The Sixth Estate – The Rule of Algorithms
The Sixth Estate – The Rule of Algorithms

Summary/Abstract: On the basis of the analysis of numerous texts and social phenomena in which the hermeneutical method is applied, we would like to present the following article on a phenomenon that can be observed in new media. We have referred to the phenomenon as the Sixth Estate, the rule of algorithms. Nowadays, digital mechanisms applied for selecting contents, controlling consumer and political behaviour reach far beyond the limit of a marginal phenomenon, and they readily join the mainstream. With the appearance of the Sixth Estate, some other phenomena can be observed, such as mythologisation of abstruse digital mechanisms which interact with a human being, and network cyborgisation. “The rule of algorithms” emphasises the role, or to put it more precisely, the growing hegemony of new media organisations and software developers who work for them, and the will to conquer new fields which have so far seemed to be the bastions of human activities, as it is in the case of the “robo-recruiting” that has just appeared.

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