Can an Algorithm be Agonistic? Ten Scenes from Life in Calculated Publics

Bibliographic Data

ID5337161
AuthorsK Crawford (0000-0001-9972-7194, Microsoft (United States), corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume41
Issue1
Pages77-92
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243915589635
OpenAlexW2317166805
LanguageEN
Citations received132
References cited11

This paper explores how political theory may help us map algorithmic logics against different visions of the political. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe's theories of agonistic pluralism, this paper depicts algorithms in public life in ten distinct scenes, in order to ask the question, what kinds of politics do they instantiate? Algorithms are working within highly contested online spaces of public discourse, such as YouTube and Facebook, where incompatible perspectives coexist. Yet algorithms are designed to produce clear "winners" from information contests, often with little visibility or accountability for how those contests are designed. In isolation, many of these algorithms seem the opposite of agonistic: much of the complexity of search, ranking, and recommendation algorithms is nonnegotiable and kept far from view, inside an algorithmic "black box." But what if we widen our perspective? This paper suggests agonistic pluralism as both a design ideal for engineers and a provocation to understand algorithms in a broader social context: rather than focusing on the calculations in isolation, we need to account for the spaces of contestation where they operate

Agonistic behaviour · Algorithm · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Vision · Computer Science · Digital Education and Society · Digital Media and Philosophy · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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