Culturas algorítmicas: conceptos y métodos para su estudio social

Abstract

Along with big data, platforms, and users, algorithms are the primary communication elements of digital culture. This article presents a literature systematization that analyses the relationship between algorithms, society, and culture. It places the subject in the context of cultural studies and digital communication, primarily focusing on automated recommendation systems used on social platforms. This analysis draws from the consideration of algorithms as sociotechnical assemblies that include a broad set of human and non-human actors. Then, it introduces the conceptual bases of the critical studies of algorithms and the most frequent study issues in the area: power and agency, algorithmic visibility and biases, and the methodological trends aimed at their empirical study. It presents a path to deepen the knowledge about the subject despite its opacity, and the tensions between the platforms’ algorithmic power and the users’ agency, as well as their action and interaction possibilities with devices that automate processes and prioritize information.

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