Download Full EssayAffect and Emotion in digitalSTS
Keywords:
actor-network theory, affect, computation, digital media, emotion, psychology, quantification, science and technology studies, the social, tracking
Abstract
Recent controversies at intersection of digital media technologies, social norms, and human feelings, such as Cambridge Analytica’s role in the 2016 US election presage an era where human emotional expression is increasingly mediated, tracked, and classified. Science and technology studies (STS) is ideally placed to tackle these phenomena empirically and theoretically. This chapter provides an overview of current developments in scholarship around affect, emotion, and digital media, and posits a novel analytic frame drawing on actor-network theory (ANT) — the emotive actant – for clarifying political and social stakes around the digital mediation of affect and emotion.