Psychoanalysis and Digital Culture

"Psychoanalysis and digital culture convincingly demonstrates the strength of psychoanalytical theory for the study of media and communication, without taking anything at face value. Grounded in an impressive mastery of the literature, the book moves beyond the rational by carving out its own route, making clear and well-informed theoretical choices, that open up ample opportunities for a better understanding of human communication. Its insightful engagement with affect, embodiment, inhibition and perversion, and with audiences and algorithms, make it a fascinating read."
Nico Carpentier, Professor in Media and Communication Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden

"Turning a sharply nuanced understanding of psychoanalytic approaches toward digital culture, Jacob Johanssen carefully feels out the contours of an affective-skin-envelope that always stretches and folds the social and relational into particular bodies, situated contexts, mediating experiences, and more. Whether taking on big picture issues such as ‘affective labor’ and data mining & algorithms or zooming in more closely to ‘embarrassing bodies,’ Johanssen gathers up an impressive array of theoretical resources and parses their combined insights with clarity and creativity. This book offers us a truly refreshing model for the affect study of our contemporary moment."
Gregory J. Seigworth, Professor of Communication Studies, Millersville University, USA, co-editor of Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry

"This book is a welcome and important intervention into debates about digital culture and critical understandings of affect. It makes a persuasive case for the importance of psychoanalytic thinking in contemporary media studies, revealing through close analysis the sometimes messy underside of mediated pleasures. Jacob Johanssen charts a sensitive and astute route through theory in an excursion across mediated experiences of algorithms, reality television, social media, and data society, all the while bringing to life vivid images of emotional encounters and affective labour. He offers a creative and compelling account of the perverse enactments at work in digital culture, revealing that audiences invest in their mediated lives at both embodied and psychological levels. This book will be a truly absorbing read for anyone interested in human communication and its iterations in the digital era."
Caroline Bainbridge, Professor of Culture and Psychoanalysis, University of Roehampton, UK

"Johanssen’s book is timely and a welcome addition to the growing interdisciplinary studies on new media. He deftly draws on psychoanalytic ideas and his own research in this area to help us to see ourselves more clearly as we engage with digital media. Its scholarly, yet accessible, style makes it an invaluable and rewarding read."
Alessandra Lemma, Professor, Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London, UK, author of 'The Digital Age on the Couch'

"[This book] is a welcome intervention into the debates surrounding the applications of affect theory to digital contexts and would be an illuminating read for anyone interested in working with critical accounts of affect and the increasingly proximate relationship between subject and media."
Jamie Ranger, in triple C

"This valuable and timely book by Jacob Johanssen has arrived at a point in history in which both the study of media and media itself are undergoing significant change."
Martin Murray, in Psychoanalysis and History