic profiling and recommendation systems [Paper Presentation]. EASST/4S 2020 Conference, Prague - Virtual Meeting.

Tironi, M. & Valderrama, M. (2020, August 18-21). Experimenting with the Social Life of Homes: Sensor Governmentality and Mundane Frictions [Paper Presentation]. EASST/4S 2020 Conference, Prague - Virtual Meeting.

Tironi, M. & Valderrama, M. (2017, November 29) ¿Respirar (in)seguridad? Disputas y convivencia afectiva con tecnologías de videovigilancia aérea en la comuna de Las Condes. [Breathing (in)security? Disputes and affective coexistence with aerial video surveillance technologies in Las Condes] [Paper Presentation]. 5th International Symposium LAVITS 2017, Santiago, Chile.

Tironi, M. & Valderrama, M. (2017, November 15-18). Making a “Low-Carbon District”: Participatory sensing for a legitimate shared city [Paper Presentation]. Knowledge/Culture/Ecologies Conference, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile.

Valderrama, M. & Tironi, M. (2016, August 31-September 3). Tracking a self-tracking device: expectations and practices of a bicycle support project in the city of Santiago of Chile [Paper Presentation]. 4S/EASST 2016 Conference, Barcelona, Spain.

Tironi, M. y Valderrama, M. (2016, August 31-September 3). Between Smart surveillance and military urbanism: the case of Aerostatic Balloons in Santiago de Chile [Paper Presentation]. 4S/EASST 2016 Conference, Barcelona, Spain.

Valderrama, M. (2015, June 18). The nuances of the effect of Facebook on the Chilean protests. [Paper Presentation]. 68th World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) Annual Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Contact

matias.valderrama-barragan@warwick.ac.uk

Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL

Office hours

Please email me in advance to schedule a meeting.