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Based on 66 semi-structured interviews conducted over 8 years with data scientists, software engineers, and content creators at BuzzFeed and Upworthy, this article conceptualizes optimization as a mode of algorithmic labor that emerges in response to the platformization of cultural production, distinguishing between three principal modes of social media optimization: presentational optimization, content optimization, and self-optimization. Through a detailed examination of BuzzFeed and Upworthy\u2019s optimization practices, I argue that in platform capitalism media workers come to act, think, and labor like software engineers rather than journalists, editors, or other traditional categories of media work.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/14614448251338514","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,15]],"date-time":"2025-05-15T08:47:36Z","timestamp":1747298856000},"page":"2509-2529","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["On optimization: Cultural labor in platform capitalism"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"28","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2846-6016","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"David Elliot","family":"Berman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Seton Hall University, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_4_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.16997\/book54.a"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_3_1","volume-title":"The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley Reengineered Journalism","author":"Bell EJ","year":"2017","unstructured":"Bell EJ, Owen T (2017) The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley Reengineered Journalism. 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