Situating algorithmic literacy

Abstract

Through a case study of BreadTube, a decentralized network of leftist YouTubers and their audiences, this chapter demonstrates how discourses inflect the entanglement of conceptual, practice-based, affective knowledges. The chapter introduces the concept of practical knowledge, defined as knowing how to accomplish X, Y, or Z within algorithmically mediated spaces as guided by the material and discursive features of one’s social world. The BreadTube community’s practical knowledge, exemplified in their visibility war with far-right YouTubers, reveals that instrumentality does not solely drive responses to algorithms. Instead, the ongoing process of participating in and identitying with a social world provides epistemic resources for recognizing, strategizing, and interpreting possible ways of navigating algorithms.