Jamie Cohen “The Commodity Of Authenticity”
Ep. 113
Playing for Team Human today: media and technology scholar Jamie Cohen. Jamie will be helping us understand the commodity of authenticity. His work looks at the ways authenticity is quantized and codified on media platforms such as YouTube. It’s a process through which trust and connection become instrumentalized as tools for the monetization and manipulation of audience attention. Jamie warns how, coupled with powerful algorithms, the gaming of authenticity threatens serious social consequences. Jamie joins Douglas to discuss his research, including his case studies of famous YouTubers like Tyler Oakley and Casey Neistat. Together they dig into the promise and peril of “populist” digital technologies; blogging, VR, and beyond.
Jamie Cohen Is a professor at Molloy College where he started the New Media Program. He researches social media, memes, digital culture, and virtual reality. Learn more about Jamie’s work at http://www.jamesncohen.com/
Douglas opens with a monologue on how we all became Russia’s “useful idiots.”
Selected works cited on today’s show:
“Open TV” Aymar Jean Christian
Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechnical Reproduction
Zeynep Tufekci “We’re Building A Dystopia Just To Make People Click On Ads”
Douglas Rushkoff’s 2004 PBS FRONTLINE documentary The Persuaders and his 2014 documentary Generation Like
Follow Team Human Show
Twitter: http://twitter.com/teamhumanshow
Instagram: http://instagram.com/teamhumanshow
Medium: http://medium.com/teamhuman
#TeamHumanShow #FindTheOthers
Follow Douglas Rushkoff
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rushkoff
Medium: https://medium.com/@rushkoff
Instagram: http://instagram.com/douglasrushkoff
Facebook: https://facebook.com/rushkoff/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rushkoff/
Credits
Hosted by Douglas Rushkoff
Produced by Josh Chapdelaine
Audio Edited & Mixed by Stephen Bartolomei.
Community Manager is Michael Bass.
Music by Fugazi (On this Episode you heard “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro – thanks to the kindness of the band and Dischord Records.)
Team Human is a Production of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at Queens College.
