The Algorithmic Narrator

Abstract

Facebook promises to make us readers and authors of our own stories, but in fact, Mark Zucerkberg’s social network has created a production line of narratable narration that imprisons lives, biographies, and possible tales. Processing the metadata, behaviors and interactions of billions of users within the platform’s walled garden, the algorithm imposes itself as an omniscient and totalitarian narrator, a predictive storytelling machine that benefits the only readers that truly count: advertisers.

In light of reflections (among others) from Christian Salmon, James Gottschall, Raul Mordenti, and Marie-Laure Ryan, and based on the visible concentration in new media of the dual role of content providers and providers of distribution infrastructures (1), in this paper I will argue that Facebook’s narrative dictatorship overrides the Web as a space for open, collaborative and ground-up participatory narration. All that remains of the original hypertextual architecture is a television network, a broadcasting platform that favors orality, video and slideshows in such a way that gurus of innovation and the digital world become the new pop stars of our neoliberal era through Ted stages and YouTube videos.