Description
Book SynopsisThe desire to be recognized is a basic human trait. In contemporary society, social media platforms play a key role in defining how processes of recognition take shape. To post, to like, or to comment have become daily practices of expressing individual recognition. On the one hand, social media platforms make it easier for individuals to be visible and to be recognized; on the other hand, they control the structure of these dynamics.
This timely and original book reflects on processes of recognition on social media platforms. Revisiting traditional discussions on recognition theory, Bruno Campanella investigates how the field of media and communication has used the concept and poses new questions raised by the omnipresence of social media. He argues that existing work does not fully explore the impact of platforms on contemporary processes of recognition. Individuals must learn new skills to make themselves visible online, but how to achieve this changes as a consequence of the role played by platforms: what is seen depends on decisions taken by their algorithms, which impacts how individuals and social groups are valued in society.
Recognition in the Age of Social Media is a key contribution to the field, and a must-read for students and scholars of media and communication, sociology, and politics.
Trade Review‘One of the most theoretically stimulating interventions on social media in years. Campanella shows how a culture of self-promotion meshes alarmingly with conditions of political and economic precarity, producing subjects all too well adapted to datafied societies, including in the Global South.’
Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science
‘A poignant analysis of how social media and datafication are changing recognition processes, and why this matters to all of us.’
Olivier Driessens, University of Copenhagen
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1 Recognition
2 Recognition and the Media
3 Regimes of Visibility in Social Media Platforms
4 The Demand for New Dispositions
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
