From Instrument to Structure: The Algorithm as a Structural Actor in the Digital Field

Billions of users interact with social platforms daily, but what each user sees, what content is displayed to them, and who is seen is not the product of free choice, but rather the result of algorithmic mechanisms that distribute power in these spaces. A development that has made the algorithm a central element in organizing the flow of information and the distribution of symbolic capital. The existing literature has mainly examined this phenomenon from two perspectives: the tool-oriented approach, which considers the algorithm as a technical and neutral mechanism, and the autonomous actor approach, which, inspired by Latour's actor-network theory, considers the algorithm as a counterpart agent to the human actor. This article argues that both approaches suffer from serious theoretical blind spots: the former ignores power structures, and the latter risks anthropomorphizing technology by equating human and non-human agency. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of the field, this research analyzes social platforms as digital fields in which actors compete for access to symbolic capital, namely visibility, attention, and prestige. This analysis shows that algorithms regulate the distribution of this capital through three mechanisms: ranking, recommendation, and visibility management. Accordingly, the article proposes the concept of the “structural actor,” a mechanism that is neither autonomous nor neutral, but rather operates within the logic of the field and participates in the reproduction of power relations. This concept adds a theoretical contribution to the literature on platform studies, shifting the central question from “What did the designers intend?” to “What logic does the digital field reproduce through algorithms?”.