RESPONSE TO TURNER: IS IT USEFUL AND/OR ACCURATE TO THINK OF ALGORITHMIC CURATION AS EPISTEMIC COERCION?

Abstract

We argue that the concept of epistemic coercion is neither accurate nor useful for describing and thinking about the significance of the new practices of algorithmic curation, and that Foucault’s concept of rarefaction is better suited for this purpose. After establishing what Turner means by epistemic coercion, we show that it differs from how the concept of coercion is typically defined and used by philosophers and sociologists, especially because Turner does not identify a threat that causes the coerced people to act under duress. We then detail our reasons for why the concept of coercion, to our minds, flattens and to some extent distorts our understanding of the practice of curation. Among these reasons are the blurry lines and interdependence between curation and self-curation, thus between “coercion” and “resistance”; the absence of a plausible “threat” that could justify conceptualizing the operation as coercion; the inescapability of curation in order to navigate the “information glut”; as well the question of whether users of social media are aware that their information environment is curated. Finally, and directly following from these reasons, we show that Foucault’s concept of discursive “rarefaction” offers a lot more insight into the novelty and nature of contemporary curation practices. Indeed, we argue that viewed from this perspective, social media appears to represent a new rearrangement and ordering of discourse, the formation of an interface between “ordinary utterances” and “disciplines,” between everyday talk and expert discourse. This intermediate realm, where discursive events are neither ephemeral nor preserved “in the true,” depends on rarefaction-qua-curation for its existence and functioning.