Algorithmic Communication and Digital Trance: A Moderated-Mediation Model of Conditional Autonomy and Attention Sovereignty Among Generation Z

Abstract

This study proposes and empirically examines an Algorithmic Communication and Digital Trance framework, which treats algorithmic personalization as a communication infrastructure that selects, orders, and personalizes messages, and which is associated with a “digital trance”—an absorbed, low-deliberation state of message reception. Here, algorithmic hypnosis is used only as a non-clinical analytical metaphor for this absorbed, low-elaboration state, not as medically defined hypnosis. Drawing on algorithmic communication, dual-process persuasion (the Elaboration Likelihood and Heuristic–Systematic models), the Limited Capacity Model of mediated message processing, source-credibility and parasocial theory, and algorithmic literacy—organized through a Stimulus–Organism–Response structure—the study examines how perceived algorithmic stimulus intensity and the perceived authenticity of Key Opinion Consumer (KOC) content relate to digital trance, and how trance relates to conditional autonomy and, in turn, automatic media engagement. Conditional autonomy is positioned as a mediator and attention sovereignty (enacted algorithmic literacy) as a protective moderator on the trance-to-autonomy path. Constructs were measured with five-point Likert items. Using a cross-sectional survey of 250 university students in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), perceived stimulus intensity and KOC authenticity were positively associated with digital trance; digital trance was negatively associated with conditional autonomy; lower conditional autonomy was associated with higher automatic engagement; and attention sovereignty significantly buffered the trance-to-autonomy relationship. The study offers an initial, exploratory operationalization of digital trance, conditional autonomy, and attention sovereignty, and situates these dynamics in a non-metropolitan Indonesian digital-media context. Findings inform digital-literacy interventions that cultivate enacted attention sovereignty. Because the design is cross-sectional, the associations are interpreted as consistent with, rather than confirmation of, the proposed directional model.