Algorithms are increasingly shaping the content people consume, influencing how information is received and helping form public narratives, speakers at a Ministry of Culture seminar have said, stressing the need for greater digital awareness and critical thinking in an era of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence (AI).
The seminar, titled “The Power of Algorithms in Shaping Narratives and Programming Minds”, was held at the Ministry of Culture’s headquarters as part of the fifth edition of its “Seminar Season”, organised in partnership with the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University and Lusail University.
The event was attended by Assistant Undersecretary for Cultural Affairs Mubarak Abdullah al-Khalifa, along with several ambassadors and officials.
It examined the growing influence of algorithms amid the rapid adoption of digital technologies and AI, particularly their role in determining what content reaches users and shaping how audiences receive and interact with information.
Dr Abdulrahman al-Harmi, an educational and academic consultant, and Mohammed Salem, a media trainer and consultant, discussed how algorithms work and their growing impact on content creation, narrative formation, and how information and ideas reach the public.
Al-Harmi said algorithms have become an increasingly important subject of discussion as digital technologies permeate virtually every aspect of daily life.
They are no longer technical tools behind digital platforms, he said, but systems that directly shape the content users see and how people interact with information and ideas.
Al-Harmi stressed that understanding how algorithms work is essential to strengthening digital literacy, particularly amid the growing diversity of information sources and the vast volume of content circulating online.
Users, he added, should engage consciously with the content presented to them rather than automatically accepting what appears on their screens, emphasising the need for verification, critical thinking and analysis.
Al-Harmi also highlighted education’s role in helping society navigate these changes, particularly by developing critical-thinking skills among younger generations and equipping them to understand the digital environments in which they live and learn.
He said that this would enable them to benefit from technological advances while staying aware of the challenges tied to the growing influence of digital platforms and algorithms.
Salem said that algorithms have become a major force in the media and digital landscape because they rank content and determine what users see.
This, he said, makes their influence on narrative formation an increasingly important topic of discussion, especially as people rely more on digital platforms for news and information.
He said the content-creation industry is rapidly transforming due to technological advances, requiring media and cultural professionals to keep pace with emerging tools and understand how they are changing content production and distribution.
Salem stressed the importance of understanding how content is created, ranked, circulated, and disseminated, and the need to handle information shared across platforms responsibly.
The seminar also examined the relationship between algorithms and narrative formation, focusing on the growing role of digital platforms in producing and distributing content and the challenges this poses for users trying to distinguish factual information from targeted or algorithmically selected content.
Participants also discussed the importance of understanding how algorithmic systems operate and how they can influence individual choices, perceptions and interactions with different issues.
Through its “Seminar Season”, the Ministry of Culture continues to address a range of contemporary cultural, intellectual, and knowledge-based issues, providing a platform to discuss developments shaping society.
This version avoids repeating the same point about algorithms “shaping content” in several paragraphs.
It gave al-Harmi and Salem distinct angles: digital literacy and education for al-Harmi, and media/content production for Salem.
