Digital speculation platforms amplify populist mobilization beyond traditional social movements

Evidence

As we saw in part 2, speculative technologies do not merely subtract lived experiences into commodified predictive data; they are nodes for circulating the radical uncertainty that defines a speculative mode of being. Ethno-nationalist populist movements have channeled their digital activism right at the heart of the spaces afforded by such technologies; the connectivities and cleavages evident in the steady growth of these platforms’ constituencies now extend far beyond the fringe, achieving magnitudes of mobilization that traditional social movements have previously lacked. Sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo (2018) has emphasized this affinity between digital technologies (their dependence on and use of contradiction, opacity, and confusion) and neopopulist publics. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 698

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s finance/imagination thread — speculation platforms as infrastructure for political affect, echoing how prediction markets shape collective imagination. — connects to: Online trading memes from Reddit and 4chan shaped offline neopopulist politics — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 391; Speculative digital technologies amplify ethno-nationalist mobilization to new magnitudes. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 500; Speculation now pervades economic, social, and political life as an imagined collective enactment — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 85 (+5 more)
• QUESTION: Gerbaudo’s stated affinity between digital tech’s dependence on contradiction/opacity and neopopulist publics deserves a closer read — worth chasing the 2018 source.

Broader Connections

• Speculative digital technologies amplify ethno-nationalist mobilization to new magnitudes. #corroborates (0.82) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 500
• Neopopulist leaders use speculative imagination to re-embed society on exclusionary terms #exemplifies (0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 262
• Speculative technologies actively embed speculation into modern society #expands (0.78) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 252
• Speculation now pervades economic, social, and political life as an imagined collective enactment #expands (0.75) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 85