Disconnect: Facebook's Affective Bonds

Description

An urgent examination of the threat posed to social media by user disconnection, and the measures websites will take to prevent it No matter how pervasive and powerful social media websites become, users always have the option of disconnecting-right? Not exactly, as Tero Karppi reveals in this disquieting book. Pointing out that platforms lik

Tero Karppi is assistant professor at the University of Toronto. He teaches in the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology and in the Faculty of Information.

"Through its clever structure, Disconnect affectively lures the reader as Tero Karppi tells a convincing story of how social media sets the tone, mood, and modality of our everyday existence. Compellingly written, this is a must-read modern tale of engagement and disconnection."-Zizi Papacharissi, author of Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics "Disconnect is a timely, theoretically rich assessment of Facebook as platform and assemblage. Rhetorics of connectivity dominate Silicon Valley, and Tero Karppi helps illuminate and describe the complex, flickering patterns of connection and disconnection that envelop the networked users of such platforms. This is a valuable, accessible guide to the politics and poetics of Facebook."-Amit Ray, Rochester Institute of Technology "Disconnect could not have come at a more important time. Tero Karppi's nuanced writing brings out the rich complexities of social media life and disconnection. This must-read book shows that walking away may not remove Facebook's presence in our lives, but it reveals the limits of social media in our world and the business models that are built to keep us connected."-Jason Farman, author of Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World "Its "technosocial fabric" informs the ecology of social media in general, whose key historical difference to other media is that "viewers are actively involved with the content as redistributors and recommenders"."-Neural "This provocative, lively book is significant for challenging users to think critically about these tropes in the digital age. A welcome addition to collections on technology, media, and society."-CHOICE "A particular strength of the book is the way in which the discussion of affect, which can sometimes be nebulous and somewhat abstracted, is repeatedly pinned down into specific mechanisms, policies and strategies, with subtlety and far-reaching insight. "-Leonardo Reviews