Affective Landscapes: Everyday Encounters with Algorithms

Given the centrality of algorithms in the media landscape, how do they affect people’s everyday lives? Drawing on 35 interviews with social media users about their encounters with algorithms online, the chapter considers the barely perceived transitions in power that occur when algorithms and people meet. When do people encounter algorithms, and what responses and imaginations do these encounters generate? Analyzing specific situations in which users notice algorithmic mechanisms at work and start reflecting and talking about them, the chapter shows how the algorithmic output of social media becomes culturally meaningful, as seen in the ways that people form opinions about specific systems and act strategically around them. The notion of the algorithmic imaginary is put forward to suggest that it might not always matter what the algorithm is but rather how and when people imagine and perceive algorithms as this is what shapes their orientations toward platforms.