{"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":124,"pdf_page":134,"physical_index":134,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"a751d8bee63d51bacfead3dfb2b6fe1382082f751cac1347bfcee11f886a4d1c"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"But as with all technical change and innovation, discussions surrounding the computerization of newsrooms and the digitization of news have typically been accompanied by worries about the changing status quo. The emergence of social media, for example, fostered discussions around the potential replacement of journalists and other news workers by bloggers (Lowrey,  2006; Matheson,  2004; Rosen, 2005) or non-professionals engaging in citizen journalism (Goode, 2009; Rosenberry & St. John, 2010). These debates and worries have been replaced by similar discussions and worries about the rise of the so-called robot journalism (Clerwall,  2014). Companies such as Narrative Science or Automated Insights, which train computers to write news stories using automated algorithmic processes, have spurred much discussion about the sustainability of journalist as an enduring profession and the vulnerability of the human work force in the age of the purportedly “smart machine” (Carlson,  2015; van Dalen,  2012). Without commiting to news robots being either a threat or a salvation, it is clear from the now burgeoning literature on what Anderson calls the “shaggy, emerging beast” of computational journalism (2013: 1017; see also Rodgers, 2015: 13) that algorithms are here to stay. The question, then, is not whether algorithms play an important part in journalism and news work, but in what way this role is playing out in practice, how it is accounted for and made relevant, and when it, indeed, comes to mater to specific actors in a given seting.\n\nMaking Algorithms Matter\n\nA SCANDINAVIAN CASE STUDY\n\nWhat is at stake in this chapter is an exploration of algorithms as enacted in practice—in other words, how news organizations are dealing with algorithms, both in terms of the algorithmic logics of digital intermediaries such as Facebook, and the journalistic algorithms developed internally within the organizations in question. Drawing mostly on qualitative expert interviews with news editors and digital product managers from ten diferent Scandinavian newspapers and media outlets, the aim is to explore how algorithms come to mater in the specific seting of news work.6 The data sources on which I rely are 20 interviews I conducted personally among key actors in news organizations in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden from 2014 to 2016.7 The interviewees were digital project managers, editors-in-chief, technology directors, social media editors, developers, and journalists at leading news organizations. These organizations include the Scandinavia-based publishing house Schibsted, the Norwegian media group Polaris Media, Norway’s national newspapers Aftenposten and Verdens Gang (VG) and the Norwegian local newspapers Adresseavisen and iTromsø, Denmark’s national newspapers Jyllandsposten and Politiken, Sweden’s national newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, the public broadcasting service Sveriges Radio and the digital-only news service Omni.8 The news organizations reported on in this chapter all use algorithms in some way or another to select, create, edit, and publish the news. While there are many similarities among the diferent news organizations and their atempts to make sense of algorithms in journalism, the aim here is not to tell one master story of algorithmic journalism in Scandinavia. What is of interest are the politics entailed in trying to establish the meaning of algorithms. As such, it is a story of the ontological constitution of algorithms, of what happens when its status is up for grabs.\n\n124\n\nI F . . . T H E N","previous_page":123,"next_page":125}