Towards a Popular Theory of Algorithms

 

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Siles González, Ignacio, Gómez Cruz, Edgar, Ricaurte, Paola
Format: artículo original
Publication Date:2022
Description:This paper establishes dialogues between theories on the popular and critical studies on algorithms and datafication. In doing so, it contributes to reversing the analytical tendency to assume that algorithms have universal effects and that conclusions about “algorithmic power” in the Global North apply unproblematically everywhere else. We begin by clarifying how Latin American scholars and other research traditions have theorized the popular (“lo popular”). We then develop four dimensions of lo popular to implement these ideas in the case of algorithms: playful cultural practices, imagination, resistance, and “in-betweenness.” We argue that this dialogue can generate different ways of thinking about the problems inherent to algorithmic mediation by drawing attention to the remixes of cultural practices, imaginative solutions to everyday problems, “cyborg” forms of resistance, and ambiguous forms of agency that are central to the operations of algorithmic assemblages nowadays.
Country:Kérwá
Institution:Universidad de Costa Rica
Repositorio:Kérwá
Language:Inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:kerwa.ucr.ac.cr:10669/87039
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10669/87039
Keyword:Agency
ALGORITHMS
Datafication
Decolonial theory
GLOBAL SOUTH
LATIN AMERICA
MASS CULTURE