Social media tools can serve collective class consciousness beyond capitalist capture.
Evidence
But the notorious use of social networking sites and BlackBerry messenger to propagate the riots shows that the potential of these machines and these websites is not exhausted by communicative capitalism. It has been said that the riots in London spread once groups who usually engage in territorial turf wars called a truce in order to band together against the authorities. While the riots in England could hardly be said to be a coherent political statement, in this collective use of social media there was perhaps the beginnings of something like class consciousness. And in the destruction of the depressing facades of corporate retail, is it too fanciful to see a rejection of the aesthetic poverty that corporate capitalism imposes on so many of us? — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1592
Categorization
- SEED: Angle: the 2011 London riots as expression of class consciousness via social media — a counter-reading to the mainstream ‘mindless criminality’ framing that itself may be aesthetic-political rather than merely economic.
- XREF: connects to: Neoliberal capitalism underlies how social media organize social status — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 20; Social media’s inward self-focus co-opts radical politics into personal reform — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 724
Broader Connections
- Neoliberal capitalism underlies how social media organize social status
#complicates(0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 20 - Social media’s inward self-focus co-opts radical politics into personal reform
#complicates(0.78) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 724