Algorithmic Platforms: The New Ideological State Apparatus in the 21st Century

In the past, individuals went to school, which trained people according to their skills and performed cultural conditioning; now, the same thing is done by digital platforms as they participate in the reproduction of social practices in contemporary times. In the traditional era, institutions largely addressed the subject, whereas now, in the digital era, this becomes personalized through continuous observations and interactions, which later create a feedback loop for consumers. This gives us a new type of \interpellation\, i.e., digital \interpellation\, where social networking apps collect users’ data, classify it, and serve the user based on their interests and recommendations. When an individual watches any reel, post, or consumes content, they engage with it as the user recognizes it with their own identity because digital platforms are full of recognition mechanisms, and users present themselves through these identities. So, the digital subject is both recognized by individuals and by algorithms. Thus, the algorithm becomes an important mechanism through which specific ideology is distributed. Algorithmic recommendation adds relevance to \interpellation\ by continuously categorizing, addressing, and personalizing content for users. by continuously categorizing, addressing and personalizing content for users. Platform servers are important means of digital production, but the platform company generally controls the entire digital infrastructure. So, from a political economy perspective, users’ day-to-day digital activities could generate economically valuable data, and this further leads to the accumulation of capital, a central concept in Marxian theory. perspective, the user’s day-to-day digital activities could generate economically valuable data and this further leads to accumulation of capital, central concept in Marxian theory. Thus, digital ideology operates at the intersection of political economy and ideological reproduction: the economic organization of algorithmic platforms shapes the conditions under which ideology circulates, while ideological processes help to reproduce the social relations within which digital capitalism operates.

In conclusion, social media has now become the new ideological state apparatus. Through algorithms, likes, sharing, and notification they influence the user perception and their ideology. The idea of \interpellation\ is being used by digital platforms where individuals are classified and categorized as particular kinds of users, and then content is distributed to them. Thus, ideology operates not only through traditional institutions, but it is continuously produced through the interaction between individuals, platforms, algorithms, and existing social structures.