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Short abstract:

This paper shows that boundary-work, denoting discursive demarcations between science and non-science, constitutes an integral dynamic in constructions of hype. By drawing on the example of synthetic data hype, I argue that critical hype studies must attend to boundary-work as a rhetoric of hype.

Long abstract:

While the sociology of expectations, and hype studies in particular, have fruitfully highlighted the performativity of expectations and hype for technoscientific innovation, they have missed accounting for the role of boundary-work in constructions of hype. Boundary-work (Gieryn, 1983), a well-established STS concept, denotes the discursive acts by which certain technoscientific practices are delineated as scientific in opposition to others that are not. This perspective highlights that constructions of hype often entail both the valorization of one technoscientific innovation as well as the derision of another. To empirically demonstrate this dynamic, this paper draws on the example of the recently much-hyped technology of synthetic data, signifying artificially produced digital data which are increasingly used in the training of machine learning models. Mobilizing interview data and promissory materials, this paper shows that synthetic data hype is constituted through three different modes of boundary-work: first, stipulations of their epistemic superiority; second, disputes related to best synthetic data methodologies; and third, contestations regarding the attribute “fake”. The discursive hype around synthetic data, the analysis suggests, is significantly shaped by such dynamics of boundary-work. The paper concludes by suggesting that critical hype studies ought to attend to boundary-work practices as a constitutive dynamic in constructions of hype, thereby enriching existing perspectives on the rhetoric of hype.