As it is expressed in the text, “Assemblage” is characterised as an arrangement and organization of a variety of elements. These elements can be both tangible or abstract, though in media studies, the elements within an assemblage typically involve the material components of human and nonhuman entities in media. Assemblages are multidimensional, so to examine an assemblage means taking into account its components, the way that these components relate with one another, their arrangement, and the intention. A unique characteristic of an assemblage is that no matter how it is arranged, there is always intention behind the way it’s organised. Various social media platforms can serve as examples of assemblages. This is because they contain specific components that interact with one another in order to serve a purpose, and are arranged in a way that involves both human and nonhuman elements. Using instagram as an example, humans and nonhumans have agency in this assemblage. Elements of the app, such as likes, comments, and shares, are each components that involve human agency (humans like, comment, and share posts that they like or dislike). I would argue that the non human components of this assemblage have far more agency. Although humans make conscious choices in their interactions with specific content, the data collection that results from these interactions largely influences the future content that a user will see. In this example, this assemblage is organized with the intention of maximising user activity.
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Continuing your thought about intention, I thought it was interesting how the article discusses subjectivity of the user. The author suggests that subjectivity is a result of the assemblage and not evident in the construction. In a tweet, for example, the creation of the tweet is not necessarily subjective, but the content of the tweet that is constructed by the many assemblages into that one post creates a subjective experience for the originator, the audience, and the analysis of the data provided by that tweet. This was mind-opening for me because it’s typically assumed that there is ill-intent in the creation of a tweet, but the human and non-human agency is objective not subjective.