ICR Speaker Series: Living with Algorithms

"Living with Algorithms: Agency and User Culture in Costa Rica," was presented by Ignacio Siles, Universidad de Costa Rica, as part of the Institute of Communications Research (ICR) Speaker Series.

About the Presentation
What does it mean to live in a “datafied” society? Life in media-saturated contexts implies the increasing transformation of people’s experiences, relations, and identities into data. To make sense of this process, scholars have focused mostly on how algorithms give rise to new forms of power and control. Alternatively, in this talk I ask not what algorithms are doing to society but rather what people are doing with algorithms. I present research on the use of such algorithmic platforms as Netflix, Spotify, and TikTok in an understudied region of the global south (Costa Rica). I develop the framework of “mutual domestication” by examining the personal relationships that have formed between users and algorithms as Latin Americans have integrated these systems into the structures of everyday life, enacted them ritually, participated in public with and through them, and thwarted them. In this way, I provide a new perspective on the commonalities and differences among users within a global ecology of technologies.