JURGENSON, Nathan
The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media

The selfie, the faux-vintage photo, the self-destructing image, the food photo—these new visual forms and the devices and platforms that facilitate them have fomented a cultural revolution. Not only has the art of photography and the industry around it been transformed, but the way we under-stand ourselves has changed. The Social Photo provides a language and conceptual framework to comprehend photography in the age of social media. This updated edition includes a new preface contemplating the fate of the social photo in the era of AI-generated images. [publishers’ note]

New edition – first published in 2019.

Published by Verso, 2026
Essays / Art Theory / Photography