Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Sociology

Advisor

Patricia Ticineto Clough

Committee Members

David Brotherton

Vincent Crapanzano

Subject Categories

Continental Philosophy | Film and Media Studies | Philosophy | Political Theory | Politics and Social Change | Sociology | Sociology of Culture | Theory, Knowledge and Science

Keywords

time, algorithms and media studies, power, critical theory, culture, friedrich nietzsche

Abstract

In this dissertation, I analyze the new forms of temporalization of social media in relationship to arrangements of power through nonhuman agency of the algorithm. The new social media industry refers to the entities that make up its circulatory movement, simply as ‘content’. This suggests that scientific or empirical study of social media should deal with content and analyze this as the data of research through sampling (Manovich, 2020, p. 93-94). Yet the forms and the temporality in which the content is presented not only are open to empirical research but should be central to our understanding of the organization of the culture of social media (Dienst, 1994; Rodowick, 1997). Leaving the form or the technical frame without theoretical criticism allows neutral reception of the content as bare data, it leads to a reification of their movement. My approach that draws on critical media studies scholarship, historical materialism and deconstructive writing instead focuses on temporality of this movement that offers ways to rethink current relations of power (Heidegger, 1987, p. 18-24; Clough, 2000; Parisi, 2013; Lazzarato, 2019). Critically describing the technical and political conditions of the movement of data on personalized social media feeds, I analyze digital culture from the perspective of its temporality.

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