{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","uuid":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","normalized_title":"ifthenalgorithmicpowerandpolitics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","isbns":["2017054909","9780190493042","9780190493059"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":211,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/If...Then%20Algorithmic%20Power%20and%20Politics","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/search"},"page":{"printed_page":115,"pdf_page":125,"physical_index":125,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"1bc7e857b9ae37d48fdb1a79a4a7bceaa241193ab9d0cb1865ad0f3ac83da79a"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"Far from naming an illusory relation, the algorithmic imaginary is a powerful identification that needs to be understood as productive. The sites and situations through which people encounter and experience algorithms arguably shape ways of thinking, talking, and feeling about them. While seeing an ad for wrinkle cream may not be surprising when you are 45 or an ad for a dating site when you have declared yourself as “single” on Facebook, these connections may not feel incidental. Algorithms create a “cybernetic relationship to identification” by constructing “categories of identity” (Cheney-Lippold, 2011: 168, 172). These statistically derived paterns of cybernetic categorization, however, may be in conflict with how users feel about and see themselves. Some participants, such as Shannon and Kayla, feel uncomfortable with the ways in which they are apparently being categorized, while others, such as Lena and Larry, feel distanced and even angry at the algorithm for “thinking” they would be the kinds of persons who would actually be interested in the content they are served. While it might be dificult to escape the digitally constructed categories of identity, Papacharissi suggests that afect may extend beyond “just emotions and feelings to describe driving forces that are suggestive of tendencies to act in a variety of ways” (2015: 12). Whether or not the algorithm makes a correct inference does not necessarily mater. For example, a child who is mistakenly addressed as an adult may like the fact he or she is being taken “seriously” and start to behave in a more adult-like manner (De Vries, 2010: 78). Similarly, it seemed that Lena’s anger at being “wrongfully” identified and associated with her former classmates provoked her to update even more on the Democrats to counter the algorithm’s insistence on showing “Republican” updates.\n\nThe algorithmic imaginary does not merely describe the mental models that people construct about algorithms but also the productive and afective power that these imaginings have. Driven by machine learning, the algorithms that drive social media platforms evolve and change as a result of being exposed to an ever-increasing set of data. As Emilee Rader and Rebecca Gray (2015) point out, the feedbackloop characteristics of these systems make user beliefs an important component in  shaping overall system behavior. When users “click consciously,” disrupt their “liking” practices, comment more frequently on some of their friends’ posts to support their visibility, only post on weekday nights, or emphasize positively charged words, these movements or reactions are not just afected by the algorithm (or, rather, by people’s perceptions of the algorithm); the practices also have the ability to afect the very algorithms that helped generate these responses in the first place. The social power of algorithms—particularly, in the context of machine learning— stems from the recursive relations between people and algorithms.\n\nAffective Landscapes\n\n115","previous_page":114,"next_page":116}