Multimodality, YouTube Algorithm, and Meaning-Making Phenomena Through a Posthumanist Lens

• In Event: Social Semiotics, New Materiality, and Multimodal Composing

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the multimodal meaning-making dynamics on YouTube and how the algorithm plays a key role in this process through the posthumanist lens. By examining a video-search process on YouTube in the context of South Korea, this paper multimodally interprets some particular meaning-making happenings drawing on the key posthumanist concept of "intra-action," "emergence," and "entanglements." The examples show that humans are no longer the only agents who constitute the reality -- Materials such as an algorithm are also a part of agential assemblage on YouTube. This suggests that shifting from a humanistic view to a posthumanistic view can bridge multimodal meanings to a broader reality while reconstructing a way of thinking regarding meaning-making, agency, and identity.

Author

• Gahyun Son, Simon Fraser University