Nathan Jurgenson is a social media theorist. A graduate student in Sociology at the University of Maryland, Nathan is working on a dissertation on self-documentation and social media. Social media users have a developed “documentary vision” whereby we live our present always aware of its document-potential. Nathan draws heavily on theories of photography.

The research is driven most fundamentally by the understanding that we increasingly live in an “augmented reality,” a perspective that views the digital and physical as enmeshed, opposed to viewing them as distinct (what he calls "digital dualism"). Nathan has recently applied this augmented perspective on the recent erruption of dissent accross the globe.

Nathan and colleague PJ Rey founded the Cyborgology blog. Together, they also created and run the Theorizing the Web conference.

Nathan also writes for The Atlantic, Salon and his writing has appeared in other sources such as Sociological Images, The New Inquiry, Racism Review, OWNI, The SIPP, Corriere della Sera (Italy) and others. His essay, "The Faux-Vintage Photo," was written about on NPR, the Boston Globe, Slate and has been translated into French and Russian. The newsmagazine Gawker listed the essay as one of "the best things we've read all year." You can hear Nathan discuss social media every month on WYPR (Baltimore NPR affiliate). He was interviewed live on the CBC radio show, Q [audio].

Nathan is also interested in and has published on how social media has triggered the rise of the digital “prosumer” (one who produces that which they consume and vice versa). For instance, Facebook users are both producers and consumers of the site. Together with George Ritzer, Nathan has founded the Prosumer Studies Research Group, which has published work on the topic. Nathan and George Ritzer's paper "Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital 'prosumer' can be read in full here.

Last, Nathan is also a professional musician and photographer working out of Washington, D.C.

Contact:
nathanjurgenson@gmail.com
twitter.com/nathanjurgenson