{"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":37,"pdf_page":47,"physical_index":47,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"22b5208cbd67196c8d885be2c9400b3680c0329cb89f55a7d0caaff0a33f08b7"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"It involves, of course, being responsible for the sailors, but also taking care of the vessel and the cargo; governing a ship also involves taking winds, reefs, storms, and bad weather into account. What characterizes government of a ship is the practice of establishing relations between the sailors, the vessel, which must be safeguarded, the cargo, which must be brought to port, and their relations with all those eventualities like winds, reefs, storms and so on. (Foucault, 2007: 135)\n\nExtending the analytics of government to an understanding of algorithmic power implies a concern for the ways in which things are arranged and managed to guide people in a certain way. For Foucault, this organizing power has a crucial technological dimension since the conduct of conduct is achieved through various technical means.27 Introna (2016), for example, explores this dimension of algorithmic power by considering how plagiarism algorithms are used to govern academic writing practices. He makes the argument that algorithms have the power to enact particular governed subjects, exemplified in the way that the plagiarism software enacts “a  particular understanding of originality and plagiarism, as well as subjects who conceive of ‘good’ writing practice as the composition of undetectable texts” (Introna, 2016: 20). As with Foucault’s earlier notion of disciplinary power, a concept that will be further discussed in chapter 4, the notion of government and governmentality strongly hinges on subjectivation as a core principle of power. The making of subjects and subject positions in Foucault’s work, frames power as something that is productive and generative.\n\nPower as such does not exist; it only exists “when it is put into action” (Foucault, 1982: 788). For an understanding of algorithmic power, this implies that algorithms do not have or possess power. Instead, algorithms enact “the possibility of conduct and puting in order the possible outcome” (Foucault, 1982: 789). “Governmentality” does not “force people to do what the governor wants” but, rather, works by assuring “coercion and processes through which the self is constructed or modified by himself” (Foucault, 1993: 204).28 I want to suggest that we conceive of government and governmentality as particularly helpful concepts in understanding the power of algorithms. Algorithms do not simply have power in the possessive sense; they constitute “technologies of government.” Just as statistics enabled the governing of populations in Foucault’s account of security, algorithms operate as instruments of government to direct the flow of information and the practices of users “to this or that region or activity” (Foucault, 2007: 141).\n\nTh e M u l tip l icity of A lgo rith ms\n\n37","previous_page":36,"next_page":38}