Abstract
Algorithmic governance (AG) has been described as a new field of inquiry in the social sciences (Issar & Aneesh, 2021) bringing transformational societal implications for decision making and human autonomy.
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In the context of online television, the shift to algorithmic curation delegates content selection, recommendation, and visibility to algorithmic systems that control viewers' routes to audiovisual content. Despite this, the online television context of algorithmic governance remains insufficiently examined, particularly from an audience-centred perspective (Johnson et al., 2019, 2024; Vicente & Burnay, 2024).
Cavalcante, Press, and Sender (2017) call for a return to feminist audience research to address the dearth of feminist reception studies. This study responds to this call alongside directives in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995, section J women and media) as a qualitative inquiry for women speaking in their own terms about algorithmically curated TV experiences. A hermeneutic phenomenological research (HPR) approach is adopted to respond to the BDPfA's explicit call for women's involvement in technological development and research (para. 237).
Situating the research inquiry within the context of the algorithmically governed media environment of online TV, as it relates to representations of violence against women, the study draws on a corpus of 28 text-based DM interviews over 15 months, an online small group interview, and a participant diary app to foreground women's meaning-making. Generative AI emerged mid-study, and the thesis engages this development hermeneutically, contributing an original conceptual and methodological approach to AI in HPR – the hermeneutic algorithm audit.
The findings, examined in light of feminist continuum thinking and Benner and Wrubel's (1989) five sources of commonality, reveal different concerns about AG and common aspects within differing situations of care. This points to a sixth source of commonality: situated care, revealing common meanings in situational coping and technological governance knowledge. These findings bring forward new understandings relevant to academic, industry, and policy discourse on algorithmic governance in online TV.
Project presentation
Video presentation coming soon
An overarching presentation of the doctoral research project
Essays and Provocations
My longer-form, exploratory writing. These articles open to questions rather than presenting a conclusion or exhaustive discussion. Posted here as an accompaniment to my research, as a presentation strategy for my reflective register.
A Therapist's Phenomenology of the Between
Buber and Rogers, half a century on: the genuine-but-not-mutual meeting, Heidegger's danger, and the I-AI-Thou, an essay on encountering AI as a disclosive horizon, from twenty-five years in the therapist's chair.
Read the essay →Discourse on Heidegger
On working with Heidegger's thought – releasement, world-disclosure, attunement – carefully and selectively, mindful of his politics and wary of rote apology; and why "anti-technology" misreads him.
Read the essay →Note on intellectual property. The three contributions presented in card 03 — AI as Disclosive Horizon, the AI-Assisted Triple Hermeneutic, and the Hermeneutic Algorithm Audit — were developed by Samantha Pay as original doctoral research at the Oxford Internet Institute from 2024. This work and all associated diagrams precede and exist independently of any subsequent placement, partnership, or institutional application.
Acknowledgement
This research is generously supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through the Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership [AH/R012709/1].
Enquiries
For enquiries relating to this research, the methodology, original concepts or presentations, please contact me via my Oxford Internet Institute email.
samantha.pay@oii.ox.ac.ukAI Use Declaration
This website and its academic presentation pages were built and developed with the assistance of Claude Sonnet 4.6 High (Anthropic, August 2026) as a design and technical tool, under the author's direction and specification. All research, conceptual frameworks, and written content are the original work of Samantha Pay.