The Power and Politics of Algorithmic Life. With Taina Bucher

Response-ability.Tech

In this episode we talk with Taina Bucher who is an associate professor in screen cultures at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo. Taina is the author of IF...THEN: Algorithmic Power and Politics, published by Oxford University Press in 2018.
Taina explains why, as a media scholar, she became interested in algorithms and software, and we discuss her book and her proposal that we must approach algorithms not by asking what is an algorithm but instead when and how are algorithms.
We discuss black boxes, a metaphor Taina finds problematic, and she uses the Facebook 'trending topics' controversy in 2016 as an example of the lack of nuance in discussions around attributing agency to either algorithms or humans.
Taina explores how algorithms materialise in the institutional setting of news media in the context of the recent law passed by the Australian government aimed at making Google and Facebook pay for news content on their platforms.
We also briefly talk about Taina's book, Facebook, published in May by Polity Press.
Lastly, Taina recommends three books with respect to the questions she addressed in our conversation, Cloud Ethics by Louise Amoore, You Are Here by Whitney Phillips and Ryan M Milner, and Metrics at Work by Angèle Christin.
Follow Taina on Twitter (@tainab) and find more about her at tainabucher.com.