Socioplastics 11951 Repetition Is Not Corroboration
A search returns seven records for the same claim. A researcher may read them as independent corroboration, although all seven descend from one inaccurate entry. DuplicateGhost names the loss of provenance that allows repetition to appear as multiple testimony. Copies affect intellectual judgement by changing the apparent density of a claim, especially when metadata differences conceal a common source. Friedrich Kittler’s account of media technologies directs attention to storage, transmission and the technical conditions governing what becomes recordable. Paul N. Edwards’s history of climate knowledge shows how infrastructures, standards and data practices shape the construction of evidence. Their work helps examine how digital records acquire authority through their paths of reproduction. An archive could trace one claim through databases, reports and copied files. Researchers would compare timestamps, identifiers, wording and citation trails to identify shared origins. They could record which copies entered later analyses and how duplication affected confidence. A provenance map would distinguish independent observations from repeated versions of one source while preserving useful copies for access. DuplicateGhost makes the genealogy of digital evidence part of research practice. It supports better archive design and more careful interpretation of search results. The method can identify when duplicates should be linked, counted once or retained as versions. Records become more useful when their relationships are visible and repetition can be distinguished from independent corroboration. An archive can preserve every copy while linking versions to a common source, allowing users to inspect variation without counting the records as separate observations. The approach also protects the history of a claim by keeping its original record and later amendments connected.
REFERENCES
Edwards, P.N. (2010) A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kittler, F.A. (1999) Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html