On vernacular sensemaking: how Douyin's algorithm discourse shapes users’ algorithmic imaginaries

As users increasingly criticise the opacity of black-boxed algorithms and resist algorithmic curation, platforms have introduced official videos and websites to explain their algorithmic systems. While previous research has examined how these transparent initiatives affect content creators’ strategies for gaining visibility, this study shifts the focus to ordinary users, exploring how they interpret platform-led algorithmic disclosures and how their algorithmic imaginaries and online interactions are influenced by these official explanations on Douyin. This study employed a content analysis of 316 official algorithm explanation videos and articles on transparency websites, as well as a diary-interview approach with 22 Douyin users who watched algorithm explanation videos published by ByteDance’s official accounts. It found that Douyin’s transparency discourse selectively presents algorithmic information and shifts responsibility to automated systems, content creators, and state regulation. Based on participants’ interpretations of official discourse and their interactions with algorithms, this article argues that the platform’s discursive construction of algorithms, rather than fostering critical user agency, reinforces users’ perceptions of algorithms as an ‘objective,’ computational mechanism, thereby eliminating users’ digital irritation to algorithmic problems (e.g. irrelevant curation, content moderation) that discourages user resistance to the platform and legitimises the platform control through a carefully crafted illusion of transparency.