Journal articleIssue 12025
The Mediality of Affect in Encounters of Frustration, Fear, and Trauma
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author
Praya Prayono
abstract
Affect has been widely discussed in terms of how it is defined, applied, and studied in media studies. In their accounts of affective politics in online spaces, Boler and Davis contest the most prominent understanding of affect in media studies, where affect generally referred to as “the force and potential of the various intensities of embodiment” leaves much to be desired as a means of navigating affective relations in social media platforms. The interaction between humans and technology, as well as between other humans through technology, is an essential component to the affective turn in new media studies. In this essay, I articulate the resonant intensities of affect in relation to media and technology as it modulates into reverb within existing discourses on affect theory. I identify affective publics and their movements within social media platforms as politically charged, and draw comparisons between the popular understanding of affect as visceral sensations against a critical perspective of affect as mechanisms of networked publics. Lastly, I ruminate deeper into the operationalization of affect within bodies of technology and its potential feedback loop for manifest spaces of dissonance such as fear, frustration, and trauma.