The Universal Humanism of Emoji

Jonathan Abel’s The New Real: Media and Mimesis in Japan from Stereographs to Emoji (U of Minnesota Press, 2023) is a history of our relationships to new media. The book centers on different modalities of mimesis and mediation and more as it explores the important transformation of “new media” into “the new real.” Abel describes this “new real” as the phase when the newer, better, faster, more realistic media of marketing hype becomes absorbed into the fabric of society and daily life. The New Real uses diverse case studies from over a century of modern Japanese history―including stereoscopic photographs, the phonograph, the television, video games, and even emoji―to explore the social effects of the new real.

Nathan Hopson is an associate professor of Japanese language and history in the University of Bergen's Department of Foreign Languages.

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