The Algorithm as Institution: Toward a Theoretical Framework for Automated Media Production and Consumption

Abstract

Media scholars have only recently begun to recognize and investigate the importance of algorithms to a wide range of processes related to the production and consumption of media content. There have been few efforts thus far, though, to connect these developments to potentially relevant bodies of existing theory and research. This paper seeks to address this gap by exploring the utility of institutional theory as a potentially useful analytical framework for continued inquiry into the role of algorithms in the operation of media systems; and by offering some suggestions for ways in which an institutional analytical frame can be extended into algorithmic contexts.

Keywords: Institutional Theory, Algorithms, New Media, Media Institutions

JEL Classification: L82, L86, D23