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Selling Books with Algorithms

Expected online publication date:  19 July 2024

Anna Muenchrath
Affiliation:
Florida Institute of Technology

Summary

In 1997 Amazon started as a small online bookseller. It is now the largest bookseller in the US and one of the largest companies in the world, due, in part, to its implementation of algorithms and access to user data. This Element explains how these algorithms work, and specifically how they recommend books and make them visible to readers. It argues that framing algorithms as felicitous or infelicitous allows us to reconsider the imagined authority of an algorithm's recommendation as a culturally situated performance. It also explores the material effects of bookselling algorithms on the forms of labor of the bookstore. The Element ends by considering future directions for research, arguing that the bookselling industry would benefit from an investment in algorithmic literacy.
Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009339704
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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Selling Books with Algorithms
  • Anna Muenchrath, Florida Institute of Technology
  • Online ISBN: 9781009339704
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
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Selling Books with Algorithms
  • Anna Muenchrath, Florida Institute of Technology
  • Online ISBN: 9781009339704
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
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Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Selling Books with Algorithms
  • Anna Muenchrath, Florida Institute of Technology
  • Online ISBN: 9781009339704
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
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