The Production of Algorithms and the Cultural Politics of Web Search

Abstract

Bilic offers an analysis that moves beyond promotional discourses of technological progress. Focusing on Google as the flagship product of Alphabet Inc. he critically analyses algorithms as part of the capitalist production process embedded in the global division of labour. Bilic grounds his analysis in the original works of Herbert Marcuse as well as contemporary readings of Marcuse and the burgeoning field of digital labour studies. The ‘Production of Algorithms and the Cultural Politics of Web Search’ concludes that contradictions embedded in the global division of search engine labour create contingencies in the technical design of algorithms and cultural politics of web search. These contradictions are not conducive to democracy as they operate under a limited vision of society and skewed horizon of human experience.