{"title":"驯服算法:GrabBike 送货员的平台现实主义","authors":"Giang Nguyen-Thu, Luke Munn","doi":"10.1177/14614448241262417","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"How do workers conceptualize a platform’s algorithm and adjust their practices to its logic? To pursue this question, we draw on an ethnography of Grab, the leading rideshare platform in Southeast Asia, composed of 60+ trips talking to drivers on the back of bikes, and 10 in-depth interviews. We identify a distinct set of moves that workers perform to survive on the platform, a strategic cluster of practices we term “taming the algorithm.” These practices appear incompatible or contradictory—a bodily enactment of improvising, scrambling, and enduring that nevertheless is registered by the algorithm as routinized productivity. Even if done successfully, taming does not fundamentally disrupt platform logics, but rather makes exploitation more consistent and predictable. Workers adopt what we term “platform realism,” striving for a bleak but concrete agency that maintains their status. The aim is not to disrupt the system or hack the algorithm, but to live with it.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Taming the algorithm: The platform realism of GrabBike delivery workers\",\"authors\":\"Giang Nguyen-Thu, Luke Munn\",\"doi\":\"10.1177/14614448241262417\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"How do workers conceptualize a platform’s algorithm and adjust their practices to its logic? To pursue this question, we draw on an ethnography of Grab, the leading rideshare platform in Southeast Asia, composed of 60+ trips talking to drivers on the back of bikes, and 10 in-depth interviews. We identify a distinct set of moves that workers perform to survive on the platform, a strategic cluster of practices we term “taming the algorithm.” These practices appear incompatible or contradictory—a bodily enactment of improvising, scrambling, and enduring that nevertheless is registered by the algorithm as routinized productivity. Even if done successfully, taming does not fundamentally disrupt platform logics, but rather makes exploitation more consistent and predictable. Workers adopt what we term “platform realism,” striving for a bleak but concrete agency that maintains their status. The aim is not to disrupt the system or hack the algorithm, but to live with it.\",\"PeriodicalId\":19149,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"New Media & Society\",\"volume\":\"28 1\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":4.5000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-07-26\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"New Media & Society\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"98\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241262417\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"COMMUNICATION\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Media & Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241262417","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
Taming the algorithm: The platform realism of GrabBike delivery workers
How do workers conceptualize a platform’s algorithm and adjust their practices to its logic? To pursue this question, we draw on an ethnography of Grab, the leading rideshare platform in Southeast Asia, composed of 60+ trips talking to drivers on the back of bikes, and 10 in-depth interviews. We identify a distinct set of moves that workers perform to survive on the platform, a strategic cluster of practices we term “taming the algorithm.” These practices appear incompatible or contradictory—a bodily enactment of improvising, scrambling, and enduring that nevertheless is registered by the algorithm as routinized productivity. Even if done successfully, taming does not fundamentally disrupt platform logics, but rather makes exploitation more consistent and predictable. Workers adopt what we term “platform realism,” striving for a bleak but concrete agency that maintains their status. The aim is not to disrupt the system or hack the algorithm, but to live with it.
期刊介绍:
New Media & Society engages in critical discussions of the key issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and on both theoretical and empirical research. The journal includes contributions on: -the individual and the social, the cultural and the political dimensions of new media -the global and local dimensions of the relationship between media and social change -contemporary as well as historical developments -the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change the relationship between theory, policy and practice.