"In Algorithmic Worldmaking, Jeremy David Johnson discusses how algorithms shape democratic discourse and determine the ways we think, talk, and act in networked spaces. Johnson argues that a simplistic division between algorithms and human behavior is an indefensible and naïve construct, as algorithms and the people who design them shape each other at a fundamental level. This is especially true given how ubiquitous digital media-most of which is filtered through algorithmic systems-has become in our everyday lives. Thus, Algorithmic Worldmaking studies how that centrality affects and distorts our processes of civic and political engagement. Algorithms are squarely in the business of judgment and interpretation, Johnson argues, and those judgments are the products of human error and biases. He revitalizes a term not often explored in rhetoric-kosmos-as a way of understanding algorithmic worldmaking. Kosmos is often translated from ancient Greek as meaning "order," but not of a static or rigid kind. The pre-Socratics saw order as ever-changing, moving and flowing like a river, a philosophy largely abandoned by Plato and later thinkers. The kind of kosmos that interests Johnson manifests in patterns, repetition, and flux. Drawing on Herodotus, Homer, Gorgias, and others, Johnson makes the case that earlier views of kosmos better describe how the confluence of algorithms, humans, and our environments creates the spaces and positions we inhabit. These views of kosmos undercut propositions that algorithms are objective, unbiased, and natural applications of mathematics and computing, asserting instead that algorithms are interwoven and inextricable from people and their environments. Civic life today is largely networked. To understand and traverse algorithmic civic life, Johnson identifies four repeating patterns, or tropes, that transcend individual platforms and processes: navigation, exploration, maintenance, and monetization. While these are not the only functions of algorithms, they are the most pertinent for civic and political processes. With these ideas in mind, Johnson argues that political changes can tell us something about algorithmic worldmaking via the recurrence of fascism, pandemics, war, and capitalist inequality. Individual chapters explore algorithmic controversies in Google searches, mapping systems, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitch, and other platforms. These cases show how algorithms both shape and delimit human discourse. And Johnson offers four accompanying theses: that algorithms and humans share in agency, but humans still have exceptional power and responsibility; that algorithmic kosmos both reflects and shapes the oppressive and harmful patterns of society; that algorithms enact capitalist values; and that algorithmic power is a threat to democratic deliberation and decision-making"-- Provided by publisher.