Critical Algorithm Studies

This list is an attempt to collect and categorize a growing critical literature on algorithms as social concerns. The work included spans sociology, anthropology, science and technology studies, geography, communication, media studies, and legal studies, among others. Our interest in assembling this list was to catalog the emergence of “algorithms” as objects of interest for disciplines beyond mathematics, computer science, and software engineering.

As a result, our list does not contain much writing by computer scientists, nor does it cover potentially relevant work on topics such as quantification, rationalization, automation, software more generally, or big data, although these interests are well-represented in these works’ reference sections of the essays themselves.

This area is growing in size and popularity so quickly that many contributions are popping up without reference to work from disciplinary neighbors. One goal for this list is to help nascent scholars of algorithms to identify broader conversations across disciplines and to avoid reinventing the wheel or falling into analytic traps that other scholars have already identified. We also thought it would be useful, especially for those teaching these materials, to try to loosely categorize it. The organization of the list is meant merely as a first-pass, provisional sense-making effort. Within categories the entries are offered in chronological order, to help make sense of these rapid developments.

In light of all of those limitations, we encourage you to see it as an unfinished document, and we welcome comments. These could be recommendations of other work to include, suggestions on how to reclassify a particular entry, or ideas for reorganizing the categories themselves. Please use the comment space at the bottom of the page to offer suggestions and criticism; we will try to update the list in light of these suggestions.

Tarleton Gillespie and Nick Seaver

1. overviews 0.1 technical and philosophical precursors / emic “what are algorithms?” essays 0.2 field surveys / keywords / initial provocations 0.3 books about algorithms addressed to broader audiences 0.4 lists of algorithm studies resources
2. the specific implications of algorithms and the choices they make 1.1 algorithms have embedded values / biases, lead to personalization / social sorting / discrimination 1.2 with algorithms come rationalization / automation / quantification,and the erasure of human judgment / complexity / context 1.3 questions of accountability and policy responses around algorithms
3. algorithms fit with, and help advance, specific ideological worldviews
4. algorithms are complex technical assemblages, that have to be mapped
5. algorithms aren’t just technical artifacts, they’re fundamentally human in their design and their use 4.1 people design and maintain algorithms, in specific ways, and that matters 4.2 people work, play, and live algorithms, in specific ways, and that matters 4.3 what do users understand about algorithms 4.4 the discursive production of algorithms to shape their public perception

6. methods and approaches for studying algorithmic systems

7. overviews

0.1 technical and philosophical precursors / emic “what are algorithms?” essays

Kowalski, Robert. 1979. “Algorithm = Logic + Control.” Communications of the ACM 22(7): 424-436. http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rak/papers/algorithm%20=%20logic%20+%20control.pdf

Hooker, J.N. 1994. “Needed: An Empirical Science of Algorithms.” Operations Research 42(2): 201-212. http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/opre.42.2.201

Blass, Andreas and Gurevich, Yuri. 2003. “Algorithms: A quest for absolute definitions.” Bulletin of European Association for Theoretical Computer Science 81. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gurevich/Opera/164.pdf

Gurevich, Yuri. 2011. “What is an Algorithm?” Technical Report MSR-TR-2011-116, Microsoft Research. http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/155608/209-3.pdf

Gurevich, Yuri. 2014. “What is an Algorithm? (revised)” In Church’s Thesis: Logic, Mind and Nature (eds. A. Olszewski et al.) Copernicus Center Press. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gurevich/Opera/209a.pdf

Moschovakis, Yiannis N. 2001. “What is an algorithm?” In Mathematics Unlimited — 2001 and beyond. Edited by B. Engquist and W. Schmid. Springer: 919-936. http://www.math.ucla.edu/~ynm/papers/eng.pdf

Wangsness, T. and J. Franklin. 1966. “Algorithm” and “formula.” Communications of the ACM 9(4), 243. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/365278.365286

0.2 field surveys / keywords / initial provocations

Goffey, Andrew. 2008. “Algorithm.” In Software Studies: A Lexicon, edited by Matthew Fuller. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Seaver, Nick. 2013. “Knowing Algorithms.” In Media in Transition 8. Cambridge, MA. http://nickseaver.net/s/seaverMiT8.pdf

Barocas, Solon, Sophie Hood, and Malte Ziewitz. 2013. “Governing Algorithms: A Provocation Piece.” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2245322

Kitchin, Rob. 2014. “Thinking Critically about and Researching Algorithms.” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2515786

Gillespie, Tarleton. 2014. “The Relevance of Algorithms.” In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo Boczkowski, and Kirsten Foot, 167-194. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://culturedigitally.org/2012/11/the-relevance-of-algorithms/

Mahnke, Martina and Emma Uprichard. 2014 “Algorithming the Algorithm.” In Society of the Query Reader: Reflections on Web Search. René König and Miriam Rasch, eds. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. http://networkcultures.org/query/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/06/19.Mahnke_Uprichard.pdf

Pasquale, Frank. 2015. The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Ziewitz, Malte. 2015. “Governing Algorithms: Myth, Mess, and Methods.” Science, Technology & Human Values. http://sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/30/0162243915608948.abstract

Striphas, Ted. 2015. “Algorithmic Culture.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18(4-5): 395-412. http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/18/4-5/395.abstract

Gillespie, Tarleton. forthcoming. “Algorithm.” In Digital Keywords, edited by Ben Peters. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. http://culturedigitally.org/2014/06/algorithm-draft-digitalkeyword/

0.3 books about algorithms addressed to broader audiences

Steiner, Christopher. 2013. Automate This: How Algorithms Took Over Our Markets, Our Jobs, and the World. Portfolio.

Slavin, Kevin. 2011. “How Algorithms Shape Our World.” TedGlobal 2011 http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world

MacCormick, John, and Chris Bishop. 2013. Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today’s Computers. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Cormen, Thomas H. 2013. Algorithms Unlocked. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Dormehl, Luke. 2014. The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems… and Create More. New York, New York: Perigee Books. Carr, Nicholas. 2015. The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us. W. W. Norton & Company.

Domingos, Pedro. 2015. The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World. New York: Basic Books.

0.4 lists of algorithm studies resources

“Governing Algorithms” (NYU) reading list: http://governingalgorithms.org/resources/reading-list/

“Algorithm Studies” (UCHRI) literature survey: http://algorithmicstudies.uchri.org/literature-survey

Auditing Algorithms” (ICWSM workshop) background readings: https://auditingalgorithms.wordpress.com/background-readings/

“Algorithm characterizations” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm_characterizations

“The Algorithm Studies Network” resources: http://algorithmnetwork.org/the-algorithm-resource/

1. the specific implications of algorithms and the choices they make (politics of artifacts / values in design approach)

1.1 algorithms have embedded values / biases and lead to personalization / social sorting / discrimination

(concerned about: designer intent vs unaware, how did it get there, where are the effects felt, are they visible to the affected)

Introna, Lucas D., and Helen Nissenbaum. 2000. “Shaping the Web: Why the Politics of Search Engines Matters.” The Information Society 16(3): 169-185. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/ShapingTheWeb.pdf

Introna, Lucas D., and David Wood. 2004. ‘‘Picturing Algorithmic Surveillance: The Politics of Facial Recognition Systems.’’ Surveillance & Society 2 (2/3): 177-98 http://surveillance-and-society.org/articles2(2)/algorithmic.pdf

Graham, Stephen D. N. 2005. ‘‘Software-sorted Geographies.’’ Progress in Human Geography 29 (5): 562-580. http://www.dourish.com/classes/readings/Graham-SoftwareSortedGeographies-PHG.pdf

Hargittai, Eszter. 2007. The social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of search engines: An introduction. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3), 769-777. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00349.x/abstract

Poon, Martha 2007. “Scorecards as devices for consumer credit: the case of Fair, Isaac & Company Incorporated” The Sociological Review. 55(2): 284-306. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2007.00740.x/abstract

Granka, Laura A. 2010. “The Politics of Search: A Decade Retrospective.” The Information Society 26 (5): 364-74. http://www.australianscience.com.au/research/google/36914.pdf

Ananny, Mike. 2011. “The Curious Connection Between Apps for Gay Men and Sex Offenders.” The Atlantic. April 14. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/the-curious-connection-between-apps-for-gay-men-and-sex-offenders/237340/

Introna, Lucas D. 2011. “The Enframing of Code: Agency, Originality and the Plagiarist.” Theory, Culture & Society 28 (6): 113-41. http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/28/6/113.abstract

Anderson, Chris W. 2011. “Deliberative, Agonistic, and Algorithmic Audiences: Journalism’s Vision of Its Public in an Age of Audience Transparency.” International Journal of Communication 5: 19. http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/884/537

Lenglet, Marc. 2011. “Conflicting codes and codings: how algorithmic trading is reshaping financial regulation.” Theory, Culture & Society, 28(6), 44-66. http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/28/6/44.abstract

Anderson, C. W. 2012. “Towards a Sociology of Computational and Algorithmic Journalism.” New Media & Society, 15(7) 1005-1021. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/15/7/1005.abstract

Noble, Safiya. 2012. “Missed Connections: What Search Engines Say about Women. Bitch magazine, 12(4): 37-41. https://safiyaunoble.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/54_search_engines.pdf

Pariser, Eli. 2012. The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. Reprint edition. New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books.

Halfaker, Aaron, Geiger, R. Stuart, Morgan, Jonathan, & Riedl, John. 2012. “The rise and decline of an open collaboration system: How Wikipedia’s reaction to popularity is causing its decline.” American Behavioral Scientist, 0002764212469365. https://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/halfaker13rise-preprint.pdf

van Dijck, José. 2013. “Facebook and the Engineering of Connectivity: A Multi-Layered Approach to Social Media Platforms.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 19(2): 141-155. http://con.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/09/17/1354856512457548

van Dijck, José. 2013. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Baker, Paul, and Amanda Potts. 2013. “‘Why Do White People Have Thin Lips?’ Google and the Perpetuation of Stereotypes via Auto-Complete Search Forms.” Critical Discourse Studies 10(2): 187-204. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405904.2012.744320#.VjkDrK6rTOY

Lenglet, Marc. 2013. “Algorithms and the Manufacture of Financial Reality”. In Harvey, P., Casella, E., Evans, G., Knox, H., McLean, C., Silva, E., Thoburn, N. and Woodward, K. (eds), Objects and Materials. A Routledge Companion. London, Routledge, 312-322. http://www.academia.edu/5575392/Algorithms_and_the_Manufacture_of_Financial_Reality

Cardon, Dominique and Libbrecht, Liz. 2013. “ Dans l’esprit du PageRank ”, Réseaux 1(177): 63-95. http://www.cairn.info/revue-reseaux-2013-1-page-63.htm

McKelvey, Fenwick. 2014. “Algorithmic Media Need Democratic Methods: Why Publics Matter.” Canadian Journal of Communication 39(4): 597+. http://www.fenwickmckelvey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2746-9231-1-PB.pdf

Braverman, Irus. 2014. “Governing the Wild: Databases, Algorithms, and Population Models as Biopolitics.” Surveillance & Society 12(1): 15-37. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2420199

Pasquale, Frank. 2015. The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Benthall, Sebastian. 2015.“Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action.” Interface 1(1): 1-30. http://commons.pacificu.edu/interface/vol1/iss1/3/

Crawford, Kate. 2015. “Can an Algorithm Be Agonistic? Ten Scenes from Life in Calculated Publics.” Science, Technology & Human Values. http://sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/06/24/0162243915589635.abstract

Tufekci, Zeynep. 2015. “Algorithmic Harms beyond Facebook and Google: Emergent Challenges of Computational Agency” Colorado Technology Law Journal. v13 n2 http://ctlj.colorado.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Tufekci-final.pdf

Bolin, Göran & Jonas Andersson Schwarz 2015. ‘Heuristics of the Algorithm. Big Data, User Interpretation and Translation Strategies’, Big Data & Society, July-Dec 2015: 1-12. http://bds.sagepub.com/content/2/2/2053951715608406

Greenfield, Adam. 2015. “Uber, or: The technics and politics of socially corrosive mobility.” Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird. June 29. https://speedbird.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/uber-or-the-technics-and-politics-of-socially-corrosive-mobility/

Lustig, Caitlin, and Nardi, Bonnie. 2015. “Algorithmic Authority: The Case of Bitcoin.” 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 743-752. http://www.artifex.org/~bonnie/lustig_nardi_HICSS_2015.pdf

Noble, Safiya. [forthcoming] Bamboozled: Identity for Sale in the Age of Google. NYU Press.

1.2 with algorithms come rationalization / automation / quantification, and the erasure of human judgment / complexity / context

Helmreich, Stefan. 1998. “Recombination, Rationality, Reductionism and Romantic Reactions: Culture, Computers, and the Genetic Algorithm.” Social Studies of Science 28(1): 39-71. http://sss.sagepub.com/content/28/1/39.short

Thrift, Nigel, and Shaun French. 2002. “The Automatic Production of Space.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 27(3): 309-335. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-5661.00057/abstract

Graham, Stephen, & Wood, David. 2003. Digitizing surveillance: categorization, space, inequality. Critical Social Policy, 23(2), 227-248. http://csp.sagepub.com/content/23/2/227.abstract

Pasquinelli, Matteo. 2009. “Google’s PageRank algorithm: a diagram of cognitive capitalism and the rentier of the common intellect” in Deep Search: The Politics of Search beyond Google. London: Transaction Publishers. http://matteopasquinelli.com/google-pagerank-algorithm/

Wilf, Eitan. 2013. “Toward an Anthropology of Computer-Mediated, Algorithmic Forms of Sociality.” Current Anthropology 54(6): 716-739. http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~ewilf/Wilf%20-%20Current%20Anthropology.pdf

Kockelman, Paul. 2013. “The anthropology of an equation. Sieves, spam filters, agentive algorithms, and ontologies of transformation.” Hau 3(3). http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau3.3.003

Grosser, Benjamin. 2014. “What Do Metrics Want? How Quantification Prescribes Social Interaction on Facebook.” Computational Culture. http://computationalculture.net/article/what-do-metrics-want

Napoli, Philip M. 2014. “On Automation in Media Industries: Integrating Algorithmic Media Production into Media Industries Scholarship.” Media Industries 1(1). http://www.mediaindustriesjournal.org/index.php/mij/article/view/14

Kockelman, Paul. 2014. “Linguistic anthropology in the age of language automata.” The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 708-733. http://www.envorganism.org/Article%20PDFs/Chapter%2025,%20CHLA.pdf

Reigeluth, Tyler. (2014) Why data is not enough: Digital traces as control of self and self-control, Surveillance & Society 12(2): 243-254. http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/enough

Seaver, Nick. 2015. “Bastard algebra.” In Data, Now Bigger and Better! Prickly Paradigm Press.

Karppi, Tero, and Crawford, Kate. 2015. “Social Media, Financial Algorithms and the Hack Crash.” Theory, Culture & Society. http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/04/0263276415583139.abstract

McQuillan, Daniel. 2015. “Algorithmic States of Exception.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18(4/5). http://research.gold.ac.uk/11079/

Introna, Lucas. 2015. “Algorithms, Governance, and Governmentality: On Governing Academic Writing.” Science, Technology & Human Values. http://sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/06/02/0162243915587360.abstract

Neyland, Daniel. 2015. “On Organizing Algorithms.” Theory, Culture & Society 32(1): 119-132. http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/32/1/119

Pasquale, Frank. 2015. “The Algorithmic Self.” 17(1) The Hedgehog Review. http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2015_Spring_Pasquale.php

1.3 questions of accountability and policy responses around algorithms

Pasquale, Frank. 2006. “Rankings, Reductionism, and Responsibility” Cleveland State Law Review, 54:115+. http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs/1351/

Neyland, D. 2007. “Achieving Transparency: The Visible, Invisible and Divisible in Academic Accountability Networks.” Organization 14 (4): 499–516.

Grimmelmann, James. 2008. “The Google Dilemma.” New York Law School Law Review, 53: 939. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1160320

Kraemer, Felicitas, Kees Overveld, and Martin Peterson. 2010. ‘‘Is There an Ethics of Algorithms?’’ Ethics and Information Technology 13 (3): 251-60.

McKelvey, Fenwick. 2010. “Ends and Ways: The Algorithmic Politics of Network Neutrality.” Global Media Journal: Canadian Edition 3(1): 51-73. http://www.gmj.uottawa.ca/1001/v3i1_mckelvey.pdf

Crawford, Kate, and Jason Schultz. 2014. “Big Data and Due Process: Toward a Framework to Redress Predictive Privacy Harms.” Boston College Law Review, 55(1): 93+. http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3351&context=bclr

Diakopoulos, Nicholas. 2013. ‘‘Algorithmic Accountability Reporting: On the Investigation of Black Boxes.’’ A Tow/Knight Brief. New York: Columbia Journalism School, Tow Center for Digital Journalism. http://www.nickdiakopoulos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Algorithmic-Accountability-Reporting_final.pdf

O’Reilly, Tim. 2013. ‘‘Open Data and Algorithmic Regulation.’’ In Beyond Transparency: Open Data and the Future of Civic Innovation, edited by Brett Goldstein, 289-300. San Francisco, CA: Code for America Press. http://beyondtransparency.org/chapters/part-5/open-data-and-algorithmic-regulation/

Benjamin, S.M. (2013). “Algorithms and Speech.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 161(6): 1445-1494. http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5758&context=faculty_scholarship

Bozdag, Engin. 2013. ‘‘Bias in Algorithmic Filtering and Personalization.’’ Ethics and Information Technology 15 (3): 209-27.

Hazan, Joshua. (2013). “Stop Being Evil: A Proposal for Unbiased Google Search.” Michigan Law Review 111(5): 789-820. http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1057&context=mlr

Hildebrandt, Mireille and Rouvroy, Antoinette, eds. 2013. Law, Human Agency and Autonomic Computing: The Philosophy of Law Meets the Philosophy of Technology. Abingdon: Routledge.

Citron, Danielle Keats, and Frank A. Pasquale. 2014. “The Scored Society: Due Process for Automated Predictions.” Washington Law Review 89. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2376209

boyd, danah, Karen Levy, and Alice Marwick. 2014. “The Networked Nature of Algorithmic Discrimination.” Open Technology Institute. http://www.danah.org/papers/2014/DataDiscrimination.pdf

Data & Society Research Institute. 2014 “Workshop Primer: Algorithmic Accountability” http://www.datasociety.net/pubs/2014-0317/AlgorithmicAccountabilityPrimer.pdf

Schuppli, Susan. 2014. “Deadly Algorithms: Can legal codes hold software accountable for code that kills?” Radical Philosophy 187: 1-8. https://www.academia.edu/8180918/Deadly_Algorithms_Can_legal_codes_hold_software_accountable_for_code_that_kills

Diakopoulos, Nicholas. 2015. ‘‘Algorithmic Accountability.’’ Digital Journalism 3 (3): 398-415. http://www.nickdiakopoulos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/algorithmic_accountability_final.pdf

Burrell, Jenna. 2015. “How the Machine ‘Thinks:’ Understanding Opacity in Machine Learning Algorithms.” http://ssrn.com/abstract=2660674

Medina, Eden. 2015. “Rethinking algorithmic regulation”, Kybernetes, Vol. 44(6/7): 1005-1019. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/K-02-2015-0052

Sadowski, Jathan. 2015. “From Mega-Machines to Mega-Algorithms.” The New Inquiry, April 28: http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/from-mega-machines-to-mega-algorithms/

Saurwein, Florian, Just, Natascha, Latzer, Michael. 2015. “Governance of algorithms: options and limitations.” Info, Vol. 17 (6), 35-49. http://www.mediachange.ch/media//pdf/publications/GovernanceOfAlgorithms.pdf

Barocas, Solon, and Andrew D. Selbst. 2016. “Big Data’s Disparate Impact.” California Law Review, 104. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2512208

Zarsky, Tal. 2016. ‘‘The Trouble with Algorithmic Decisions: An Analytic Roadmap to Examine Efficiency and Fairness in Automated and Opaque Decision Making.’’ Science, Technology, & Human Values 41(1). http://sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/13/0162243915605575.abstract

1. algorithms fit with, and help advance, specific ideological worldviews

(critical theory approach, (including capitalism, surveillance, subject/object)

Deleuze, Gilles. 1992. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” October 59: 3-7. https://cidadeinseguranca.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/deleuze_control.pdf

Van Couvering, Elizabeth. 2004. “New Media? The Political Economy of Internet Search Engines.” In Annual Conference of the International Association of Media & Communications Researchers, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 25-30. http://www.academia.edu/1047079/New_media_The_political_economy_of_Internet_search_engines

Galloway, Alexander R. 2006. Gaming: Essays On Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press.

Soderman, Braxton. 2007. “The Index and the Algorithm.” differences 18(1): 153–86. http://differences.dukejournals.org/content/18/1/153.full.pdf+html

Beer, David. 2009. “Power through the Algorithm? Participatory Web Cultures and the Technological Unconscious.” New Media & Society 11(6): 985-1002. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/11/6/985.abstract

Golumbia, David. 2009. The Cultural Logic of Computation. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Fuller, Matthew and Goffey, Andrew. 2012. “Algorithms.” In Evil Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cheney-Lippold, John. 2011. “A New Algorithmic Identity: Soft Biopolitics and the Modulation of Control.” Theory, Culture & Society 28(6): 164-181. http://www.scribd.com/doc/105663794/A-New-Algorithmic-Identity-Soft-Biopolitcs

Uricchio, William. 2011. “The Algorithmic Turn: Photosynth, Augmented Reality and the Changing Implications of the Image.” Visual Studies 26(1): 25-35.

Mager, Astrid. 2012. “Algorithmic Ideology: How Capitalist Society Shapes Search Engines.” Information, Communication & Society. 15(5) 769-787. https://www.academia.edu/953703/Algorithmic_Ideology._How_Capitalist_Society_Shapes_Search_Engines

Beer, David. 2013. “Algorithms: Shaping Tastes and Manipulating the Circulations of Popular Culture.” In Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation. Palgrave McMillan.

Manovich, Lev. 2013. Software Takes Command. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Snake-Beings, Emit. 2013. “From Ideology to Algorithm: the Opaque Politics of the Internet” Transformations: Journal of Media and Culture 23. http://www.academia.edu/4345263/From_Ideology_to_Algorithm._Published_in_Transformations_23_2013

Snider, Laureen. 2014. “Interrogating the Algorithm: Debt, Derivatives and the Social Reconstruction of Stock Market Trading.” Critical Sociology 40(5): 747–61. http://crs.sagepub.com/content/40/5/747.abstract

Kaplan, Frederic. 2014. “Linguistic Capitalism and Algorithmic Mediation.” Representations 127(1), 57-63. http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/200539/files/Kaplan_Representations.pdf

Totaro, Paolo, and Ninno, Domenico. 2014. “The Concept of Algorithm as an Interpretative Key of Modern Rationality.” Theory, Culture & Society 31 (4): 29-49. http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/31/4/29

Hess, Aaron. 2014. You are what you compute (and what is computed for you): Considerations of digital rhetorical identification. Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, 4(1/2), 1-18. http://contemporaryrhetoric.com/articles/Hess8_1.pdf

Mackenzie, Adrian. 2015. “The Production of Prediction: What Does Machine Learning Want?” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18(4/5): 429–45. http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/18/4-5/429.abstract

Scannell, Josh. 2015. “What Can An Algorithm Do?” DIS Magazine http://dismagazine.com/discussion/72975/josh-scannell-what-can-an-algorithm-do/

Uricchio, William. 2015. “Recommended for You: Prediction, Creation and the Cultural Work of Algorithms.” The Berlin Journal, 28: 6-9.

1. algorithms are complex technical assemblages, that have to be mapped

(actor network -ish)

Callon, Michel, and Muniesa, Fabian. 2005. “Economic Markets as Calculative Collective Devices.” Organization Studies, 26(8), 1229-1250. http://www.coi.columbia.edu/ssf/papers/callon-muniesa.pdf

MacKenzie, Donald A. 2006. An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets. Inside Technology. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Amoore, Louise. 2009. “Algorithmic War: Everyday Geographies of the War on Terror.” Antipode 41(1): 49–69 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2008.00655.x/abstract

Ziewitz, Malte. 2011. How to think about an algorithm? Notes from a not quite random walk. Discussion paper for Symposium on “Knowledge Machines between Freedom and Control”, 29 September. http://zwtz.org/files/ziewitz_algorithm.pdf

Miyazaki, Shintaro. 2012. “Algorhythmics: Understanding Micro-Temporality in Computational Cultures.” Computational Culture. http://computationalculture.net/article/algorhythmics-understanding-micro-temporality-in-computational-cultures

Helmond, Anne. 2013. “The Algorithmization of the Hyperlink.” Computational Culture 3(3). http://www.annehelmond.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Helmond_2013_CC_AlgorithmizationOfTheHyperlink.pdf

Kushner, Scott. 2013. “The Freelance Translation Machine: Algorithmic Culture and the Invisible Industry.” New Media & Society 15(8): 1241–58. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/15/8/1241

Weltevrede, Esther, Anne Helmond, and Carolin Gerlitz. 2014. “The Politics of Real-Time: A Device Perspective on Social Media Platforms and Search Engines.” Theory, Culture & Society 31 (6): 125–50. http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/31/6/125

Rouvroy, Antoinette and Berns, Thomas. 2013. “ Gouvernementalité algorithmique et perspectives d’émancipation ”, Réseaux 1(177): 163-196. http://www.cairn.info/revue-reseaux-2013-1-page-163.htm

Geiger, R. Stuart. 2014. “Bots, Bespoke, Code and the Materiality of Software Platforms.” Information, Communication & Society 17 (3): 342–56. http://stuartgeiger.com/bespoke-code-ics.pdf

Mackenzie, Donald. 2014. “A Sociology of Algorithms: High-Frequency Trading and the Shaping of Markets” working paper. http://www.maxpo.eu/Downloads/Paper_DonaldMacKenzie.pdf

Muniesa, Fabian. 2014 “Discovering stock prices” in The Provoked Economy: Economic Reality and the Performative Turn. London: Routledge. http://bit.ly/provokedeconomy

Mackenzie, Donald and Spears, Taylor, 2014. “‘The Formula That Killed Wall Street’: The

Gaussian Copula and Modelling Practices in Investment Banking,” Social

Studies of Science 44: 393-417. pre-print: http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/129947/Formula12.pdf

Rieder, Bernhard. 2015. “What Is in PageRank? A Historical and Conceptual Investigation of a Recursive Status Index.” Computational Culture. http://computationalculture.net/article/what_is_in_pagerank

Mackenzie, Donald. 2015. “How Algorithms Interact: Goffman’s ‘Interaction Order’ in Automated

Trading” Working Paper. http://www.sociology.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/183939/IntOrder16_web.pdf

Orlikowski, Wanda and Scott, Susan. 2015. “The Algorithm and the Crowd: Considering the Materiality of Service Innovation.” MIS Quarterly 39(1) 201-216. http://misq.org/misq/downloads/download/article/1152/

1. algorithms aren’t just technical artifacts, they’re fundamentally human in their design and their use

(social construction of technical systems approach / anthropology and ethnographic instinct)

4.1 people design and maintain algorithms, in specific ways, and that matters

Sterne, Jonathan. 2006. “The mp3 as cultural artifact.” New Media & Society. 8(5): 825-842. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/8/5/825.abstract

van Couvering, Elizabeth. 2007. “Is Relevance Relevant? Market, Science, and War: Discourses of Search Engine Quality” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3), 866-887. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00354.x/abstract

Ensmenger, Nathan. 2012. “Is Chess the Drosophila of Artificial Intelligence? A Social History of an Algorithm.” Social Studies of Science 42(1): 5-30. http://sss.sagepub.com/content/42/1/5

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. 2012. The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) Berkeley: UC Press.

Ziewitz, Malte. 2012. “Evaluation as Governance: The Practical Politics of Reviewing, Rating and Ranking on the Web.” PhD Thesis, Oxford: University of Oxford.

Sterne, Jonathan. 2012. MP3: The Meaning of a Format. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Mackenzie, Adrian. 2013. “Programming Subjects in the Regime of Anticipation: Software Studies and Subjectivity.” Subjectivity 6(4): 391-405. http://www.palgrave-journals.com/sub/journal/v6/n4/abs/sub201312a.html

Diakopolous, Nick. 2013. “Sex, Violence, and Autocomplete Algorithms” Slate. August 2. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/08/words_banned_from_bing_and_google_s_autocomplete_algorithms.html

Hallinan, Blake, and Ted Striphas. 2014. “Recommended for You: The Netflix Prize and the Production of Algorithmic Culture.” New Media & Society. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/02/1461444814538646

Webmoor, Timothy. 2014. “Algorithmic Alchemy, or the Work of Code in the Age of Computerized Visualization.” In Visualization in the Age of Computerization, edited by Annamaria Carusi, Aud Sissel Hoel, Timothy Webmoor, and Steve Woolgar, 19–39. New York: Routledge.

Webmoor, Timothy. 2014. “Algorithmic Alchemy, or the Work of Code in the Age of Computerized Visualization.” In Annamaria Carusi, Aud Sissel Hoel, Timothy Webmoor, and Steve Woolgar, eds., Visualization in the Age of Computerization. 19-39. New York: Routledge.

Bogost, Ian. 2015. ‘‘The Cathedral of Computation.’’ The Atlantic, January 15. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-cathedral-of-computation/384300/

Cardoso Llach, Daniel. 2015. Builders of the Vision: Software and the Imagination of Design. London, New York: Routledge.

4.2 people work, play, and live algorithms, in specific ways, and that matters

(mediated cultural practices approach)

Dodge, Martin and Kitchin, Rob. (2011). Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life. MIT Press

Beunza, Daniel and Millo, Yuval. 2014. “Blended Automation: Integrating Algorithms on the Floor of the New York Stock Exchange.” Working paper. http://campusvirtual.cunef.edu/documents/188956/0/141217+Blended+Automation+(2).pdf

Ekbia, Hamid and Bonnie Nardi. 2014. “Heteromation and Its (Dis)contents: the Invisible Division of Labor Between Humans and Machines.” First Monday 19(6). http://firstmonday.org/article/view/5331/4090

Aneesh, Aneesh. 2009. “Global Labor: Algocratic Modes of Organization*.” Sociological Theory 27 (4). Wiley Online Library: 347–70. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2009.01352.x/abstract

Geiger, R. Stuart. 2011. “The Lives of Bots.” In Wikipedia: A Critical Point of View. Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz, eds. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. http://www.stuartgeiger.com/lives-of-bots-wikipedia-cpov.pdf

Bucher, Taina. 2012. “Want to Be on the Top? Algorithmic Power and the Threat of Invisibility on Facebook.” New Media & Society 14 (7): 1164–80. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/04/1461444812440159.abstract

Gillespie, Tarleton. 2012. “Can an Algorithm Be Wrong?” Limn 1(2). http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0jk9k4hj

Schüll, Natasha Dow. 2014. Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas. Reprint edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Carah, Nicholas 2015. “Algorithmic brands: A decade of brand experiments with mobile and social media” New Media & Society. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/10/1461444815605463.abstract

Lee, Min Kyung, Kusbit, Daniel, Metsky, Evan and Dabbish, Laura. 2015. “Working with Machines: The Impact of Algorithmic and Data-Driven Management on Human Workers” CHI ’15 Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 1603-1612 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2702548

Crawford, Kate and Ananny, Mike. forthcoming. “A Liminal Press: Situating News App Designers within a Field of Networked News Production” Digital Journalism. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2448736

4.3 what do users understand about algorithms

Hamilton, Kevin, Karrie Karahalios, Christian Sandvig, and Motahhare Eslami. 2014. “A Path to Understanding the Effects of Algorithm Awareness.” In CHI 2014, 631-642. ACM Press. http://social.cs.uiuc.edu/papers/pdfs/paper188.pdf

Devendorf, Laura and Elizabeth Goodman. 2014. “The Algorithm Multiple, the Algorithm Material.” Contours of Algorithmic Life, UC Davis, May. http://www.slideshare.net/egoodman/the-algorithm-multiple-the-algorithm-material-reconstructing-creative-practice

Dietvorst, Berkeley, Simmons, Joseph, and Massey, Cade. 2014. “Algorithm Aversion: People Erroneously Avoid Algorithms after Seeing Them Err (July 6,). Forthcoming in Journal of Experimental Psychology. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2466040

Berg, Martin. 2014. Participatory trouble: Towards an understanding of algorithmic structures on Facebook. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial research on Cyberspace, 8(3). http://www.cyberpsychology.eu/view.php?cisloclanku=2014093001&article=2

Eslami, Motahhare, Rickman, Aimee, Vaccaro, Kristen, Aleyasen, Amirhossein, Vuong, Andy, Karahalios, Karrie, Hamilton, Kevin, & Sandvig, Christian. 2015. “I always assumed that I wasn’t really that close to [her]”: Reasoning about Invisible Algorithms in News Feeds.” 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 153-162. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~csandvig/research/Eslami_Algorithms_CHI15.pdf

4.4 the discursive production of algorithms to shape their public perception

Sandvig, Christian. 2015. “Seeing the Sort: The Aesthetic and Industrial Defense of ‘The Algorithm.’” Journal of the New Media Caucus http://median.newmediacaucus.org/art-infrastructures-information/seeing-the-sort-the-aesthetic-and-industrial-defense-of-the-algorithm/

Roberge, Jonathan and Melançon, Louis. 2015. “Being the King Kong of algorithmic culture is a tough job after all: Google’s regimes of justification and the meanings of Glass.” Convergence. http://con.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/01/1354856515592506.abstract

Neyland, Daniel. 2016. “Bearing Account-Able Witness to the Ethical Algorithmic System.” Science, Technology & Human Values 41(1). http://sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/28/0162243915598056.abstract

1. methods and approaches for studying algorithmic systems

Ratto, Matt. 2011. “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life.” The Information Society 27 (4): 252–60. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01972243.2011.583819?journalCode=utis20

Marres, Noortje. 2012. “The redistribution of methods: on intervention in digital social research, broadly conceived.” The Sociological Review, 60(S1): 139-165. http://research.gold.ac.uk/7773/1/Marres_redistribution_of_methods.pdf

Diakopolous, Nick. 2013. “Rage against the Algorithms” The Atlantic, October 3. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/rage-against-the-algorithms/280255/

Sandvig, Christian, Kevin Hamilton, Karrie Karahalios, and Cedric Langbort. 2014. “Auditing Algorithms: Research Methods for Detecting Discrimination on Internet Platforms.” Data and Discrimination: Converting Critical Concerns into Productive Inquiry, 64th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association. May 22, 2014, Seattle, WA, USA. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~csandvig/research/Auditing%20Algorithms%20–%20Sandvig%20–%20ICA%202014%20Data%20and%20Discrimination%20Preconference.pdf

Sandvig, Christian, Hamilton, Kevin, Karahalios, Karrie, & Langbort, Cedric. 2014. “An Algorithm Audit.” In: Seeta Peña Gangadharan, ed., Data and Discrimination: Collected Essays. 6-10. Washington, DC: New America Foundation. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~csandvig/research/An%20Algorithm%20Audit.pdf

Rieder, Bernard, and Sire, Guillaume. 2014. “Conflicts of Interest and Incentives to Bias: A Microeconomic Critique of Google’s Tangled Position on the Web.” New Media & Society 16 (2): 195–211. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/16/2/195

Gehl, Robert W. 2014. Reverse Engineering Social Media: Software, Culture, and Political Economy in New Media Capitalism. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press.

Hannak, Aniko, Mislove, Alan, Soeller, Gary, Wilson, Chirsto, and Lazer, David. 2014. “Measuring price discrimination and steering on e-commerce web sites.” Paper presented at 2014 Conference on Internet Measurement Conference. 305-318. http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/cbw/pdf/imc151-hannak.pdf

Burrell, Jenna. 2015. “How the Machine ‘Thinks:’ Understanding Opacity in Machine Learning Algorithms.” http://ssrn.com/abstract=2660674

Tarleton Gillespie and Nick Seaver, Critical Algorithm Studies