Deep technological integration is quietly altering the ways people perceive, understand, and interpret the world. Image generated by AI

With the rapid advance of artificial intelligence, algorithms have become an indispensable component of digital media, permeating everyday life and exerting a profound influence on how culture is cognitively constructed and communicated. From content recommendations on social networks to personalized displays on streaming platforms, from the ranking of search-engine results to the interaction logic of smart devices, this deep technological integration is not merely technical in character; it also carries profound cultural implications. Quietly, it is altering the ways people perceive, understand, and interpret the world. In cultural communication in particular, algorithms function as an “invisible designer” of digital media. Through mechanisms of selection, ranking, and recommendation, they reshape the visibility of cultural elements and the relationships among them, constructing a new environment for cultural cognition.

According to the China Internet Audio Visual Development Research Report (2025), released by the China Netcasting Services Association at the 12th China Internet Audio & Video Convention on in late March 2025, China’s internet audio and video user base had reached 1.091 billion by December 2024, covering 98.4% of all internet users. Short-video and social media platforms have become major channels through which the public engages with cultural content, while the contexts of cultural cognition are shifting from centralized media such as books and TV toward decentralized, always-available environments on mobile devices.

Transforming cognitive settings

Traditionally, cultural cognition depended on ritualized physical spaces such as theaters and classrooms. These “centralized” settings required participants to devote uninterrupted blocks of time, producing a continuous, focused, and authority-led process of cognition—one that was solemn but also relatively closed and unidirectional.

The rise of digital media has dissolved this unity of time and space. Cognitive activity is now diffusely embedded in the interstices of everyday life: Fragments of time—such as commuting or breaks at work—are converted into moments of cultural cognition through short-video and livestreaming platforms. Within seconds, users can encounter a craft, a folk song, or a piece of architecture. This “fragmentation” has greatly increased the frequency of cultural exposure, while also making cognition more rapid, superficial, and discontinuous.

More importantly, digital media has introduced a revolutionary form of “interactivity” that distinguishes it from earlier modes of fragmented reading. Features such as bullet chats and user comments transform cognitive settings from terminals of passive reception into participatory, socialized spaces.

Shift in subjects’ role

Within the traditional paradigm of cultural communication, cognitive subjects stood at the end of the transmission chain, occupying the role of a purely receptive “audience.” The production, selection, and interpretation of cultural content were highly concentrated in the hands of professional gatekeeping institutions such as TV stations, publishing houses, museums, and academic organizations.

By virtue of their professional authority, these institutions defined what counted as “orthodox” culture, how it should be presented, and in what sequence it should be encountered. In this model, the public were essentially consumers and learners of cultural knowledge. Their cognitive pathways, scope, and depth were largely predetermined, while their subjectivity was confined mainly to the degree to which they accepted and internalized given content, leaving little room for genuine participation or creation.

The rise of digital media has fundamentally dismantled this centralized monopoly. The widespread adoption of the user-generated content (UGC) model has placed low-cost, highly efficient tools of cultural production and communication in the hands of ordinary users. As a result, the subjects of cultural cognition are no longer confined to the consumption end; they now participate to an unprecedented degree in the production, interpretation, and recreation of culture, becoming active co-creators. The revolutionary significance of this shift lies in the unprecedented diversification and grassroots orientation of the ways culture is defined and presented.

Altering content ecosystem

The cognitive content of traditional culture typically originated with authoritative sources such as textbooks, museums, and official documentaries. Their narratives were systematic and logically rigorous, intended to transmit a standardized and orthodox body of cultural knowledge. This “authoritative interpretation” helped ensure cultural normativity and accuracy in transmission, but it also tended to ossify cultural expression and weaken its dynamic connection with contemporary everyday life.

Algorithm-driven digital media platforms have fundamentally altered this content ecosystem. Their recommendation logic is grounded not in cultural orthodoxy but in user engagement, cross-community communicative potential, and novelty. This mechanism actively encourages the breakdown of spatiotemporal boundaries among diverse cultural elements, producing unexpected “collisions” and “reconfigurations,” and generating a large body of hybrid cultural content.

In summary, the algorithmic turn of digital media exhibits a profound duality in its reshaping of cultural cognition. On one hand, through technical limitations, commercial logic, and embedded structures of social power, algorithmic bias contributes to the homogenization, segmentation, and entertainment-oriented presentation of cultural content, intensifying the fragmentation, superficiality, and ambiguity of cultural identity. On the other hand, it has also given rise to new forms of cognition: Cognitive settings have moved from centralized, scheduled spaces to fragmented interactions embedded in daily life; cognitive subjects have evolved from passive recipients to active, decentralized co-creators; and cognitive content has expanded from singular authoritative interpretation to creative, hybrid symbols. Mitigating the negative impacts of algorithmic bias on cultural cognition cannot rely solely on the spontaneous evolution of technology. It requires multistakeholder governance at the practical level, so that cultural cognition can move toward a more inclusive and substantive landscape, balancing technological innovation with the preservation of values.

Hua Jingchao is an associate professor from the School of Humanities and Communication at the University of Sanya.