{"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":125,"pdf_page":135,"physical_index":135,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"dbb964d56248ce21b077ecd37b0e5a0f674dc09af5e2120f7df8a7f150ae3d22"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"While the interviews certainly ascribe meaning to algorithms, meaning should not be seen as a “property of individual words or groups of words but an ongoing performance of the world in its diferential intelligibility” (Barad, 2003: 821). There are at least two sides to this that we need to acknowledge before moving on. First, materiality and discourse do not stand in opposition to each other; they are mutually constitutive (Barad, 2007; Orlikowski & Scot, 2015). The notion of a constitutive relation between the material and discursive implies that relations enact entities as part of situated practices. Like discourse and meaning, then, materiality or mater should not be understood in fixed terms. As Barad puts it, “mater does not refer to a fixed substance; rather, mater is substance in its intra-active becoming—not a thing, but a doing” (2003: 822). For Barad, “materiality is discursive [. . .] just as discursive practices are always already material” (2003: 822). Mater and materiality, in other words, are not substances but accomplishments made pertinent in a given situation (Cooren et al., 2012). This also means that “any distinction of humans and technologies is analytical only, and done with the recognition that these entities necessarily entail each other in practice” (Orlikowski & Scot, 2008: 456). In other words, studying how algorithms come to mater implies an understanding of how algorithms are made relevant and pertinent in a given situation— for example, by examining how and when diferent aspects of the algorithm are variously enacted in people’s accounts of them.\n\nThis brings me to the second point that we need to take into consideration when examining the meanings that news professionals ascribe to algorithms. Echoing ethnomethodological sentiments, we need to reflect on speech itself. News professionals necessarily speak as editors, managers, executives, and so on, which means that there are specific preoccupations and concerns that animate the person who occupies these positions. Consider the “Terror of War” incident again. As the editor-inchief of one of Norway’s leading newspapers, Hansen does not merely speak up against the power of social media platforms, but also as a spokesperson for the independent press more broadly. The perceived wrongdoing of Facebook’s algorithms is here used as a justification and legitimation of the news media. As Cooren et al. (2012) note, speaking as also implies a speaking for, not just in terms of being a spokesperson for a specific company or brand but also in terms of speaking to the particular interests and issues that such a position is supposed to entail. The preoccupations and concerns that news professionals speak to, then, are not mere reflections of a material referent but must, rather, be understood as marking the agency of what appears to them. In this sense, I follow Lucy Suchman’s call for “the need to atend to the boundary work through which entities are defined” (Orlikowski & Scot, 2008: 464):\n\nProgramming the News\n\n125","previous_page":124,"next_page":126}