Algorithmic responsibility in PPC practice: Interpreting black boxes in digital advertising work.
This article examines the everyday work of pay-per-click (PPC) specialists in the context of the growing automation and algorithmization of digital advertising. Drawing on 27 in-depth interviews, ethnographic observation and an analysis of over one thousand posts from professional online forums, it...
| Publicado en: | Big Data & Society Vol. 13; no. 2; pp. 1 - 13 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Sage Publications Inc.
Apr-Jun2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=194971686&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 194971686 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 20539517 KG5N jtl: Big Data & Society issn: 20539517 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Apr-Jun2026 vid: 13 iid: 2 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 194971686 10.1177/20539517261449365 ppf: 1 ppct: 12 formats: tig: atl: Algorithmic responsibility in PPC practice: Interpreting black boxes in digital advertising work. aug: au: Chrobak, Natalia affil: Faculty of Humanities, AGH University of Krakow, Kraków, Poland su: Algorithms Automation Professions Information economy Technological complexity Advertising Internet marketing sug: subj: Algorithms Automation Professions Information economy Technological complexity Advertising Internet marketing keyword: algorithmic responsibility automation big data digital labour embodied knowledge PPC STS ab: This article examines the everyday work of pay-per-click (PPC) specialists in the context of the growing automation and algorithmization of digital advertising. Drawing on 27 in-depth interviews, ethnographic observation and an analysis of over one thousand posts from professional online forums, it explores how practitioners negotiate responsibility and expertise under conditions of technological opacity. The study reveals that PPC work is undergoing a transformation from a technical to an interpretive profession. Specialists increasingly act as translators of algorithmic decisions to clients and managers, maintaining the appearance of control over systems whose internal logic remains hidden. Their expertise takes the form of embodied and collective knowledge, grounded in intuition, emotion and peer exchange in online environments. The article introduces the notion of algorithmic responsibility as an epistemic practice, a daily effort to make sense of automated decisions under structural ignorance. PPC work is read here as a theoretically generative site for examining the data economy, a space where knowledge, power and technology intertwine into new forms of relational expertise. This paper contributes to critical algorithm studies by demonstrating that humans do not disappear from automated processes but rather become their indispensable interpreters – the guarantors of meaning in a society dominated by data. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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