Exploring user agency and small acts of algorithm engagement in everyday media use

Abstract

Based on participant-driven media use tracking and self-reflexive media use Vlogs, this article explores how young adult media users make sense of their user agency vis-à-vis algorithms in digital media and how they try actualizing it through reflexive and mundane enactments of algorithmic systems. The article proposes to adapt the concept of ‘small acts of engagement’ to grasp the productive and agentic potentials of how users enact algorithms purposively in daily media use. By engaging research participants actively in reflections to better understand, and possibly respond to the influence of algorithmic power in daily media use, the study unfolds common boundaries of users’ reflexive capabilities, showing how exercising user agency in a datafied age is increasingly complex and prospective, yet not merely limited by algorithmic power. As a result, the article discusses the methodological implications and potentials of engaging media users in reflections and actions to shape their communicative agency, which might be a possible step towards mobilizing algorithmic literacy.