The Ethics of Writing for Algorithmic Audiences

This article discusses the ethics of considering algorithms as audiences by drawing on a class dedicated to examining algorithms. While ethical commentary about the use of algorithms has been offered by cultural critics, I argue we need to consider the inner workings of algorithms, which requires demystifying or “unboxing” these things. I draw on my experiences teaching an upper-level elective course, during which we identified ways in which algorithms are obfuscated. I advocate for including technical literacies and methods, such as descriptive statistics, in writing studies courses that focus on algorithms. For writing studies, technical literacies and methods provide us with ethical ways to examine algorithms.