Abstract

This text examines the issues raised in Mark Andrejevic’s “Automated Media, 2019,” which critically reflects on the effects of automation, a characteristic of media algorithms, on the consciousness of the subject. It aims to discuss the transformed subjectivity and the significance of writing in the era of media algorithms. The book highlights the subjectivity issue caused by the new media structure. Andrejevic relies on media materialism and psychoanalysis to make his argument. In this paper, the concept of “technological unconscious,” developed from Kittler’s thought, is appropriated to conceptualize the relationship between media algorithm structures and consciousness as “algorithmic unconscious.” This approach allows for a reading of Andrejevic’s thoughts, focusing more on the changes in subjectivity brought about by the new media structure. It investigates how the characteristics of automation, totality, and correlation within algorithm structures have given rise to a datafied subject. Additionally, it explores the future of writing and the epistemology of the new subject created by algorithm structures. Andrejevic’s alternative, focusing on the sensualization of shared experiences to recover the narrative sense—an abstract and critical realm of human cognition—is examined, highlighting the need and potential for epistemological reflection of humanistic significance in media discourse.