If...Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics
如果……那么：算法权力与政治
Authors: Taina Bucher（泰娜·布赫）
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication Year: 2018
Pages: 224
About Book:
IF … THEN provides an account of power and politics in the algorithmic media landscape that pays attention to the multiple realities of algorithms, and how these relate and coexist. The argument is made that algorithms do not merely have power and politics; they help to produce certain forms of acting and knowing in the world. In processing, classifying, sorting, and ranking data, algorithms are political in that they help to make the world appear in certain ways rather than others. Analyzing Facebook’s news feed, social media user’s everyday encounters with algorithmic systems, and the discourses and work practices of news professionals, the book makes a case for going beyond the narrow, technical definition of algorithms as step-by-step procedures for solving a problem in a finite number of steps. Drawing on a process-relational theoretical framework and empirical data from field observations and fifty-five interviews, the author demonstrates how algorithms exist in multiple ways beyond code. The analysis is concerned with the world-making capacities of algorithms, questioning how algorithmic systems shape encounters and orientations of different kinds, and how these systems are endowed with diffused personhood and relational agency. IF … THEN argues that algorithmic power and politics is neither about algorithms determining how the social world is fabricated nor about what algorithms do per se. Rather it is about how and when different aspects of algorithms and the algorithmic become available to specific actors, under what circumstance, and who or what gets to be part of how algorithms are defined.
关于书籍：
《如果……那么》对算法媒介景观中的权力与政治进行了阐述，关注算法的多重现实，以及这些现实如何相互关联并共存。书中提出的论点是，算法不仅具有权力和政治意涵；它们还协助生产了在这个世界上特定的行动与认知形式。在处理、分类、筛选和排名数据时，算法具有政治性，因为它们促使世界以特定的方式而非其他方式显现。
通过分析 Facebook 的信息流、社交媒体用户与算法系统的日常遭遇，以及新闻专业人员的话语和工作实践，本书主张超越对算法狭隘的技术定义，即将其仅视为在有限步骤内解决问题的逐步程序。依托过程-关系理论框架（process-relational theoretical framework）以及来自田野观察和55次访谈的实证数据，作者论证了算法如何在代码之外以多种方式存在。该分析关注算法的“世界构建”能力，探讨算法系统如何塑造不同类型的遭遇和取向，以及这些系统如何被赋予弥散的人格和关系性能动性。
《如果……那么》认为，算法权力与政治既不在于算法决定了社会世界如何被制造，也不在于算法本身做了什么。相反，它关乎算法和“算法性”的不同面向在何时、以何种方式、在何种情境下为特定行动者所用，以及谁或什么能够参与到算法被定义的过程中。
About Author:
Taina Bucher is Associate Professor of Communication and IT at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on the power and politics of algorithms in everyday life at the intersection of media studies, sociology and science, and technology studies.
关于作者：
泰娜·布赫（Taina Bucher）是哥本哈根大学传播与 IT 副教授。她的研究重点是日常生活中算法的力量。
编译：任艳林、刘鑫
编辑：黄广生
