Algorithmic Culture

Undergraduate / Graduate

The term algorithm has existed for centuries. However as technical systems, algorithms have only more recently started to shape contemporary social relations. From PredPol to ChatGPT, algorithms have inserted themselves into human knowledge and social experience across global information systems. In doing so, they have become the new site of culture insofar as they modulate human experiences and construct normative ways of meaning-making by correlating new relations among data, optimizing outputs, and automating decisions. Through the lens of digital media studies, this class will track how algorithms have reshaped culture relations by reconfiguring received frameworks of objectivity, identity, and power. Beginning with historical and technical accounts of algorithms, we will explore their impact through key issues including: personalization, discrimination, violence, labor, infrastructure, and the environment. The course will conclude by examining how algorithms open up new paths for resistance and sovereignty. Along the way, we will engage algorithms through vectors of social identity, including race, gender, class, and sexuality. As algorithms are a complex and multifaceted concept, our study of it will be interdisciplinary. In addition to foundational texts in digital media studies, we will engage a variety of materials from computer science, critical race studies, social sciences, queer and feminist studies, history, communications, and more.