How algorithmic encounters re-map culture: boundary work, and community ordering on the Chinese platform Douban

Algorithms are increasingly central to the organization of visibility, authority, and social ordering in contemporary information societies. Drawing on a year of extensive participant observation and 35 in-depth interviews conducted on the Chinese platform Douban, this article examines how algorithmic systems, user practices, and governance arrangements are co-constitutive in shaping boundary-making and internal ordering in interest-based communities. We show that repeated algorithmic encounters serve as potent socio-emotional triggers. These encounters intersect with cultural practices, community autonomy, and platform mechanisms to construct highly flexible, yet still semi-permeable boundaries. Furthermore, we identify a hybrid governance system that regulates visibility and generates identity anxiety, thus prompting users to develop adaptive strategies. To explain the co-production of expertise, visibility, and authority, we propose a three-capital framework comprising field-specific cultural capital, algorithmic meta-capital, and moral-normative capital. The findings illuminate the tension between community life, platform design, and the Chinese regulatory environment in defining cultural visibility and digital survival.