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A set of bold theoretical reflections on how the social photo has remade our world

About the Author

Nathan Jurgenson is a social media theorist. He is co-founder and Co-Chair of the annual Theorizing the Web conference, founder and Editor-in-Chief of Real Life magazine, Editor Emeritus at New Inquiry, and a sociologist at Snap Inc. His work, which appears in academic journals and popular outlets, centres on a critique of ‘digital dualism’, a phrase he coined to describe the false belief that the internet is a separate virtual sphere or cyberspace. Instead, Nathan approaches digitality as embodied, material, and real.

Reviews

A textual portrait of a visual medium, The Social Photo entices the reader to view social media through the lens of cultural critique. Ethereal and provocative, as rich as it is succulent.
*Danah Boyd*

Nathan Jurgenson is the Susan Sontag of the selfie generation-a bold, lucid, and important new voice in cultural criticism. In The Social Photo, he offers a truly groundbreaking analysis of how photography has changed in the age of social media, and how it is changing us. Every page crackles with insight and intelligence
*Mia Fineman, Curator of Photographs, Metropolitan Museum of Art and author of Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop*

The world is glutted with pictures ... In The Social Photo,sociologist, media theorist, and Snapchat guru Nathan Jurgenson argues that this surfeit of images has ushered in a new way of seeing and existing in the world through our camera phones - one which no longer values the documentary function of photographs, but instead prizes their ability to expressively communicate with others.
*Frieze*

A refreshing respite from most of the commentary streaming from our devices today.
*Financial Times*

[Jurgenson] has, for years, offered a valuable commentary on the cultural implications of social media.
*TANK Magazine, Summer Reads*