Overview

Why do we feel excited, afraid, and frustrated by algorithms? This book explores the cultural shift in society that promotes and relies on affectively charged technology relations. Bringing 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.

Full Product Details

9780520394544

Table of Contents

Reviews

""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 * ""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 * “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 * ""This book is detailed, well evidenced, and novel in its approach. Anthropologists will appreciate how Ruckenstein brackets the truth value  algorithm talk in favor of its pragmatic capacity to influence social life."" * American Ethnologist *

""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 * ""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 * “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 *

Author Information

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

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