Meaning in the Age of Social Media [Paperback]

The search for meaning is an essential human activity. It is not just about agreeing on some definitions about the world, objects, and people; it is an ethical process of opening up to find new possibilities. Langlois uses case studies of social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon) to revisit traditional conceptions of meaning.Introduction: Meaning and Social Media 1. Governing Meaning 2. Meaning Machines 3. Meaningfulness and Subjectivation 4. Social Networking and the Production of the Self 5. Being in the World Afterword: Social Data and the Politics of Existence

The book is extremely readable, neatly introducing complex ideas, and then building on them in an effective way. Due to the nature of the book, its lucidity, and its efficient summary, this work will be extremely useful for any foray into reading post-autonomist, post-Fordist accounts of media and communication. It makes use of many case studies, and thus will provide teachable material for undergraduate courses as well. (Robbie Fordyce, Communication Research and Practice, Vol. 2 (2), 2016)

One could think of this book as social media criticism 2.0. Langlois . . . applies a broad array of semiotic, psychoanalytic, and political theory to social media and other modern communications technologies, which she calls 'semiotechnologies - machines that make meaning . . . By examining how platforms such as Google and Facebook rank search results and curate user posts, Langlois contests oversimplified accounts of social media, taken as a whole, as a tool that simply liberates and empowers users. She provides a nuanced account of how meaning is generated on social media as individual users interact with corporate forprofit technologies designed to 'financialize and commodify psychic life'. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper division undergraduates through faculty? general readers. - CHOICE

Ganaele Langlois is Assistlc,