Recent developments in communication and information technology have disrupted the long-established dominance of mass media over the production and distribution of news. As an effort to reclaim their role of society’s information gatekeeper, media companies absorb digital technology as instruments of institutional power to reproduce its own logic in the digital space. This paper dis-cusses two interrelated modalities of algorithmic news: economically efficient production, where news outlets utilize quantitative metrics to improve content effectiveness and desirability; and shared-gatekeeping, where visibility and distribution of information are contextual and based on users’ behaviour. The paper proposes that algorithmic media hides under its supposed objectivity and neutrality to become a new gatekeeper “organism”, which not only regulates flows of infor-mation, but also interprets and negotiates both public interests and the value of the news.

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O YouTube, por meio do seu sistema de recomendação de vídeos, vem sendo apontado como uma plataforma de disseminação de ideias conservadoras, na qual se desenvolve um modelo alternativo de influência que favorece a promoção de temas contrários às noções de justiça social e direitos humanos. A partir de um levantamento de vídeos mais recomendados no YouTube durante as eleições de 2018, este estudo traz apontamentos sobre os modos de ação desta plataforma, a atividade dos algoritmos e as estratégias dos actantes, humanos ou robôs, no cenário político eleitoral brasileiro, no qual  predominaram os temas da campanha do candidato Jair Bolsonaro e o discurso conservador que marcou sua trajetória até a presidência do Brasil.

The physical space has historically served as an important support for human expression. However, the production of location-based information has been consciously used as means of social control by the hegemonic power, which decides what can be publicly displayed, and what should be hidden. With the development of mobile media, space has gained new dimensions, resulting in a sort of hybrid space where digital information overlays the physical space revealing what was previous unknown about a place. As mobile devices become increasingly present in our society, they should be understood as a social interface to our experience of space, serving not only as means to consume information, but also tools for communication. This paper discuss the current mobile media practices, such as mapping, urban electronic annotations, location-based mobile games, and smart mobs, which creates opportunities for new forms of human expression, reappropriations of space, and contestation of hegemonic power.

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