Paper Short Abstract:

The paper explores how platform workers navigate algorithmic systems in their everyday working lives. It considers how the ethnographer, through fieldwork, creates “algorithmic folklore” together with the research participants to understand the unpredictable forces of platform algorithms.

Paper Abstract:

Platforms have become deeply integrated into everyday life—we work, communicate, shop, order food, and even find therapists through them. The term “platform economy” serves as a broad descriptor for various forms of labor mediated by these platforms (Berg, 2018). Increasingly, these platforms are governed by algorithms, placing workers in situations where they must navigate and negotiate their working conditions directly with or through these algorithms. This dynamic has given rise to phenomena such as algorithmic precarity (Chan, 2022) and algorithmic insecurity (Wood & Lehdonvirta, 2021). Workers who rely on algorithm-driven platforms to sustain their livelihoods develop strategies to interpret and engage with these opaque systems, forming what Bucher (2016) describes as "algorithmic imaginaries."

Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with a diverse range of platform workers—including content creators, delivery workers, and platform-dependent creative professionals—this paper examines how these individuals attempt to understand and adapt to the algorithms shaping their lives. Reflecting on my own role as an ethnographer, I explore the ways my research also depended on algorithmic systems: finding respondents, maintaining connections, tracking their content, and tailoring platform experiences to suit my research objectives. This paper delves into how both platform workers and the ethnographer create and share narratives, beliefs, and strategies—what I term “algorithmic folklore”—as a means of protecting themselves and trying to stay ahead of the enigmatic forces that govern their professional and personal realities.