Algorithmic Cultures: Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies

by Robert Seyfert (Editor), Jonathan Roberge (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781317331810
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/04/2016
Series:	Routledge Advances in Sociology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Robert Seyfert is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cluster of Excellence "Cultural Foundations of Social Integration" at Universität Konstanz, Germany, and Visiting Full Professor of Comparative Cultural Sociology at Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. He recently published in Theory, Culture & Society and European Journal of Social Theory.

Jonathan Roberge is Assistant Professor of Cultural and Urban Sociology at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Quebec; he holds the Canada Research Chair in Digital Culture, in addition to being a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University.

Table of Contents

1. What Are Algorithmic Cultures? (Jonathan Roberge / Robert Seyfert)

2. The Algorithmic Choreography of the Impressionable Subject (Lucas D. Introna

3. #Trendingistrending: When Algorithms Become Culture (Tarleton Gillespie)

4. Shaping Consumers’ Online Voices: Algorithmic Apparatus or Evaluation Culture? (Jean-Samuel Beuscart / Kevin Mellet)

5. Deconstructing the Algorithm: Four Types of Digital Information Calculations, (Dominique Cardon)

6. Baffled by an Algorithm: Mediation and the Auditory Relations of ‘Immersive Audio’ (Joe Klett)

7. Algorhythmic Ecosystems: Neoliberal Couplings and Their Pathogenesis 1960–Present (Shintaro Miyazaki)

8. Drones: The Mobilization of Algorithms, (Valentin Rauer)

9. Social Bots as Algorithmic Pirates and Messengers of Techno-Environmental Agency, (Oliver Leistert)