2023/08/04 by Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, German Neubaum · 2 voices · 46 citations
Computer Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #German #Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection #Key (lock) #Literacy #Media literacy #Political science #Privacy, Security, and Data Protection #Psychological intervention #Psychology #Scholarship #Social media #Social psychology #Transparency (behavior) #World Wide Web
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/jcmc/zmad035
published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 28(5) (Oxford University Press (OUP))
crossref issued 2023/08/04 · crossref published 2023/08/04 · crossref published-print 2023/08/04 · openalex publication_date 2023/08/04 · crossref published-online 2023/08/31 · crossref created 2023/09/01 · crossref deposited 2023/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/08/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract With the increase in algorithms on social media, scholarship is increasingly focused on “algorithmic literacy,” or users’ understanding of algorithms. Algorithmic literacy is multi-faceted (knowledge, attitudes, and behavior), and researchers are still uncovering how these facets are connected. This article presents a preregistered survey of social media users from two western countries: the United States (n = 990) and Germany (n = 1117). Results show key predictors of algorithmic awareness—age, education, frequency of social media use—are the same in both countries. Nevertheless, U.S. social media users show higher algorithmic awareness and more positive attitudes toward algorithms than German social media users, likely due to their higher overall social media usage. Results also indicate that algorithmic awareness predicts attitudes about filtering algorithms depending on users’ defense motivations or accuracy motivations and behaviors to counteract filtering. These patterns have implications for literacy interventions and for increasing algorithmic transparency.