Wayne State University
COM 5500: Journalism & New Media
By Brittany Thomas
November 1, 2024, 1:32 p.m. EST
Brittany Thomas discusses Geert Lovink’s Social Media Abyss and its impact on the current social media narrative, November 1, 2024. Audio credit: Brittany Thomas.
Cozy Corner Podcast Host Brittany Thomas discusses the perils of the modern social media landscape in an informational and insightful installment of her all-things books, TV, music, and media review. Focusing on Geert Lovink’s Social Media Abyss (2016), Brittany provides a diligent deep dive into Lovink’s research prowess and perception of the state of the “social” in social media today while identifying the strong and weak points of the author’s renowned text.
Brittany is a graduate communication student in the Master of Arts program at Wayne State University’s College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, holding a bachelor’s degree from the college in public relations honors. Her research interests include crisis communication, new media and gender, and this podcast episode concerns the review of a new media issue as required in her curriculum.
Geert Lovink, born in 1959, is a media theorist, critic, researcher, and professor of network cultures and interactive new media and director of the Institute of Network Cultures who’s authored a handful of books exploring digital and social media and the dying art of interactivity. He’s known for examining the dynamic interplay between networks and social movements and provides readers with the knowledge they need to navigate a 21st-century digital society effectively. Lovink holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Amsterdam and a Ph.D. from the media and communication program at the University of Melbourne. Other popular print publications of Lovink’s include The Principle of Notworking: Concepts in Critical Internet Culture (2005), Zero Comments, Blogging and Critical Internet Culture (2007), and The Network Condition: Foundations of Critical Internet Culture (2011).
To explore a full list of Lovink’s publications and teaching assignments on digital networks and social culture, visit https://networkcultures.org/geertlovink-archive/biography/. For scholarly works similar to Social Media Abyss, visit https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Social+Media+Abyss%3A+Critical+Internet+Cultures+and+the+Force+of+Negation-p-9781509507764#relatedProducts-section and view “Related Products.”
