Machines among the crowd: On the political effects of algorithmic production of social currents

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss a few ways that mechanisms for collective action are reconfigured by the activity of digital communication technologies. In particular, I examine how algorithms mobilized on the Social Web co-participate in the regulation of interdependence between the elements that compose contemporary figurations through the following mechanisms: by the production and organization of sociality by curating content, recommendations, and instructions for users; by their impact on the social production of the categories of time, space and identity; by the expansion of a business model that interlaces algorithmic activity and human action; and by the reconfiguration of the social modes of production and dissemination of knowledge. I conclude with the examination of the political consequences of this algorithmic activity in the production of social currents.