engleski

The Socio-Economic Materiality of Algorithms: Unpacking the layers

In this presentation, I will define algorithms as digital services produced by private companies and usually offered to internet users without a monetary exchange. The commercial value for the companies that produce them is often generated from digital spaces and their functionalities offered to companies looking to boost their sales through advertising. For example, the concrete appearance of Google's search algorithms in the experience of internet users is displayed as a ranked list of organic and paid search results. Users simultaneously interact with the organic and paid results. The company that owns the algorithms, the advertisers looking for consumers, and internet users form global socio-economic relations. To unpack these relations, I focus on capital reproduction in the production of algorithms ; circulation of commodities produced elsewhere in the economy ; and financialisation, or ownership of assets by company owners. This will be done by following the money at different stages of the reproduction process. The focus is on four groups of actors: (1) those deriving income and rewards generated by the performance of Google’s stock prices (company owners, senior managers, stock-compensated workers, shareholders, and investors) ; (2) those directly, or via third-parties, employed by Google to sell their labour and to perform updates and adaptations to the algorithmic solutions (computer scientists, engineers, sales and marketing staff, search quality raters). I will then look at the effects of Google search towards (3) actors whose income is directly affected by Google’s business model, but who derive no income from Google’s stock price (advertisers, internet content providers, Google Network members) ; (4) actors affected by Google’s business model without necessarily deriving income from it (internet users, regulators, news organisations, nation states, the European Union).

Algorithms, production, circulation, financialisation, social form

nije evidentirano