The Posthuman Reality of Feed-Based Social Media Systems

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dc.contributor.advisorCecchetto, David
dc.creatorDeJong, Dylan J.
dc.date.accessioned2019-07-02T16:27:11Z
dc.date.available2019-07-02T16:27:11Z
dc.date.copyright2019-04-15
dc.date.issued2019-07-02
dc.date.updated2019-07-02T16:27:10Z
dc.degree.disciplineHumanities
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThe conceptual boundary between the subject and user parallels the boundary between humanist and posthumanist definitions of human being, and the challenges of new media communications technology today impel this evolution. My dissertation discusses subjectivity as the self-differentiation of a particular set of processes, and the influence of communications media upon this process. Here, it includes the basis of differentiation for an I, including: the question of identity, potential agency, and knowledge. The collage of attributes that constitute a portrait of what I call the user, the subject of online social media, is demonstrably emergent, dispersed, and discursive; in terms of agency and sovereignty, the useras with other instances of posthuman subjectivityis contingent upon its media ecology and is decidedly less free than other definitions of subjectivity (such the self-sovereign individual of the social contract, which comes to be as a negation of contingency). The concept of self-sovereignty excludes the influences of history, and other influences upon the emergence of the subject, emphasizing an exclusively internal causation. The users existence, conversely, is processual and dispersed throughout networks; its being and agency are dividual, not individual. The subjectivity of the user must thus be thought in terms of its mediated contingency, as the self-sovereign agency that is characteristic of humanist traditions is less applicable to todays media ecologies. I argue that the traits of the subject in humanist traditions can be interpreted as the epiphenomena of societies whose information ecology was dominated by logocentric, typographic literacy. Today, with the advent of social media and its users, we can understand from a new vantage how subjectivities are modulated, amplified, and attenuated by technical distributions, particularly the unseen (and unseeable) non-human agents in the computation systems that constitute online social networks.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/36337
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectCommunication
dc.subject.keywordsposthumanism
dc.subject.keywordspost-humanism
dc.subject.keywordssystems theory
dc.subject.keywordsmedia theory
dc.subject.keywordsmedia studies
dc.subject.keywordscomparative media studies
dc.subject.keywordsdigital humanities
dc.subject.keywordscode studies
dc.subject.keywordssocial media
dc.subject.keywordsusers
dc.subject.keywordsalgorithms
dc.subject.keywordsinformation theory
dc.subject.keywordscommunications
dc.subject.keywordsFacebook
dc.subject.keywords
dc.titleThe Posthuman Reality of Feed-Based Social Media Systems
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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