Neither Black nor Box: (Un)knowing Algorithms

If algorithms are multiple and variable in nature, how can they be known? The chapter draws on the concept of the black box as a heuristic device to discuss the nature of algorithms in contemporary media platforms, and how we might attend to and study algorithms, despite, or even because of, their seemingly inaccessible or secretive nature. Framing algorithms as eventful, understood as constituents that co-become, the author suggests, somewhat paradoxically, that algorithms are not always important. Rather, their agency emerges as important only in particular settings or constellations. The chapter argues that by shifting attention away from asking what and where agency is, to when it is mobilized and on whose behalf, we may begin to interrogate the black box not as an ontological or epistemological claim but, ultimately, a political one as well.