What Would Media Studies Do?

Social Media Shakespeare as a Technosocial Process

Authors

  • Kylie Jarrett National University of Ireland Maynooth
  • Jeneen Naji National University of Ireland Maynooth

Abstract

This essay explores the topic of social media Shakespeare from the perspective of Media Studies, identifying directions for future research shaped by emerging approaches in this field. Drawing on a range of posthuman, political economy, and cultural studies strands, it conceptualizes social media Shakespearean texts as assemblages of interactions between technologies, human creative subjects, and wider socioeconomic contexts. It proposes exploring memes, videos, tweets, or blog posts as instances of technosocial communication that foreground the interplay of text, algorithms, and users. It argues for moving beyond exploration of signification to understanding the unfixed, processual qualities of these texts, including exploring them through the affective experiences of production and consumption. It further advocates for extending concepts of remediation or adaptation to encompass the cyclical, embodied, and dynamic processes of digital media. This, it argues, is what Media Studies would do to analyze social media's Shakespeares.

Author Biographies

Kylie Jarrett, National University of Ireland Maynooth

Kylie Jarrett is Lecturer in Multimedia in the Department of Media Studies at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Her research focus is the political economy of the commercial Web and she is author of Feminism, Labour and Digital Media: The Digital Housewife (Routledge 2016).

Jeneen Naji, National University of Ireland Maynooth

Jeneen Naji is Digital Media faculty in the Department of Media Studies at National University of Ireland Maynooth. Dr. Naji's research is in the area of digital culture, specifically exploring the impact of the digital apparatus on poetic expression. She is also a member of the editorial review board of the International Journal of Game-Based Learning and a Fulbright Scholar.

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Published

2016-05-01