{"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":143,"pdf_page":153,"physical_index":153,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"cea714abcdef1da5a8b402c83d761d8941d9102c879d94aefaab2b3129f04fac"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"In the previous sections, I identified at least two distinct ways in which the understanding of algorithms is realized in Scandinavian newsrooms: as forms of potentiality and as something that is articulated as more or less problematic. In this final part of the chapter, I suggest that the notions of potentiality and the problematic do not necessarily stand in opposition to one another, but rather should be thought of as a “relational play of truth and falsehood” (Rabinow, 2009: 19). That is, when algorithms become contested, when they fluctuate between discourses of promise and closure, achieve recognition outside of accepted boundaries, and become imbued with certain capacities for action, they emerge as forms of “problematization.” A problematization, Foucault writes:\n\nDoes not mean the representation of a pre-existent object nor the creation through discourse of an object that did not exist. It is the ensemble of discursive and nondiscursive practices that make something enter into the play of true and false and constitute it as an object of thought (whether in the form of moral reflection, scientific knowledge, political analysis, etc.). (1988: 257)\n\nThe term “problematization” suggests a particular way of analyzing an event or situation—not as a given but, rather, as a question. As Rabinow suggests, the analyst’s task is to understand how, in a given situation, there are “multiple constraints at work but multiple responses as well” (2009: 19). For something to be problematized, a number of things must first be made uncertain or unfamiliar or “have provoked a number of dificulties around it” (Foucault, 1994: 117). As we have seen, the ways in which actors respond to algorithms in the news industry need to be understood against several constraining and enabling factors—most evidently, the dire economic circumstances in which most news organizations find themselves. Moreover, the responses of news professionals need to be understood against the broader landscape of the algorithmic media of which news organizations are a part. This applies in particular to their relationship to powerful competitive players such as Facebook and Google.\n\nOne aspect of this has to do with the way the figure of the algorithm problematizes existing boundaries of what journalism is and ought to be, an issue to which I will soon return. Another aspect has to do with the way news media are increasingly caught up in powerful “algorithmic configurations” (Callon & Muniesa, 2005) that involve other calculative agencies such as Facebook that help to organize their business. Of course, social media platforms have long been important to established news media. As Jens Nicolaisen at Jyllandsposten points out that, from a business perspective, their biggest competitors are not the other major Danish newspapers but social media platforms. “Facebook has had a tremendously greater impact on our business than Berlingske and Politiken,” he says (Interview 3, February 2015). However, research on the rise of social media platforms and their impact on the existing mass media environment show how social media do not replace but, rather, supplement and challenge more established forms of media and media use (Chadwick,  2013; Hermida et al., 2012; Kleis Nielsen & Schrøder, 2014). As Nicolaisen puts it, news media and social media seem to have entered into a marriage of convenience of sorts. In the “hybrid media system,” the news information cycle is no longer defined by the mass media alone but needs to be understood, instead, as an assemblage composed of many diferent media forms, actors, and interests in mutual relations of co-dependence (Chadwick, 2013). While we know that many news media sites atract a fair share of web trafic from social media—in particular, from Facebook (Kleis Nielsen & Schrøder, 2014), the notion of hybridization would also suggest that Facebook is dependent on the news media. Indeed, news is crucial for Facebook. People seem to share less of their personal lives on platforms like Facebook and Twiter than they used to (Grifith, 2016) and interact more with news shared by professional content producers. According to Will Cathcart (2016), who is vice-president of product at Facebook, 600 million people see news stories on Facebook on a weekly basis. Moreover, the company claims that a big part of why people come to Facebook in the first place is to catch up on the news and talk with their friends about it. As personal updates seems to be in decline, Facebook clearly counts on the news media and external content producers to help atract those much-needed clicks, likes, and engagement metrics that fuel its advertising business.\n\nProgramming the News\n\n143","previous_page":142,"next_page":144}