DIGITAL PLENITUDE
  • Home
  • Chapters
    • Introduction
    • 1. The Great Divide
    • 2. Popular Modernism
    • 3. DIchotomies
    • 4. Catharsis
    • 5. Flow
    • 6. Remix
    • 7. Procedurality
    • 8. Social Media
    • Conclusion
    • References
  • Additional texts
    • Books in the Plenitude
  • About
  • Comments

8. Social Media

Jay David Bolter. The Digital Plenitude: The Decline of Elite Culture and the Rise of New Media (MIT Press, 2019).  

Trump’s unexpected success in the 2016 election suggests that Twitter can be a forum for a new kind of politics. This media celebrity has shown how the presentation of self and politics can merge in digital media as easily as on television, which has dominated American politics for decades.  

The Performance of identity

dana boyd discusses her book on social media and identity, It's Complicated (2015)
Sherry Turkle discusses her more skeptical views of social media in a Ted talk.

Social Media and Weak Stories 

The Social Network (2010): a strong Hollywood narrative about the most important digital platform for weak narratives.

Digital Identity and Identity Politics 

Eli Pariser's 2011 Ted Talk was an early description of the problem that digital media promote filter bubbles.
The Wall Street Journal's Red Feed Blue feed shows us the bubbles by putting them side by side
http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/
The site still works giving contemporary tit for tat and still illuminating to see how the issues are placed side by side.  

Social Media and Collective Action 

Anonymous

A flash mob protest at Target
The infamous 4chan b board (if you need help finding it). 
Wikileaks continues to publish confidential documents from government sources around the world.
The trailer for ​V for Vendetta (2005): The revolutionary speech 

Weak Narrative and American Politics 

Arlie Russell Hochschild discusses Strangers in their own Land (2016)

This site is a companion to The Digital Plenitude: The Decline of Elite Culture and the Rise of New Media (MIT Press, 2019).  

Contact Jay David Bolter at [email protected]
  • Home
  • Chapters
    • Introduction
    • 1. The Great Divide
    • 2. Popular Modernism
    • 3. DIchotomies
    • 4. Catharsis
    • 5. Flow
    • 6. Remix
    • 7. Procedurality
    • 8. Social Media
    • Conclusion
    • References
  • Additional texts
    • Books in the Plenitude
  • About
  • Comments