Abstract

Urbano Reviglio elaborates in this chapter on a framework for the designDesign of serendipity in human–computer interactionsInteraction, Interactive and digital environmentsEnvironment, especially for personalised online media and (news) recommender systemsRecommender systems. His contribution is a theoretical and interdisciplinaryInterdisciplinary investigation of digital serendipity in the context of personalizationPersonalized, Personalization systems. Serendipity is deeply involved in various sub-domains of information science, such as information retrievalInformation retrieval, information literacy, knowledgeKnowledge management and knowledgeKnowledge acquisition. It is considered a designDesign principle able to reduce the risks of redundant and overly consonant information consumption (also referred to as filter bubblesFilter bubble and echo chambersEcho chamber). Yet, Reviglio shows that the theoretical and ethical analysis of the concept is still limited. This article attempts to fill the gap by providing a taxonomy of serendipity as it might be used in the designDesign, or found through the use of personalizationPersonalized, Personalization systems. Based on an interdisciplinaryInterdisciplinaryliterature review, distinctions betweenPseudo (Serendipity) (Personalization) pseudo-personalised and hyper-personalised serendipity, between individual and political serendipity, and between fake and manipulativeManipulation, Manipulative serendipity are described. Finally, Reviglio discusses how this taxonomy can encourage the designDesign of more ethically sound digital systems that incorporate serendipity.