Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory: Classification, Ranking and the Sorting of the Past

Description

Social media platforms hold vast amounts of biographical data about our lives. They repackage our past content as 'memories' and deliver them back to us. But how does that change the way we remember? Drawing on original qualitative research as well as industry documents and reports, this book critically explores the process behind this new form of memory making. In asking how social media are beginning to change the way we remember, it will be essential reading for scholars and students who are interested in understanding the algorithmically defined spaces of our lives.

Ben Jacobsen is a researcher based at the University of York. David Beer is Professor of Sociology at the University of York.

"[This book] offers a thought-provoking and timely theoretical framework for understanding the mechanisms and threats of algorithmic memory making on social media. [It] also provides a clear and accessible introduction to critical issues related to datafication, memory studies, and the politics of algorithmic systems." International Journal of Communication "Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory raises a number of questions that are likely to become increasingly important in the coming years... provides a valuable insight into an issue that has drastic implications not only for how we come to understand our own memories, but also for how the individual is to act within a supposedly free society..." LSE Review of Books