Sunday, January 23, 2011

dialectical thinking about new capitalism, social media

A key question for me is whether social media "solves" the contradictions of new capitalism that shifts all sorts of risk onto workers while disembodying itself or whether it facilitates that brand of capitalism's emergence. I suppose it does both at once, which is why it has managed to thrive. That which facilitates the change in capitalism also ameliorates the change for subjects within capitalism. Social media creates new opportunities for capital while it creates new mechanisms of solace for the increasingly isolated subject. Social media extends the compensations of consumerism for the meaningless sphere of production. We lose real skills of production, gain skill in making/communicating our self.

No comments:

Post a Comment