Algorithmic mediatization: "the programming effect"

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Hipertext.net. n.26, 2023
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Mariano Zelcer
Universidad Nacional de las Artes, Argentina
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7472-0906

In sound and audiovisual streaming platforms –such as Spotify or YouTube– there are some functions based on machine learning Artificial Intelligence systems that generate a personalized selection of items that are played one after the other with no need of user interaction. In these cases, a flow of the audiovisual image (or musical audio, or podcasts) unfolds. This flow evokes, in some way, the phenomenon of mass media programming: in a way similar to the one we met in radio or television, a flow of content appears again in which the decision of what will be seen and in what order is on the broadcast/production side. Although this programming has several differences with that of the mass media, in these operations there seems to be a backwards movement: if the platforms originally appeared as the option for each person to decide what they want to consume, in these cases, the platforms again offer us to choose for ourselves, as if the programming of consumption were once again delegated to production, just as it happened in the heyday of the mass media.

Keywords
Artificial Intelligence, AI, Machine learning, Mediatization, Algorithms, Programming

Article Details

How to Cite
Zelcer, Mariano. “Algorithmic mediatization: ‘the programming effect’”. Hipertext.net, 2023, no. 26, pp. 59-63, doi:10.31009/hipertext.net.2023.i26.09.
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Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(c) Mariano Zelcer, 2023


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Author Biography

Mariano Zelcer, Universidad Nacional de las Artes, Argentina

Mariano Zelcer. He holds a PhD in Communication (UNLP) and a Bachelor of Communication (UBA). He is Associate Professor of Semiotics and Communication Theory at the National University of the Arts, Argentina, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses. In his different papers, he has written about various phenomena related to the Internet and digital communication, among them, the machine learning algorithms that govern different content selection and recommendation systems (music, videos, advertising), one of the expansion spaces of Artificial Intelligence today. He has published articles in numerous academic journals, as well as book chapters. In 2021 he published Devenires de lo fotógráfico (Editorial Teseo, Buenos Aires).

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