Becoming Political with Algorithms
Joining the forces of political theory and philosophy of technology to understand the digital transformation of the public sphere.
A central concern in political theory today is the possibility of engaging in political action in a public sphere. Traditionally defined as the space where citizens gather to engage in political action, the public sphere has undergone several technologically-induced structural transformations (due to the printing press, radio, television and social media). Today, algorithms increasingly intervene in our daily navigation and actions in the public sphere. This development urges us to rethink elementary dimensions of the public sphere, such as (inter)action, self-presentation, consensus/dissensus, and the notion of ‘public’ itself.
The methodological foundations of the dissertation are grounded in both Hannah Arendt’s phenomenological methodology and post-phenomenology. Both offer an enactive and relational approach that understands political action as concrete engagement with the world in which both the subjective (human/virtu) and objective (world/fortuna) pole of the intentional relation are co-constituted in the act itself. In this approach, there is no ‘pure’ conception of political action before or exterior to technology; rather, technological conditions always already mediate what political action is by shaping human-world relationality. In Arendt’s terms, the artificial environment in which we act shapes the ‘web of relationships’ in which we (inter)act. Arendt's political theory takes a contemporary twist as algorithms become the new in-between, influencing and delineating relationships in the public sphere.
The overall objective of this dissertation is to develop an understanding of this transformation from a (post-)phenomenological perspective. In doing so, it aims to enrich and complement existing accounts of the ‘politics of algorithms’. While most contributions to the debate have, inspired by the (neo-)Marxist tradition, focused on algorithmic power and users’ resistance against it, I want to shed a light on the phenomenological conditions of possibility that make such forms of power and resistance possible in the first place. It analyses user-algorithm interactions, or more precisely: how algorithms are ‘revealed’ in our use of platforms, and the relationalities that are co-constituted in these interactions that enable new modes of political action.
Research output
Articles and book chapters
Longo, Anthony. 2025. “How Do Social Algorithms Appear? A Phenomenological Response to the Black Box Metaphor.” Minds and Machines 35(15). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-025-09716-1
Longo, Anthony. 2025. “Algorithmically Mediated Judgment: An Arendtian Perspective on Political Subjectivity in Social Media.” AI & Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02230-z
Longo, Anthony. 2024. “Reversing the Primacy of Political Action: Thinking Politics and Technology with Arendt.” Arendt Studies 8, 89-113. https://doi.org/10.5840/arendtstudies20248759
Longo, Anthony. 2024. “(Re)Designing the Public Sphere? Doing Political Theory After the Empirical Turn.” Philosophy & Technology 37:100. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00788-y
Longo, Anthony. 2024. "(Multi-)Stabilities of the Public Sphere: Why Arendt Needs Postphenomenology."
Human Studies 47, 591–612. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09716-7
Longo, Anthony. 2023. "Intersubjectivity, Mirror Neurons and the Limits of Naturalism." In Thinking Togetherness. Phenomenology and Sociality, edited by Andrej Božič. Ljubljana: Institute Nova Reijva for the Humanities, 103-116.
Longo, Anthony. 2023. "Digital Reconfigurations of Collective Identity on Twitter: A Narrative Approach." Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 27:1, 60-85. https://doi.org/10.5840/techne2023317175
Longo, Anthony. "Zijn we verkeerd aan het hopen?" [in Dutch] Streven vrijplaats, 87(hors-série): 59–62. [PDF]
Book reviews
Longo, Anthony. 2022. "Review: Being and the Screen: How the Digital Changes Perception," Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2146457
Conference presentations [* = invited]
“TikTok Gave Me ADHD: On User-Algorithm Relations in Platformed Diagnosis,” presented at “Which Smartness? Whose Intelligence? Critical Perspectives on Digital Technology and Political Subjects,” University of Lisbon (13-14 May 2024).
“The Digital In-Between: Remediating the Public Sphere,” presented at “Politics of Technologies in the Digital Age: Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” University of Ioannina (12-14 October 2023).
“Arendt 2.0: Enacting Political Action in Digital Spaces,” presented at the British Society for Phenomenology 2023 Annual Conference: “Lived Experience in Theory and Practice,” Manchester Metropolitan University (29-31 August 2023).
“Revaluing the Public Debate: A Postphenomenological Account of Changing Values in the Digital Public Sphere,” presented at Forum on Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology (fPET 2023), TU Delft (19-21 April 2023).
“Seeing the Public Sphere: On Interactive Spectatorship as a Political Act,” presented at “Experiencing Visual Images: Interdisciplinary Approaches,” University College London (11 November 2022).
“(De)colonising the Digital Subject: A Challenge to Reactive Democracy,” presented at the Faculty of Arts Doctoral Conference “Appropriation”, University of Antwerp (18 October 2022).
(*) “Algorithmic Frenemies: Toward a Catalogue of Digital Resistance,” presented at "Resistance and Subjectivities in the Digital Public Space,” The Digital Public Space Research Network, KU Leuven (8-9 September 2022).
“The Panopticon Reinvented: Resisting Digital Surveillance through an Anti-Colonial Lense,” presented at The London Conference in Critical Thought, Birkbeck College, University of London (8-9 July 2022).
“Conceptualising Virtual Communities: An Object-Oriented Approach to Interactivity,” presented at “Conceptualising Community,” Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society, and Rule of Law, University of Aberdeen (30-31 May 2022).
“Intersubjectivity, Mirror Neurons, and the Limits of Naturalism,” presented at “Phenomenology and sociality. The 6th Conference of the Central and East European Society for Phenomenology,” Ljulbljana (2-4 December 2021). [Available on YouTube]
(*) “The Digital In-Between: Social Media as a Cultural Public Sphere?” presented at “Van Eyck, through a scanner darkly: Art and intermediation (after COVID): rethinking the digital and the virtual,” organized by the Antwerp Research Institute of Arts (24 November 2021).
“The Possibilities and Limits of Agency in the Algorithmic Public Sphere,” presented at the Phigs Summer Colloquium, University of Kent (13-14 July 2021).
“The Neutrality of the Image. A Husserlian Perspective on Aesthetic Accessibility,” presented at the 11th Annual Meeting of the Society of Phenomenological Philosophy in Gent (21 December 2018).
Public outreach
[Keynote] “Unpacking #ThinkPossible: How to Be Digital in the Age of AI” at Proximus (telecommunication company), Brussels, 28 November 2023.
[Keynote] “De Virtuele Mens: Filosofische Beschouwingen” at Pàu (digital product design company), Antwerpen, 27 April 2023.
[blog article] "Kan een muisklik een politieke daad zijn?” [in Dutch], Bij Nader Inzien, 2 February 2023, https://bijnaderinzien.com/2023/02/02/kan-een-muisklik-een-politieke-daad-zijn/.
[Interview newspaper] “Wettelijk is losgeld betalen aan hackers niet verboden, maar stad Antwerpen staat voor zware afwegingen na cyberaanval”, Gazet Van Antwerpen, 15 December 2022, https://www.gva.be/cnt/dmf20221215_97299215.
[Interview newspaper] “Virtuele aanranding in de metaverse: ‘Helaas geen nieuw probleem’”, Knack, 17 juni 2022, https://www.knack.be/nieuws/technologie/virtuele-aanranding-in-de-metaverse-helaas-geen-nieuw-probleem/.
[Interview newspaper] “Jonge Wolven: Filosofen openen debat over opvoeding in een digitale wereld: “Kinderen acht uur voor een scherm zetten, is dat wel zo ideaal?”, Het Laatste Nieuws, 26 januari 2022, https://www.hln.be/antwerpen/jonge-wolven-filosofen-openen-debat-over-opvoeding-in-een-digitale-wereld-kinderen-acht-uur-voor-een-scherm-zetten-is-dat-wel-zo-ideaal~ad156172/.
[panel member] “Webinar: Hoopvol en ethisch leiderschap”, Leerstoel Economie van de Hooop (University of Antwerp and UCSIA), 26 mei 2021, https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/leerstoelen/economie-van-de-hoop/activiteiten/hoopvol-leiderschap/.
[blog-article series] Series of contributions to blog of “De Virtuele Mens” on prevailing myths on digitalization and critical perspectives on how digital technology has appeared in the news, targeted at wider audience. Accessible in Dutch via https://www.devirtuelemens.be/blog.
Teaching
Teaching assistance
Philosophy of Culture, B.A. Philosophy (1st year) – 2021-2022; 2022-2023
Philosophy of Technology, B.A. Philosophy (2nd-3rd year) – 2022-2023; 2024-2025
Progress Seminar Bachelor’s Thesis, B.A. Philosophy (3rd year) – 2022-2023
Thesis mentoring
Annelies Verbeeck, A Transparent World? An Inquiry into Frames and Transparency in Digital Reality (BA thesis, 2022-2023)
Lode Vervloet, Can the Internet be a Space for Authentic Relations? (BA thesis, 2023-2024)
Lore Weltens, The Illusion of a Feminist Identity in the Contemporary Culture Industry: A Critical Analysis of Postfeminism in a Neoliberal Society (BA thesis, 2023-2024)
Matthias Van Quathem, Soi Même Comme Un Profil: The Use of Ricoeur’s Petite Éthique for Identity Construction in a Digital Context (MA thesis, 2023-2024)
Sinem Utku Sahbaz, in progress (BA thesis, 2024-2025)
Mila Dezuttere, in progress (BA thesis, 2024-2025)