As humans we are moulded by the things, people and
information that surrounds us. What happens when specific algorisms control the
information and things we are able to see? As McNeil explains, “the series of algorithms
the company has written to track, direct, and disseminate information about its
members’ activities” control the online narrative of its users (McNeill,
2012). Everyone’s virtual social
networks are being controlled by a cybernetic force which create a post human
like identity. This blog will specifically analyse the cybernetic control on
the social network of persons Instagram identity.
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(Lim, 2016)
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In March of 2016 Instagram revamped the way it displays
content, changing from oldest-to-newest to a new algorism based feed. According
to an article
published by ‘The Guardian’, ‘An algorithm-driven feed, “ordered to show the
moments we believe you will care about the most”, would be introduced “in the
coming months” to rectify this’ (Ellie Hunt, 2016). The way these algorithms
work must be analysed to decide how much this change would effect the users.
Moreover, in an article by ‘Business
Insider’ the author explains that there are several key factors that decide
what we see in our feeds, these are:
1.
The relationship between you and the person who
(or company that) posted the photo
2.
Timing of post (when it was posted)
3.
Likes and comments (amount of likes and comments
the post has)
4.
Direct shares (posts we share with people)
5.
Profile searches (the people we search will be
higher in our feed)
(Tim Stenovec, 2016)
Now to get lots of people to view your posts you have to add
loads of hashtags to your pictures according to a blog on ‘Later’(Chacon, 2017).
This is a tactic used by companies and celebrities to increase the number of
people that see their posts. The posts we see at the top of our feed (and just
in our feed) are placed through this algorithm of specific features which
ultimately controls what we see and in what order. This cybernetic control mechanism
moulds our on-line social identity. The main problem with this control is that
we cannot access information outside of our usual comfort zone which keeps us
looking at the same points of views and opinions.
This leads to a posthumanism identity. An aspect of this
theory is that ‘societies determine who we are and our feelings’ and moreover, ‘humans
are not singular’ as they are seen in the humanism theory (Kuttainen, 2017). We
are categorically placed into an online society with millions of others without
being able to see other information or opinions of other societies and
vise-versa. On a ‘Ted
Talk’ Eli Pariser calls this “Filter Bubbles”, his problem with these
filters is that “the internet is showing us what we want to see – its not
necessarily what we need to see”(Pariser, 2014). This idea of only seeing the
same information that we want to see by the algorithms of our favourite online
reality gives retailers, news outlets and companies easy access to specific
societies that would buy into what they are selling.
Lim, Dinnie. (12th May 2016). LET’S NOT BE
OVERDRAMATIC ABOUT INSTAGRAM [Image]. Retrieved from https://wearesocial.com/sg/blog/2016/05/lets-not-be-overdramatic-about-instagram
Pariser, Eli. (1st February 2014). Beware online
“filter bubbles”. Retrieved from https://tedsummaries.com/2014/02/01/eli-pariser-beware-online-filter-bubbles/
Chacon, Benjamin. (16th July 2017). 5 Things to
Know About the Instagram Algorithm. Retrieved from https://later.com/blog/instagram-algorithm/
Stenovec, Tim. (22nd March 2016). Instagram's got
a new way to determine which photos show up in your feed -- here's how it works.
Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com.au/what-will-go-into-instagrams-algorithm-2016-3?r=US&IR=T
Hunt, Elle. (7th June 2016). New algorithm-driven
Instagram feed rolled out to the dismay of users. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/07/new-algorithm-driven-instagram-feed-rolled-out-to-the-dismay-of-users
McNeill, Laurie. (2012). There in No “I” in Network: Social
Networking Sites and Posthuman Auto/Biography. Project Muse, 35(1), 65-82. doi: http://doi.org/10.1353/boi.2012.0009
Kuttainen, Victoria. (2017). BA1002: Our space: Networks,
narratives and the making of place, lecture 6: Networked Narritives.
[PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
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