Care of the self in the age of algorithms: Early thoughts from a Foucauldian perspective

Nguyen Trung Kien ()
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Nguyen Trung Kien: School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Australia

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE - SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2020, vol. 10, issue 1, 79-90

Abstract: Care of the self, according to Michel Foucault, is the practice of coming back to one’s soul and construct the truth of self. While in ancient times, people cared for themselves by writing in hupomnemata, in our modern times, we use social network sites (SNSs) or social media. These digital platforms have provided users with many technological advantages to conduct the online care of self. Sharing a post, posting a status, tweeting a photo or video, replying to a friend’s comments, or revising stories stored in their virtual timeline is one of many self-care acts in a virtual space. However, these advantages of digital technologies accompany with the challenges of losing freedom or being supervized by algorithms whenever individuals engage in social media. This paper tries to answer the question that how modern practices of hupomnemata and care for self, are supported and manipulated by social media’s algorithms. The paper is expected to contribute a new understanding of the self and care for the self in contemporary social media engagement.

Keywords: care of the self; self-writing; mediated interaction; algorithm; panopticon; surveillance; Michel Foucault (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bjw:socien:v:10:y:2020:i:1:p:79-90

DOI: 10.46223/HCMCOUJS.soci.en.10.1.573.2020

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