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 counterhegemony 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
communicative
capitalism 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=MYJQ
msIwOeQ
• 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/tal
ks/barry_schwartz_on_t
he_paradox_of_choice.
html
• Slavoj Zizek, Perverts
Guide to Ideology,
https://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=mxrqzNpu
f94
• http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=Bn19okthK
ns
• Jodi Dean on
Communicative
Capitalism, an interview