Jodi Dean, “Communicative Capitalism”

and “Affective Networks”

Political Divides• Politics and

the press (The public sphere)

• vs• Politics and

television• vs• Politics and

the Internets

• Messages sent vs. content circulating• Messages that

are sent, but to which there is no response

• Competition between politicians, governments, and activists

• Disconnect between political circulation as content and official politics

Post-Politics“Post-politics thus begins from the premise of consensus and cooperation. Real antagonism or dissent is foreclosed. Matters previously thought to require debate and struggle are now addressed as personal issues or technical concerns.” 56

• A post-political formation in which strong counter- hegemony is impossible because it is stripped of context, is framed by plurality of values, is deemed personal or technical and not therefore subject to debate.

Communicative Capitalism

“Just as industrial capitalism relied on the exploitation of labor, so does communicativecapitalism rely on the exploitation of communication. “

Three Fantasies Animating Communicative Capitalism

• 1. Fantasy of abundance in which the basic unit is no longer the message but the contribution

• 2. Fantasy of activity or participation materialized through technology fetishism

• 3. Fantasy of wholeness that relies on and produces a “global” both Imaginary and Real, a global Zero Institution

• (Imaginary as a space of opposition, notably between self and other, and Real as located beyond the symbolic, undifferentiated space)

Communicative Capitalism“[C]ommonplace idea that the market, today, is the site of democratic aspirations” (54)There is a “strange merging of democracy and capitalism” (55) in networked communications

• Some topics to ponder:• The fantasy of choice (You can have whatever you want, as

long as it is on the menu.)• The commodification of communication • Standards of finance- and consumption-driven entertainment

culture also become the standards of the political• The Post-Political?

• Interpassivity• False idea of activity,

but where a fetish object acts in our stead

• DISPLACEMENT• Technology as

inherently democratic

• Technology as political action

• Technology as…?

Technological Fetish Protects Multiple Fantasies Of:

• Active, engaged subject

• Technology as linking and organizing the whole

• Of connection • Works through

condensation, displacement, foreclosure (63-66)

“Affective Networks”Our networked lives create affective responses, most notably anxiety

Witness: “Nomophobia”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYJQmsIwOeQ

• To translate: There is something about the internet, about endless circulation, that gives us enjoyment, but that enjoyment is both the source and the effect of an anxiety

• The endless circulation appeals to the compulsion to repeat, it both soothes and enervates us, it creates enjoyment (repetition) and anxiety (when faced with the foreign kernel, the past alternatives)

• In its contradictory feelings or affects, this compulsion to repeat speaks of desire, and, particularly, the desire to desire, and the drives, the investment of energies into objects

• Communicative capitalism is able to do what it does because it captures us

• It works on the affective dimension of media, the need to ease affective intensities

• It works by contributions, not messages

• It released politics from the burden of coherence and consistency

• The obligation of constant communication leads to perpetually postponed action

“Corporate and state power need not go the expense and trouble to keep people entertained, passive, and diverted. We prefer to do that ourselves” (35)

“Networked, participatory spectacles let us stage and perform our own entrapment” (36)

• Barry Schwartz, “The paradox of choice”

• http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

• Slavoj Zizek, Perverts Guide to Ideology, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxrqzNpuf94

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn19okthKns

• Jodi Dean on Communicative Capitalism, an interview