Algorithmic Cultures

Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies

Robert Seyfert, Jonathan Roberge, Robert Seyfert, Jonathan Roberge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138998421
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317331810
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides in-depth and wide-ranging analyses of the emergence, and subsequent ubiquity, of algorithms in diverse realms of social life. The plurality of Algorithmic Cultures emphasizes: 1) algorithms' increasing importance in the formation of new epistemic and organizational paradigms; and 2) the multifaceted analyses of algorithms across an increasing number of research fields. The authors in this volume address the complex interrelations between social groups and algorithms in the construction of meaning and social interaction. The contributors highlight the performative dimensions of algorithms by exposing the dynamic processes through which algorithms – themselves the product of a specific approach to the world – frame reality, while at the same time organizing how people think about society. With contributions from leading experts from Media Studies, Social Studies of Science and Technology, Cultural and Media Sociology from Canada, France, Germany, UK and the USA, this volume presents cutting edge empirical and conceptual research that includes case studies on social media platforms, gaming, financial trading and mobile security infrastructures.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 What are algorithmic cultures?
• 2 The algorithmic choreography of the impressionable subject
• 3 #trendingistrending: when algorithms become culture
• 4 Shaping consumers’ online voices: algorithmic apparatus or evaluation culture?
• 5 Deconstructing the algorithm: four types of digital information calculations
• 6 Baffled by an algorithm: mediation and the auditory relations of ‘immersive audio’
• 7 Algorhythmic ecosystems: neoliberal couplings and their pathogenesis 1960–present
• 8 Drones: the mobilization of algorithms
• 9 Social bots as algorithmic pirates and messengers of techno-environmental agency
• Index