Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780231206686)

Today, algorithms exercise outsize influence on cultural decision-making, shaping and even reshaping the concept of culture. How were automated, computational processes empowered to perform this work? What forces prompted the emergence of algorithmic culture?

Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet is a history of how culture and computation came to be entangled. From Cambridge, England, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, by way of medieval Baghdad, this book pinpoints the critical junctures at which algorithmic culture began to coalesce in language long before it materialized in the technological wizardry of Silicon Valley. Revising and extending the methodology of "keywords," Ted Striphas examines changing concepts and definitions of culture, including the development of the field of cultural studies, and stresses the importance of language in the history of technology.

Offering historical and interdisciplinary perspective on the relationship of culture and computation, this book provides urgently needed context for the algorithmic injustices that beset the world today.

Author: Ted Striphas
ISBN-10: 0231206682
ISBN-13: 9780231206686
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/06/2023
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.31lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.94d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2023