Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore from a multi-species perspectives people's engagement with their social media algorithm

Paper long abstract:

There is an important kind of relation emerging across the globe that has received scant attention – a relationship with ‘the algorithm’. This is a relationship not between content viewed through social media, Netflix, online platforms and the human viewer. It is a relationship between the human user and what they perceive to be the forces that organise the content that appears on their screens – what my interlocuters identify as ‘their algorithm’ or simply ‘the algorithm’. This paper thinks through this relationship through engaging with literature on encounter and multispecies relations. This paper sets up, and makes use of, a series of encounter to initiate analytical movements, methodologies, and patterns of thought aimed at opening-up new ways of thinking about social media in the age of personalised algorithms.