Becoming-Social in a Networked Age

This book examines the semiotic effects of protocols and algorithms at work in popular social media systems, bridging philosophical conversations in human-computer interaction (HCI) and information systems (IS) design with contemporary work in critical media, technology and software studies. Where most research into social media is sociological in scope, Neal Thomas shows how the underlying material-semiotic operations of social media now crucially define what it means to be social in a networked age. He proposes that we consider social media platforms as computational processes of collective individuation that produce, rather than presume, forms of subjectivity and sociality.

List of contents

1. On the notion of a formatted subject

2. The epistemically-formatted subject

3. The performatively-formatted subject

4. The signaletically-formatted subject

5. The allagmatically-formatted subject

Conclusion: Towards an enunciative informatics

About the author

Neal Thomas is Assistant Professor of Media and Technology Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Summary

This book examines the semiotic effects of protocols and algorithms at work in popular social media systems, bridging philosophical conversations in human-computer interaction (HCI) and information systems (IS) design with contemporary work in critical media, technology and software studies.

Product details

• Authors: Neal Thomas
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 10.12.2019
• EAN: 9780367888435
• ISBN: 978-0-367-88843-5
• No. of pages: 192
• Series: Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture
• Subjects: Guides; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > General, dictionaries; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Media Studies, PHILOSOPHY / General, COMPUTERS / Information Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, Philosophy, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies, Digital lifestyle, Communication Studies, Media studies: internet, digital media and society, information architecture, Information theory, Information technology: general issues, COMPUTERS / Computer Architecture, Information technology: general topics