id |
eprints-37552
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recordtype |
eprints
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institution |
SOAS, University of London
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collection |
SOAS Research Online
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language |
English
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language_search |
English
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description |
Filling The Void is a book about how the cultures and psychology of social media use fit within a broader landscape of life under capitalism. It argues that social media use is often a psychological response to the need for pleasure and comfort that results from the stresses of life under postmodern capitalism, rather than being a driver of new behaviours as newer technologies are often said to be. Both the explosive growth of social media and the corresponding reconfiguration of the web from an information-based platform into an entertainment-based one are far more easily explained in terms of the subjective psychological experience of their users as capitalist subjects seeking 'depressive hedonia, ' the book argues. Filling the Void also interrogates the role of social media networks, designed for private commercial gain, as part of a de-facto public sphere. Both the decreasing subjective importance of factual media and the ways in which the content of the timeline are quietly manipulated--often using labour in the developing world and secret algorithms--have potentially serious implications for the capacity of social media users to query or challenge the seeming reality offered by the established hegemonic order.
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format |
Authored Books
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author |
Gilroy-Ware, Marcus
|
author_facet |
Gilroy-Ware, Marcus
|
authorStr |
Gilroy-Ware, Marcus
|
author_letter |
Gilroy-Ware, Marcus
|
title |
Filling the Void: Emotion, Capitalism and Social Media
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publisher |
Repeater Books
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publishDate |
2017
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url |
https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/37552/
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