Open AccessCREATING STUDENTS’ ALGORITHMIC SELVES: SHEDDING LIGHT ON SOCIAL MEDIA’S REPRESENTATIONAL AFFORDANCES
Author(s) -
Ignas Kalpokas,
Emilija Sabaliauskaitė,
Victoria Pegushina
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
creativity studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.179
H-Index - 9
eISSN - 2345-0487
pISSN - 2345-0479
DOI - 10.3846/cs.2020.10803
Subject(s) - affordance , casual , mainstream , social media , extant taxon , interpretation (philosophy) , code (set theory) , sociology , psychology , social psychology , media studies , political science , cognitive psychology , computer science , world wide web , set (abstract data type) , evolutionary biology , law , biology , programming language
This article presents and analyses the results of focus group studies conducted with students at an international university in Lithuania, interpreting the results in light of the extant literature on social media’s impact on the creation and performance of the self. The authors reveal a mixed picture whereby the respondents seem to demonstrate an unexpectedly casual and cynical attitude towards social media while, upon closer inspection, still remaining part of social media’s productive exchanges, contributing their data and attention in return for satisfaction. Hence, while by no means rejecting the standard interpretation provided in mainstream literature, the authors are able to present a more complex and nuanced picture of young people’s attitudes towards and interaction with social media and the self-creation affordances thereof, ultimately a close, constitutive, and creative interrelationship between humans and code.