[ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter Dahlgren)

[Christian Fuchs]

I agree with Jodi. I do not fully disagree with those who disagree with 
her, but think we must take a look what the dominant claims about social 
media actually are and where they come from.

I think that what we have to see that the most frequent claims about 
social media (in the media, by politicians, and especially in management 
and business literature and by companies and managers) are that 
Facebook, Twitter, etc are revolutionary - and by revolutionary they 
mean the technology itself and that it automatically brings about more 
democracy. Democracy is reduced to technology.

Now, nobody doubts that communication technology as a tool in a 
critical-political context can support information, co-ordination, 
communication, collaboration processes that aim at bringing about 
working class struggles, protests, revolutions, questioning domination, 
etc. But given that there is so much techno-deterministic uncritical 
optimism and techno-fetishistic ideological myth-making surrounding 
"socail media", it is necessary to point out the limits of social media, 
and I think that is what critical scholars now tend to point out more 
and more. So I agree with Jodi.

The problem are social media ideologies and how corporate social media 
function for exploiting the digital labour of users. There is both a 
political economy and an ideology side of it. At the same time, social 
media bring about new potentials for the socialization of the 
intellectual productive forces and the means of struggles. So there is 
also an aspect of (potential) struggles and alternative media. These are 
only potentials that can be transformed into realities via class struggles.

The question is if Internet-mediated democracy is a goal or a reality 
and what we understand by democracy.

Liberal representative democracy is a reality at least in some 
countries, although its very principles are permanently questioned by 
the warfare- and surveillance-state. But what shall be the desirable 
form of democracy? Liberal representative democracy that is inherently 
bound up with the idea of private property and therefore with inequality 
- or socialist participatory democracy?

The problem is that too much social media optimism ends up in a love 
affair with the very business and its gurus that are at the heart of the 
problems we are facing today - capitalist crisis, global inequality, 
global war, etc.

Best, Christian


Am 2/27/12 8:04 PM, schrieb Dean, Jodi:
>
> Ben,
>
> If you associate interaction online with healthy deliberative democracy, then I would expect that you would associate more interaction online with more democracy
> or with healthier democracy.
>
> Yet the increase of online interaction has been accompanied by immense concentrations of wealth, that is to say, dramatic increases in inequality such that the lives of
> the majority of people in the US are economically worse than they were 30-40 years ago. The wealth and privilege of the top one percent has increased approximately
> 275 % in this time period.
>
> So what is all this "deliberation" accomplishing? If this is what democracy looks like, then democracy looks pretty inadequate as a political form for achieving anything like
> economic and social equality.
>
> By "turn out" I mean getting people out on the street, to show up for an event or demonstration. Liking on FB is less politically efficacious than blockading a road or
> occupying a building.
>
> But, perhaps for those who think that deliberation is enough, that as long as people are liking and pointing and clicking, then this isn't a problem. From this perspective,
> it's great that there are far right bloggers and racist message boards, and Tea Party email lists, because at least people are participating.
>
> I oppose this view because I think it enhances those elements of communicative capitalism that impede left organization.
>
> Jodi
>
> ________________________________________
> From: ben klass [benjiklass at hotmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 12:19 PM
> To: epetrovna at gmail.com; Dean, Jodi; discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
> Subject: RE: [ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter Dahlgren)
>
> I also agree with the sentiment expressed by Ekaterina and Andrew.
>
> In response to Jodi's thoughts, we might look at Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone as a reference. From his point of view, of a decline in 'social capital', with regard to democratic involvement (p170-177), has been a real trend, at least in America, over the past few decades. If we accept this, then I would argue that an increased engagement in "any kind of politics" is laudable. If we're interested in a healthy, deliberative democracy, then a forum for promoting awareness, at least, but more importantly discussion amongst people holding various and often contradictory political positions is desirable. This is of course leaving aside the fact that Facebook is exploitative of "knowledge labor" (if we accept this concept), but that may well be beside the point in this case.
>
> I'm not sure exactly how to respond to Jodi's first point, that "turn out" is less viz. Facebook than it is with regard to "direct contact". I would argue that, with regard to the second, that participating in a discussion, even as basic as commenting on a post or clicking "like" does itself constitute more, not less direct engagement. The use of "social media" and the internet in general streamlines the process of being directly involved with others in terms of discussion, argument and contact in general, and I think that this mailing list is an obvious example. A lot of the discussion so far has focused on FB, or other similar "social media sites" (twitter, diaspora, etc), but let's not forget that email, IRC, USEnet, blogs, forums, etc are all forms of social media. "Direct involvement" seems to me to be a subjective term, and I guess what I am saying is that I see no reason why these social media forms wouldn't be considered direct and involved.
>
> I also think that, in regard to the third point, networked media facilitate, rather than diminish organizational capability. This speaks to Andrew's point earlier regarding the naivete of Gladwell's article, which wrongly counterposes political activity IRL and online political awareness. To think that these two things are rival goods is, as Andrew said, to miss the point. Ekaterina's most recent reply this points this out: "Farmville" and other distractions coexist with serious political discourse online, and often create a casual atmosphere that may draw awareness to issues to which people may not otherwise have been exposed. More to the point, we would have to ignore the SOPA/PIPA protest and action in the States, ACTA protests in Europe and negative public reaction to bills C-11 and C-30 in Canada to make the case that raising social awareness somehow takes away from political action. Benkler makes the salient point in Wealth of Networks that the uses of new forms of me
dia, while potentially diminishing the roles of the old, do not wholly occlude them, and in our case here I think that the presence of "online activism" has been seen to act as a complement to and a catalyst for IRL activism, not its replacement. We must also keep in mind the point of reference: it seems the potential for creating calls-to-arms amongst the general public is considerably greater in a decentralized social media atmosphere than it was during the industrial, ad-revenue driven commercial media era, in which "eyeballs were bought and sold" and couch potatoes were the primary commodity.
>
> I hope this isn't viewed as uncritical, as I assure you I am familiar with, and to a certain degree I share the concerns of thinkers such as Evgeny Morozov and Darin Barney. However, alarmism isn't the primary feature of my research, and although I consider it and respond when appropriate, to simply dismiss the motivational power of networked media would be, as Andrew pointed out, naive. If I do have a piece of criticism, I guess it would center on the roles of corporate capital in translating democratic outcry into actual political decisions. I'm not sure about the ACTA protests, but I know in the States there has been contention over whether "the Internet" (the public) or the "Tech Industry" (Google, FB, etc.) were the prima movens behind SOPA being shelved. This is a harder question to answer, although given the 11th-hour appearance of action like petitions by Google, I tend to lean towards the belief that the critical mass had already been reached by the time industry r
eally stepped in. (Especially in light of the fact that Google's earlier presence, as the only "pro-internet" group actually presenting at the Congress hearing on the bill, was dismissed as alarmist and self interested before it achieved the legitimate support of the public). The case for the public's primary role is a bit clearer in Canada, as anyone familiar with the hilarious "#TellVicEverything hashtag can attest.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ben Klass
> M.A. Student, University of Manitoba, Canada
>
> ________________________________
> Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:32:41 +0000
> From: epetrovna at gmail.com
> To: JDEAN at hws.edu; discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
> Subject: Re: [ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter Dahlgren)
>
> Hello:)
>
> I find the discussion very interesting and thought-provoking. However, i tend to agree with the comment made by Andrew. Facebook is often criticised for its entertaining aspect  (apart from the fact that it belongs to capitalistic organisation, promotes commodification and that people can be seen as working for free their), and that political news and some attempt at civic engagement are lost in the stream of such applications as Farmville. As one user, whom i interviewed observed:
>
> “Well, there was a group that started up and got a very large number of members saying, 'We don't want the Lib-Dems to make a deal with the Conservatives'. This was its title. Obviously, that wasn't successful in its aim but, you know, you get these kind of things and I think there is a potential there, but it needs more than potential to actually happen. They’re a lot of groups like that, but they co-exist with all other things like Farmville!”
>
> I often asked questions on my wall about how my 'friends' perceive Facebook. I remember I once posted an important question about what did people do on Facebook and whether they thought it could bring about some social change. I was having a very interesting discussion related to this question, with some of friends sharing quite deep and important thoughts and then suddenly a friend of mine joined the discussion by asking the following: “I am more interested to know WHY you are my age but you have absolutely no wrinkles?!” This question followed a comment from another user who shared some very serious observations about Facebook.
>
> And this is what Facebook is basically about. Important political news are presented together with the latest advert from L'Oreal. One friend posts an important update about the Occupy Movement while another writes what she is eating for lunch. But whether it is bad or good is open for discussion.
>
> if we look at it from the angle of popular culture, this comment of my friend about my wrinkles can actually appear as 'interesting' and thought provoking. It was at least for me, because as it happens, I am obsessed with all kinds of beauty products and can discuss this topic for ages. And that is why I actually replied to my friend and we had an interesting discussion about anti-aging creams, etc. The discussion did go back eventually to the topic of Facebook, but the comment of my friend, if anything, allowed to inject some 'fun' into a serious topic.
>
> This fun aspect of Facebook is actually what allows people to read some news with the means of Facebook. Maybe indeed people are more aware about certain topics because they are presented in an interesting and entertaining way? And maybe there is nothing wrong indeed with simply clicking 'the like' button if for some people it is the first step to some sort of political engagement?
>
> As the same user who remarked about Farmville continues:
>
> “...But you get this in everyday life, each of us is embedded in lots of networks and has potential contacts and ties to all kinds of things, and we spend an awful lot of time just in chat and discussing things and chatting about things and yes, gossip. And we spend then, some other pieces of time where, quite actively, we're trying to do something, sometimes trying to make a difference; sometimes only a difference related to ourselves or our house or planning a vacation or something and sometimes dealing with local issues on a much deeper level.”
>
> Ekaterina Netchitailova, PhD student at Sheffield Hallam
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Dean, Jodi<JDEAN at hws.edu<mailto:JDEAN at hws.edu>>  wrote:
>
> Andrew's use of the term "civic use" of the internet is interesting. It points to the fact that there is nothing particularly revolutionary, left, liberal, or progressive about using
> networked media for organizing. The convenience is convenience regardless of political outlook.
>
> "Use of the internet" doesn't tell us anything--virtually everyone and everything
> uses the internet. It's what spam, porn, activists, World of Warcraft, and cute kittens have in common.
>
> If one's view is that any kind of politics is laudable, then one might celebrate this. I don't think any politics is laudable.
>
> Even if I did, I would still be critical of a one-sided celebration of the politics of networked media. Here are just a couple of reasons:
>
> 1.  The turn out rate for mass emailings/FB invitations is lower than with direct contact.
> 2.  Reliance on electronic media means less direct involvement with people (so, instead of going door to door and building knowledge and connections first hand, one relies on a database of phone numbers).
> 3.  Capacities for organizing diminish: people think that all that is necessary is an FB page.
> 4.  Political action becomes synonymous with awareness.
> 5.  Political action becomes seamlessly integrated with consumption and entertainment; the content may be radical but the form is not.
>
> Jodi Dean
> (not part of the conference but lurking on the list)
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net<mailto:discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net>  [discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net<mailto:discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net>] on behalf of Andrew Feenberg [feenberg at sfu.ca<mailto:feenberg at sfu.ca>]
> Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 2:17 PM
> To: christian fuchs
> Cc: discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net<mailto:discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net>
> Subject: Re: [ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter Dahlgren)
>
> I want us to consider a naive observation about social media. A recent New Yorker article dismissed the political uses of the Internet by contrasting the courage required to participate in a sit-in in the 60s and the triviality of signing an online petition. This sort of critique of the Internet mistakes completely its significant civic role which is communicative. It enables discussion and makes it cheap and fast to assemble masses. I had a student write a biting critique of the destructive effects of the Internet on civic culture, only to organize a successful and quite large "Slut Walk" in Vancouver shortly afterwards in just a week using the Internet. I went just to tease her and asked her if she knew what mimeo machines and telephone trees were. She had no idea. I told her this would have been her communication system when I was organizing demonstrations. So, of course the Internet does not "make" revolutions. But it plays a role in them just as did Khomeini's cassette
s or the leaflets passed around in the May Events in 1968. A total government and corporate takeover of the Internet might well reduce it in the future to the abject state of television, but until that happens let's celebrate its positive role where we find it. I await your critical counter-attack!
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Christian Fuchs"<christian.fuchs at im.uu.se<mailto:christian.fuchs at im.uu.se>>
> To: discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net<mailto:discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net>
> Sent: Sunday, 26 February, 2012 11:00:29 AM
> Subject: [ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter Dahlgren)
>
> In plenary session 3 of the Uppsala conference "Critique, Democracy and
> Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society", Peter Dahlgren and
> Christian Christensen will discuss fundamental challenges for
> contemporary politics and democracy in the context of digital media.
>
> They ask questions like: What is transparency? How can media advance the
> transparency of power structures? Is transparency a viable political
> goal? What is the relationship of WikiLeaks to power, transparency, and
> the mainstream media? How does the relation between alternative media
> and mainstream media in the age of the Internet look like? What is a
> civic sphere? What is the role of the Internet for the civic sphere?
> What are the political opportunities and limits posed by social media?
> What is democracy today? What are the political and democratic
> potentials and limits of critique today?
>
> Discussions and comments on these contributions are welcome.
>
> Best, CF
>
> CHRISTIAN CHRISTENSEN
> Uppsala University, Sweden
> WikiLeaks: Mainstreaming Transparency?
> ABSTRACT: In the period shortly after the release of the “Collateral
> Murder” video, “Afghanistan War Logs” and “Iraq War Logs”, it appeared
> that WikiLeaks had done something that many had thought unlikely: the
> insertion of a radical critique of US military and geo-political power
> into mainstream popular discourse (particularly in the US). While The
> Guardian, New York Times and Der Spiegel (the three newspapers chosen by
> WikiLeaks for the release of the first leaks) are not the newspapers of
> choice for many in the US, UK and Germany, the very presence of the
> material on their front pages opened up the possibility that the murky
> world of US power might now be forced to concede ground to transparency
> advocates. In this paper, I address the often contentious
> WikiLeaks-mainstream media collaboration, and the potential impact of
> this relationship upon the evolution of transparency as a political
> philosophy.
>
> SPEAKER INFO: Christian Christensen is Professor of Media and
> Communications Studies in the Department of Informatics and Media at
> Uppsala University, Sweden. His primary area of research is in the use
> of social media during times of war and conflict, but he has also
> published on the representation of Islam, post 9/11 documentary film,
> and international journalism.
>
> ***
>
> PETER DAHLGREN
> Lund University, Sweden
> Social Media and the Civic Sphere: Crisis, Critique and the Future of
> Democracy
> ABSTRACT: While the advent of social media has already had a significant
> impact on people’s daily lives, it has also come to alter the character
> of the civic sphere, i.e., the broad social terrain of citizens’
> activities.
> Thus, social media in their various forms quickly became incorporated
> into discourses about democracy and the political. Clearly, social media
> can play a useful role in the advancement of democracy, but it is by now
> quite clear that they offer no simple solution to the ills that beset
> contemporary democracy. On the one hand they can just as readily be used
> for purposes that are anti-democratic, on the other hand – and in a more
> complex perspective – the contingencies of late modern capitalism
> generate a variety of conditions that intercede, in problematic ways,
> between even progressive “produser-citizens” and the advancement of
> democracy via social media. These contingencies have to do with a number
> of factors, including power relations at different societal levels
> (including the growing separation between power and formal politics),
> the imperatives of consumer society, late modern cultural currents of
> individualism, and the architecture and political economy of the net
> itself and its Web 2.0 affordances. As the global crisis deepens, these
> contingencies become more pronounced.
> This presentation will highlight and exemplify these aspects, arguing
> that research needs to become more alert to such obstacles in regard to
> social media’s role and potential in cultivating the civic sphere. Even
> the notion of democracy – too often deployed as incantation – needs
> critical interrogation to elucidate its multiple and at times contested
> ideals.
> In this regard, the latter part of the discussion will probe the notion
> of critique, suggesting that there is a methodological dimension that
> can be retrieved and applied to social conditions, practices, and
> discourses for progressive political purposes. The concept of critique
> of course remains multivalent; I focus on the lineage from Hegel’s idea
> of the critical reflection on unnecessary constraints on human freedom.
> Its concern is with “emancipation”.
> Historically, various intellectual and political movements on the Left
> have used the no-ion of critique. Today, however, the concept seems to
> have lost its punch, due to the decline of the Left, the rise of
> neoliberalism, the growing social uncertainties, the ironic
> sensibilities of liquid modernity, and not least the current global
> crisis, in which no clear political alternative has emerged to galvanise
> the many heterogeneous strands of opposition.
> I intend to explore the notion of critique as it still can be found in
> the writings of a number of contemporary theorists – Laclau and Mouffe,
> Boltanski, Bauman, and Žižek – and extract some common threads. These
> will be applied to social media and the civic sphere, against the
> background of the current crisis, with an eye towards reinvigorating
> critique as an intellectual endeavour. Also, I will briefly address the
> notion of ‘emancipation’ to see what useful meaning can be elucidated in
> regard to our contemporary horizons.
>
> SPEAKER INFO: Peter Dahlgren is Professor Emeritus at Lund University,
> Department of Media and Communications Studies. His research focuses on
> democracy, the evolution of the media, and contemporary socio-cultural
> processes, including identity formation.
>
>
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-- 
- - -
Christian Fuchs
Unified Theory of Information Research Group
christian.fuchs at uti.at
http://www.uti.at
Personal: http://fuchs.uti.at
NetPolitics Blog: http://fuchs.uti.at/blog
Editor of tripleC: http://www.triple-c.se
Chair of ESA RN18-Sociology of Communications and Media Research
ICTs and Society Network: http://www.icts-and-society.net

Chair in Media and Communication Studies
Department of Informatics and Media
Uppsala University
Kyrkogårdsgatan 10
Box 513
751 20 Uppsala
Sweden
christian.fuchs at im.uu.se
Tel +46 (0) 18 471 1019
http://fuchs.uti.at
http://www.im.uu.se