In Gilad Lotan's article titled The Algorithmic Newsroom, he says "An algorithm is a finite list of instructions that a machine preforms in order to calculate a function." But is that really all an algorithm is? Does an algorithm have a bias? How does it really decide what it decides as important news for the audience to see? (Since in this instance we are referring to the algorithm in which social media sites - such as twitter - use in order decide what stories and tweets to display on the news feeds.)
Do you ever actually think about how those tweets and stories are decided? Lotan goes into more depth on this topic and attempts to depict some of these answers. He discusses the various biases in which many algorithms are laced with and how the general public is oblivious to these biases - they are seen as neutral.This idea relates to that of the Computational and Algorithmic Journalism concept. We see this in that we know that knowledge generates activity. And these journalists and bloggers utilize the 'big data' with assistance from algorithms. They use algorithms because they are meant to solve problems in a way that produces revenue (capital) - the ultimate goal.
