The Aura, Uploaded: Conceptualizing Participatory Meaning Amidst YouTube’s Algorithm

Abstract

This project interrogates the character of human meaning in digital participatory spaces– its construction and mutability in the face of algorithmic recommendation. I ask how the presence of algorithmic recommendation affects the participatory construction of meaning on YouTube, which centers personal connection and authenticity. To explore this question, I make a theoretical argument that utilizes the aura and post-ritual performance to specify the auratic quality of performance on YouTube, insisting on a quality of essentially human charisma that emerges through a creator’s knowledge of and participation within YouTube’s communicative spaces. Algorithms stand to alter this model by interfering in the dynamic between audience and creator, mediating cultural production and reorganizing conceptions of creative acts. Understanding not only how algorithms affect creative processes but also how creators conceptualize such algorithms keys us into a larger public conversation regarding cultural autonomy in the face of increasingly mediated online networks.