I wanted to share a new essay, “#Trendingistrending: When Algorithms Become Culture” that I’ve just completed for a forthcoming Routledge anthology called Algorithmic Cultures: Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies, edited by Robert Seyfert and Jonathan Roberge. My aim is to focus on the various “trending algorithms” that populate social media platforms, consider what they do as a set, and then connect them to a broader history of metrics used in popular media, to both assess audience tastes and portray them back to that audience, as a cultural claim in its own right and as a form of advertising.

The essay is meant to extend the idea of “calculated publics” I first discussed here and the concerns that animated  this paper. But more broadly I hope it pushes us to think about algorithms not as external forces on the flow of popular culture, but increasingly as elements of popular culture themselves, something we discuss as culturally relevant, something we turn to face so as to participate in culture in particular ways. It also has a bit more to say about how we tend to think about and talk about “algorithms” in this scholarly discussion, something I have more to say about here.

I hope it’s interesting, and I really welcome your feedback. I already see places where I’ve not done the issue justice: I should connect the argument more to discussions of financial metrics, like credit ratings, as another moment when institutions have reason to turn such measures back as meaningful claims. I found the excellent essay (journal; academia.edu), where Jeremy Morris writes about what he calls “infomediaries,” late in my process, so while I do gesture to it, it could have informed my thinking even more. There are a dozen other things I wanted to say, and the essay is already a little overstuffed.

I do have some opportunity to make specific changes before it goes to press, so I’d love to hear any suggestions, if you’re inclined to read it.