Kant, Tanya (2015) FCJ-180 ‘Spotify has added an event to your past’: (re)writing the self through Facebook’s autoposting apps. Fibreculture Journal, 2015 (25). pp. 30-61. ISSN 1449-1443

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Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interviews with sixteen Facebook users, this paper presents a series of vignettes that explore cross-platform Facebook apps as ‘tools’ for self-writing, self-expression and identity performance. The paper argues that the capacity of apps to write in the user’s stead – at times without the user’s knowledge or explicit consent – works to intervene in and on occasion disrupt users’ staged self-performances to their ‘invisible audience’ (Sauter, 2013) on Facebook. Furthermore, if such instances of automated self-writing are treated as performative, apps hold the constitutional capacity to actively rewrite, regulate and even constitute the self to suit the logic of the ‘like economy’ (Gelitz and Helmond, 2013), in ways that transcend the boundaries of Facebook.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Social media, online identity, apps
Schools and Departments:	School of Media, Film and Music > Media and Film
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics > P0087 Communication. Mass media
Depositing User:	Tanya Kant
Date Deposited:	04 Nov 2016 11:56
Last Modified:	11 Nov 2020 16:00
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/65256

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