A hora da “personalização em massa”: do consumo de informações à algoritmização do cotidiano

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study databases here considered a communica¬tion tool in a consumption perspective. As the object of analysis we chose the techniques which are applied to these databases and potentiate the information extracted from them – data mining tools are namely able to reveal tendencies, patterns and hidden nexuses between the data; therefore they are of increasing relevance to communicational decisions. Based on Peirce’s concepts of induc¬tion and abduction, this paper seeks to show, in the technological supports, the discursive practices which characterize contemporary society: forecast modeling (related to induction) and knowledge discovery (mostly abductive). The point of focus of the paper is the attempt to demonstrate that technology has established itself as the main foundation of the predictive model in consumption society, thus allowing not only an algoritmization of daily life but also the consolidation of a strange communicational phenomenon: that of ‘mass personalization’.