Algorithm has become a cultural logic in today’s world. Due to the structural concealment of algorithm technology, the algorithmic knowledge is framed as pure technical expertise of the system, which ignores the social interpretation of algorithm. In a dialogue with previous studies on user perception of algorithms and the sociology of knowledge, this study conceptualizes “algorithmic social knowledge” to refer to the interpretation of algorithm-related problems that users collectively construct in algorithm-structured social media, as opposed to technical algorithmic knowledge. Through the online and offline ethnography of short-video content creators, this study reveals the process by which algorithmic knowledge fragments emerge from specific everyday situations of algorithm-user interaction, where these fragments can be distinguished as operational and prescriptive. These algorithmic knowledge fragments are collaged in relation by means of “private verification”, and are collectively constructed as “algorithmic social knowledge” in the loose folk algorithmic knowledge community. “Algorithmic social knowledge”, as social rather than cognitive knowledge, guides people to negotiate the relationship with the algorithm to develop the action strategy. Therefore, it is incorporated into the recursive feedback loop of the algorithm and changes rapidly with the whole unstable algorithm ecology.
LAI Chuyao.
“Algorithmic Social Knowledge”——Algorithmic Interpretation and Collective Knowledge Construction of Short-video Content Creators. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication. 2022, 44(12): 109-131