radio/podcast series Confirm Humanity

Algorithmic Fairness and Social Justice with Christine Bauer

Christine Bauer contributes to the second episode of the radio/podcast series Confirm Humanity – Epochenbruch, produced by Freies Radio Salzkammergut and hosted by Mario Friedwagner. The episode, which was first broadcast on December 16, 2025, explores how algorithms shape social outcomes, emphasizing that supposedly neutral computational processes reflect societal structures and can reproduce existing inequalities.

Key Topics Discussed
Drawing on her research on recommender systems in music and media, Christine Bauer addresses the following questions:
• How do recommender algorithms influence visibility, access, and opportunities for creators and audiences (e.g., placement bias and gender distribution in music recommendations)?
• Why does fairness require attention to data, algorithms, and their social embedding (beyond “better data” alone)?
• What roles do human agency, transparency, and accountability play in the responsible design of algorithms toward fair outcomes (including the limitations of “black box” approaches)?

Interdisciplinary Perspective
The episode brings together perspectives from sociology, cultural studies, design, and computer science to situate algorithmic fairness in the broader context of society, culture, and technology. In addition to Christine Bauer, the following experts share their insights:
• Juliane Jarke (University of Graz) on how data is created in specific social settings and why “neutral” data is a myth,
• Matthias Wieser (University of Klagenfurt; UNIKUM Kulturzentrum) on bias in datasets and the reproduction of social inequalities,
• Magdalena Reiter (Kulturplattform Oberösterreich) on platform business models, concentration of power, and the importance of transparency

Christine Bauer emphasizes that algorithms can either perpetuate inequality or foster more inclusive, human-centered digital systems, underscoring the relevance and impact of her research on algorithmic fairness.

Listen to the episode: Confirm Humanity – Soziale Gerechtigkeit (Teil 2) (in German)
Series context: Confirm Humanity – Epochenbruch, Freies Radio Salzkammergut

Related research articles
• Andres Ferraro, Michael D. Ekstrand, & Christine Bauer (2024). It’s not you, it’s me: the impact of choice models and ranking strategies on gender imbalance in music recommendation. Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2024). Bari, Italy, 14-18 October, pp 884-889. DOI: 10.1145/3640457.3688163
• Andres Ferraro, Xavier Serra, & Christine Bauer (2021). Break the loop: gender imbalance in music recommenders. Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR ‘21). Canberra, ACT, Australia, 14-19 March, pp 249-254.
DOI: 10.1145/3406522.3446033