The Feel of Algorithms - by Minna Ruckenstein

About the Book

"This book explores the cultural shift in society that promotes and relies on affectively charged technology relations. Bringing together relatable first-person accounts of what it means to experience algorithms emotionally alongside research developed across anthropology, sociology, media and communication studies, and science and technology studies, The Feel of Algorithms reveals how political-economic processes are felt in the everyday, as we learn about the digital geography of fear and the current lack of collective resources to build algorithmic systems. Minna Ruckenstein builds on the notion that everyday practices are not merely subject to algorithmic logic; rather, people actively respond to and live with data and algorithms, ranging from actual technical operations to their imagined effects. The pleasures, fears, and frustrations come together to produce a blueprint of how such systems should be combined with human aims and efforts. The narrated emotional reactions are not simply individual responses; they tell a more generalizable story of structures of feeling and related attempts to live well with algorithmic systems. The Feel of Algorithms demonstrates that human capacities and aims need active fostering in the algorithmic era. The structures of feeling aid in recognizing troubling practices, but they also call for alternatives that are currently ignored and suppressed"--

Book Synopsis

Why do we feel excited, afraid, and frustrated by algorithms?

The Feel of Algorithms brings relatable first-person accounts of what it means to experience algorithms emotionally alongside interdisciplinary social science research, to reveal how political and economic processes are felt in the everyday. People's algorithm stories might fail to separate fact and misconception, and circulate wishful, erroneous, or fearful views of digital technologies. Yet rather than treating algorithmic folklore as evidence of ignorance, this novel book explains why personal anecdotes are an important source of algorithmic knowledge. Minna Ruckenstein argues that we get to know algorithms by feeling their actions and telling stories about them. The Feel of Algorithms shows how taking everyday algorithmic emotions seriously balances the current discussion, which has a tendency to draw conclusions based on celebratory or oppositional responses to imagined future effects. An everyday focus zooms into experiences of pleasure, fear, and irritation, highlighting how political aims and ethical tensions play out in visions, practices, and emotional responses. This book shows that feelings aid in recognizing troubling practices, and also calls for alternatives that are currently ignored or suppressed.

From the Back Cover

"This accessible and engaging book brings to life multiple stories about the feel of algorithms, and it leaves its readers with no doubt that feelings about algorithms matter--for people, societies, and the politics that shape them."--Helen Kennedy, Professor of Digital Society, University of Sheffield

"A persuasive, welcoming text that helps us understand experiences with technology that are too easy to take for granted. Minna Ruckenstein offers an original, inspired analysis that shows how seemingly psychological responses to digital infrastructures also contain the seeds of collective change."--Dawn Nafus, editor of Quantified: Biosensing Technologies in Everyday Life

Review Quotes

"Minna Ruckenstein's The Feel of Algorithms is a welcome intervention in the conversations about the multifaceted impacts of algorithms on our lives and society at large."

-- "Social & Cultural Geography"

"Ruckenstein's book offers a much-needed challenge to the pervasive analogy between algorithms and rationality and the obsession with intelligence."

-- "Journal of Communication"

"Minna Ruckenstein's carefully composed new book predominantly sees algorithms through the lens of those engaging with their outputs. In its pages algorithms take on a material form fleshed."-- "Information, Communication & Society"

"The work is recommended for academics and students with interdisciplinary backgrounds to receive technological insight with broad human and social perspectives. The book is also highly recommended for professionals and policymakers in the tech industry, as it offers critical insight into the structure of human feelings and emotions driven by algorithms, facilitating the development of human-centered practices. Ethicists, philosophers, activists, and tech advocates will find this book invaluable to understanding individual agency with ethical and societal dilemmas. Lastly, tech-curious readers will have an accessible look into the impact of algorithms on society and how their personal experience can be interpreted in this era of algorithms."-- "International Journal of Communication"

About the Author

Minna Ruckenstein is Professor in Emerging Technologies in Society at the University of Helsinki.