In the History of Sexuality vol. 1, Foucault argued that rather than living in the shadows of a repressive history– a Victorian hangover that can only be cured by the soothing tonic of free discussion and disclosure–we are living in an age defined by confession. Bipower runs on the self-disciplining apparatus of personal confession at every level, personal and institutional.  He was writing, obviously, well before twitter, tumblr and Facebook. I’m interested in how Foucault’s analysis holds up in the age of social media. Certainly, distinct types of disclosures are encouraged on different media platforms. In my research on youth online trauma autobiography, I’ve found that tumblr is often the online venue of choice for suicide notes, while youtube is the venue of choice for inspirational stories of triumph after trauma. One of the most troubling things I’ve found are that there are a number of youth who have made youtube videos about how they overcame bullying–either in an “It Gets Better” video or a “My Secret’s” Video–only to later commit suicide and leave a note on tumblr that said, it really never got better and I never thought it would. What type of pressures were they under in each case to tell their story in a particular way? Sometimes disclosures online are literally life threatening for bullied youth, and yet youth risk it. I’ve seen over 30 youth end their videos by saying some variation on: “No one is here for me, I am here for you. If you ever need anything. Contact me.”

Broadly, I wonder how and why various social media platforms facilitate certain types of personal disclosures and subject postions and exclude others. How do disciplining apparatuses work online? What is the interplay between dominant discourse, personal agency and internet disclosures. Are we online confessing because we are disciplined to confess, and if so, is there room here for (r)evolution and resistance? Is it possible to create powerful counter-narratives? Is that what the youth who say “I am being hurt and I will risk anything to stop you from hurting” are doing? I hope a discussion on this will lead to some excellent conversation.

“…whenever computer mediated communications technology becomes available to people anywhere, they inevitably build virtual communities with it” -Howard Rheingold

Social media is everywhere in 2013. More and more people are carrying around mobile platforms, tools which are giving them the means to stay in constant contact with ever-broader networks. The implications of contact between new collaborative media (such as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter) and traditional one-to-many media (such as radio, newspapers, and network TV) are only beginning to come to light, and so they make for an interesting object of research for humanities researchers. Specifically, the impact of new media on the established social discourse surrounding the political, journalistic, artistic, and academic fields is an intersection worth exploring as we look for new ways to share our research.

In this proposed Play/Talk session, participants are invited to help create a machine à tweets : a social network constructed collaboratively from paper, pushpins, pens, pictures, and strings. In addition to their joint creation of a unique visual object, which will incorporate text, colour, and space, participants will be invited to engage in a moderated discussion, identifying similarities and differences between on- and off-line social networks, and considering what these comparisons and contrasts can tell us about the on- an off-line media environments we are a part of.

Marc Rowley is a graduate researcher and MA candidate in Littératures francophones et résonances médiatiques, whose thesis research explores resonances between the social critique function of the 20th century comic novel and that of 21st century tweets.