Culture, But Make It Algorithmic
- Prankeet Shree
- Dec 23, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 27, 2025
You drive home from the office listening to Karan Aujla. You drop your bags and freshen up to catch up with the new season of Stranger Things while eating dinner. Then you doomscroll Instagram, watching Nara Smith making bread, as you drift to sleep.
The digital ecosystem is the primary source of information, communication, and even creation in the present age. Even now, you are reading this on a digital page. As a result, this ecosystem also senses the world and one’s own self. Digital technologies, devices, have proven to be indispensable in shaping cultural landscapes.
This article, therefore, examines what is meant by digital cultures.
What are digital cultures?
Digital cultures, as an ontological concept, serve a two-pronged approach to meaning-making and identity formation: first, the digitisation and platformisation of culture; and second, the growing practices of living, communing, and building culture in digital spaces. Both interact as distinct yet overlapping entities, in a constant feedback loop with one another. Participants are never passive; they are prosumers (producers and consumers).
How do they work?
When we look at the first approach, the straightforward outputs are Digital Cultural Resources (DCR), which are often “about leveraging technology to democratize access to culture and heritage, ensuring its preservation for future generations.”1 Additionally, the DCRs do not just intend to digitise for basic accessibility, but for improved interaction and meaningful interpretation of cultural content. Martin Hand, in his book Making Digital Cultures2, presents three “motifs” typical of digital cultures: access, interactivity, and authenticity. Primarily, these are the synergies that digital cultures seek to tap into in their efforts to create an interactive digital archive. These can be understood as the broader frameworks of digital cultures within which we make sense of the world.
These archives build knowledge libraries of multiple interpretations and identities. They can even form a social machinery3, guiding interoperability and contextualisation of the past, the future, and ultimately, the current collective unconscious. This is where the second digital culture comes in, acting as a mirror and a mould for iteration and identification by individuals like you and me, through which we make sense of ourselves in this world.
Throughout history, technology has served as both a counterbalance to tradition and a catalyst for cultural stimuli. This era of digital nativity and online gathering has also brought forth new ways of challenging, catalysing, and culture-building.
LoL and LMAO were probably the first-generation superstars, followed by their language successors: slay, rizz, and now 67. Similarly, now ‘body positivity’ is differentiated from ‘toxic body positivity’, Karvachauth is no longer Bollywood’s favourite festival of love, and non-Odias root for Raja. We are continually constructing more discourses and customising new rituals and identities.
This is not to say that digital culture is the revolutionised age of cultural existence. More often than not, a listener of Pawan Singh is not a Swiftie. Culture still exists in silos, and cultural exchanges still favour in-groups and echo chambers. But what is different from before, and what sets digital cultures apart from the earlier phases of cultures, is the immense possibility of interactions and interpretations, all saved in a digital footprint.
What challenges do digital cultures have to navigate?
The obvious challenges of censorship and conflict of interest to the platformisation of cultural practices place heavy responsibilities on navigating ethical and socio-political conundrums to stay true to the essence of preservation.
Another risk we face is the oversimplification, romanticisation, or vilification of cultures, where practices are either assimilated or subsumed into another culture. With the rise of misinformation and deepfakes, it is easier to fall prey to such ill culture-building operations.
The mirage of democratisation of culture is also lucrative, and needs to be consciously countered. The digital divide is greater than ever with the advent of AI, and barriers of caste, class, and geography still exclude many important voices from cultural activities.
What can we do as creators of digital cultures?
Look for diversity, not only in your follower count, but in your discussions, in your friend groups, and even in your own intersectionality. We are all products of dynamic forces, not of linear thought or ideology. And then, you read more, you reflect more, you receive better, you respond better.
Remember, culture is in your hands.
References:
Author Spotlight - Prankeet Shree
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