Algospeak in the Discursive Order of Instagram: the Subversion of the Algorithm
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The study's theme presents the influence of algorithms in regulating discourses by subjects within the digital space of Instagram, focusing on the Algospeak language, a discursive strategy used to bypass algorithmic monitoring mechanisms. The objective of this investigation is to analyze how this language points to the functioning of algorithms and their ability to establish a new discursive order on Instagram, conditioning users' discursive practices. The research adopts a qualitative and descriptive-interpretative approach, anchored in Foucauldian Discourse Studies. The archaeogenealogical method guides the analysis, combining the archaeology of knowledge, to examine the knowledge that sustains linguistic control techniques, and the genealogy of power, to understand the forces that regulate discourses and define their conditions of existence. The corpus consists of four enunciations materialized in Reels-format videos, published by the news page @metropoles on Instagram. The results indicate that algorithms operate in the control, organization, and circulation of discourses. However, the emergence of the Algospeak language constitutes an innovative discursive practice in which subjects reframe their subjectivities.
Authors: BARRETO, Matheus Silva, BARACUHY, Regina, SANTOS, Rafaela Cláudia dos, SOUSA, Luzineide Vieira de, ALVES, Liliane Luz
Institution: Universidade Federal da Paraíba
Language: English
Topic: Foucault, Power, and Ethics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6949300402
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