| A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media Contributor(s): Sampson, Tony D. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1509537406 ISBN-13: 9781509537402 Publisher: Polity Press OUR PRICE: $66.45 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: August 2020 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Media Studies |
| Dewey: 302.231 |
| LCCN: 2019054266 |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6" W x 9.1" (1.00 lbs) 208 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Positing online users as 'sleepwalkers', Tony Sampson offers an original and compelling approach for understanding how social media platforms produce subjectivities. Drawing on a wide range of theorists, including A.N. Whitehead and Gabriel Tarde, he provides tools to track his sleepwalker through the 'dark refrain of social media': a refrain that spreads through viral platform architectures with a staccato-like repetition of shock events, rumours, conspiracy, misinformation, big lies, search engine weaponization, data voids, populist strongmen, immune system failures, and far-right hate speech. Sampson's sleepwalker is not a pre-programmed smartphone junkie, but a conceptual personae intended to dodge capture by data doubles and lookalikes. Sleepwalkers are neither asleep nor wide awake; they are a liminal experimentation in collective mimicry and self-other relationality. Their purpose is to stir up a new kind of community that emerges from the potentialities of revolutionary contagion. At a time in which social media is influencing more people than ever, A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media is an important reference for students and scholars of media theory, digital media and social media. |