London Met panel brings together academics and practitioners to discuss the role social media is playing in shaping society.
Date: 04 November 2019
Can psychoanalysis help us understand social media? How is social media changing social and therapeutic relations? These were two of the questions an expert panel of leading academics and practitioners came together to discuss at London Met on Wednesday 16 October.
The event, which was chaired by London Metropolitan University's Professor Anne Karpf, led to lively discussions covering subjects as broad, controversial and compelling as online narcissism, social media abuse, incels, and the developmental effects of new media.
Martin Murray, Head of Creative Technologies and Digital Media at London Metropolitan University, said: “There is currently a real need for more psychoanalytic understanding of the ways in which social media has been, and continues to be, a catalyst for wide-ranging and profound change in society.
“We hope that this, and the other events in our series, will spark a wide debate that will help us better understand these issues.”
The panel included:
- Lionel Bailly is Senior Lecturer in Psychoanalysis at UCL, Consultant Psychiatrist (North East London Foundation NHS Trust) and author of Lacan, a Beginners Guide.
- Jacob Johanssen is Senior Lecturer in Communications at St Mary’s University and author of Psychoanalysis and Digital Culture: Audiences, Social Media and Big Data.
- Martin Murray, Head of Creative Technologies and Digital Media at London Metropolitan University, is the author of Jacques Lacan, A Critical Introduction.
- Anne Karpf (Chair), a writer and sociologist, has researched the broadcasts of Donald Winnicott, and is the author of The Human Voice. She is Professor of Life Writing and Culture at London Metropolitan University.
The event was organised by the Media, Culture and Creative Technologies Research Group at London Met and is the first of a planned series on the nature and radical effects of new media phenomena.
