• Postdigital Politics: or, How To Be An Anti-Bourgeois Theorist

    Author(s):
    Gary Hall (see profile)
    Date:
    2021
    Group(s):
    Cultural Studies, Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Networked Art, Political Philosophy & Theory, Public Humanities
    Subject(s):
    Commons, Democracy--Philosophy, Political science
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Post-Truth, Deepfakes, #conspiracytheory, pandemic, evidentiary realism, Democratic theory, Ethics of care, Media theory, Political theory
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/e1bn-s194
    Abstract:
    In ‘Postdigital Politics’ I examine our contemporary postdigital political conjuncture. This conjuncture, I argue, springs from the crisis of representative democracy we are currently experiencing and involves a shift to more direct forms of democracy via postdigital communications. The latter is evident in the decentralised manner in which movements such as the Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter operate. I analyse how the traditional political opposition between ‘left’ and ‘right’ has been overlaid in many places around the world by that between populist nativism and elitist internationalism. I also discuss the way in which populist right-wing politicians (e.g., Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump) have used the possibilities created by postdigital media technologies to create a new model of political communications, one that is capable of overcoming the apparent disconnect between professional politicians and ‘the people’. By way of response, I offer some suggestions as to how the new postdigital communications can be used for more progressive purposes that are attuned to today’s changed political landscape. Among the illustrative examples provided will be some of the grassroots, bottom-up projects for the production of free resources, technical infrastructures and the commons that myself and some of those I collaborate with have developed over the last twenty years. By way of theoretical framing, I examine the particular mode of postdigital politics that underpins these initiatives. I also foreground a number of operative concepts that help to shape them, with a special focus on anti-bourgeois theory.
    Notes:
    This is an extended ‘author’s cut’ of a chapter that was published in Cornelia Sollfrank, Shuhsa Niederberger and Felix Stalder, eds, Aesthetics of the Commons: https://www.diaphanes.net/titel/postdigital-politics-6925 https://www.diaphanes.com/titel/aesthetics-of-the-commons-6419
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    Diaphanes
    Pub. Date:
    2021
    Book Title:
    Aesthetics of the Commons
    Author/Editor:
    Cornelia Sollfrank, Shuhsa Niederberger and Felix Stalder
    Chapter:
    Postdigital Politics
    Page Range:
    153 (of the original version) - 177 (of the original version)
    ISBN:
    978-3-0358-0345-7
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
    License:
    Attribution
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