Tony D. Sampson's Books

Virality

Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks

By: Tony D. Sampson

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Virality

Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks

By: Tony D. Sampson

In this thought-provoking work, Tony D. Sampson presents a contagion theory fit for the age of networks. Unlike memes and microbial contagions, Virality does not restrict itself to biological analogies and medical metaphors. It instead points toward a theory of contagious assemblages, events, and affects. For Sampson, contagion is not necessarily a positive or negative force of encounter; it is how society comes together and relates. Sampson argues that a biological knowledge of contagion has been universally distributed by way of the rhetoric of fear used in the antivirus industry and other popular discourses surrounding network culture. This awareness is also detectable in concerns over too much connectivity, such as problems of global financial crisis and terrorism. Sampson's "virality" is as established as that of the biological meme and microbe but is not understood through representational thinking expressed in metaphors and analogies. Rather, Sampson interprets contagion theory through the social relationalities first established in Gabriel Tarde's microsociology and subsequently recognized in Gilles Deleuze's ontological worldview. According to Sampson, the reliance on representational thinking to explain the social behavior of networking--including that engaged in by nonhumans such as computers--allows language to overcategorize and limit analysis by imposing identities, oppositions, and resemblances on contagious phenomena. It is the power of these categories that impinges on social and cultural domains. Assemblage theory, on the other hand, is all about relationality and encounter, helping us to understand the viral as a positively sociological event, building from the molecular outward, long before it becomes biological.

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Page Count

247

Publisher

U of Minnesota Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0816670056

ISBN 13

9780816670055

The Assemblage Brain

Sense Making in Neuroculture

By: Tony D. Sampson

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The Assemblage Brain

Sense Making in Neuroculture

By: Tony D. Sampson

Once upon a time, neuroscience was born. A dazzling array of neurotechnologies emerged that, according to popular belief, have finally begun to unlock the secrets of the brain. But as the brain sciences now extend into all corners of cultural, social, political, and economic life, a yet newer world has taken shape: “neuroculture,” which goes further than ever before to tackle the profound ethical implications we face in consequence. The Assemblage Brain unveils a major new concept of sense making, one that challenges conventional scientific and philosophical understandings of the brain. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, Tony D. Sampson calls for a radical critical theory that operates in the interferences between philosophy, science, art, and politics. From this novel perspective the book is structured around two questions: “What can be done to a brain?” and “What can a brain do?” Sampson examines the rise of neuroeconomics in informing significant developments in computer work, marketing, and the neuropharmaceutical control of inattentiveness in the classroom. Moving beyond the neurocapitalist framework, he then reestablishes a place for proto-subjectivity in which biological and cultural distinctions are reintegrated in an understanding of the brain as an assemblage. The Assemblage Brain unravels the conventional image of thought that underpins many scientific and philosophical accounts of how sense is produced, providing a new view of our current time in which capitalism and the neurosciences endeavor to colonize the brain.

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Page Count

307

Publisher

U of Minnesota Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1452953295

ISBN 13

9781452953298

A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

By: Tony D. Sampson

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A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

By: Tony D. Sampson

Positing online users as 'sleepwalkers', Tony Sampson offers an original and compelling approach for understanding how social media platforms produce subjectivities. Drawing on a wide range of theorists, including A.N. Whitehead and Gabriel Tarde, he provides tools to track his sleepwalker through the 'dark refrain of social media': a refrain that spreads through viral platform architectures with a staccato-like repetition of shock events, rumours, conspiracy, misinformation, big lies, search engine weaponization, data voids, populist strongmen, immune system failures, and far-right hate speech. Sampson's sleepwalker is not a pre-programmed smartphone junkie, but a conceptual personae intended to dodge capture by data doubles and lookalikes. Sleepwalkers are neither asleep nor wide awake; they are a liminal experimentation in collective mimicry and self-other relationality. Their purpose is to stir up a new kind of community that emerges from the potentialities of revolutionary contagion. At a time in which social media is influencing more people than ever, A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media is an important reference for students and scholars of media theory, digital media and social media.

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Page Count

165

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

1509537422

ISBN 13

9781509537426

Virality

Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks

By: Tony D. Sampson

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Virality

Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks

By: Tony D. Sampson

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

247

Publisher

U of Minnesota Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0816670056

ISBN 13

9780816670055

A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

By: Tony D. Sampson

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A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

By: Tony D. Sampson

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

165

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

1509537422

ISBN 13

9781509537426

Book's by Tony D. Sampson

Virality

Virality

The Assemblage Brain

The Assemblage Brain

A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

Virality

Virality

A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media

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