Being the King Kong of algorithmic culture is a tough job after all

Abstract

This article explores the growing importance of algorithms in digital culture and what they could mean for the visibility and interpretation of culture as a whole. Taking Google as a prime example of a company that participates in widespread information overload whilst simultaneously providing some algorithmic answers to it, we show how it exhibits four different regimes of justification: the techno-scientific, economic, political and moral–aesthetic. These efforts to gain legitimacy operate as a network that is both highly performative and adaptive. For instance, Google builds on and translates such justifications in order for its Project Glass to be widely, if not universally, accepted. But there is another influential mode of performativity at work: the mounting criticism of the device. In the 18 months following the public announcement of Glass, we have observed the media phenomenon and passionate debate it has sparked. What Glass represents is being contested on multiple grounds, and this, in turn, indicates that its meanings will likely remain profoundly ambiguous for some time to come.