Critique, Social Media & the Information Society
Edited by Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval
Routledge
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415841856/
The critical guide to social media and the information society in turbulent times!
How Ideology is Policing the Crisis of European Capitalism
The current political and ideological situation in Europe precisely resembles the situation that Hall described for the 1970s. The objects of contemporary moral panics in the crisis, the contemporary ideological demons and ideological devils are immigrants, the unemployed, Southern Europeans and the European Union. Crisis ideologies displace the causes of the crisis of capitalism into particularism. Ideology is policing the crisis today: it aims at installing an even more brutal capitalist system and making people believe that this is necessary and will help overcome and avoid future crisis. The opposite is true: The cause of the crisis is prescribed as its solution, which can only result in even worse crises in the future if these politics and ideologies are successfully implemented.
christian fuchs, March 25th 2013
The Right-Wing European Mainstream Media Campaign against Syriza and the Need to End Neoliberalism
I have taken a look at the European media coverage of Syriza one day before the Greek election that takes place today, June 17th, 2012. European mainstream media simply ignore alternative voices that suggest a different path for Europe and Greece, namely the end of neoliberalism. Such voices exist, especially among intellectuals, but hardly make their way into the European mainstream media.
christian fuchs, June 17th 2012
Special issue of tripleC: Capitalist Crisis, Communication & Culture
“Capitalism […] is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point” (Slavoj Žižek).
What is the role of communication in the general situation of capitalist crisis?
The global economic downturn is an indicator of a new worldwide capitalist crisis. The main focus of most public debates as well as of economic and policy analyses is the role of finance capital and the housing market in creating the crisis, less attention is given to the role of communication technologies, the media, and culture in the world economic crisis. The task of this special issue of tripleC is to present analyses of the role of ICTs, the media, and culture in the current crisis of capitalism. The seven papers focus on the causes, development, and effects of the crisis. Each paper relates one or more of these dimensions to ICTs, the media, or culture.
christian fuchs, August 29th 2010
WikiLeaks – Alternative Internet Medium and Watchdog Platform – and the Critique of the Power Elite
The truth about the WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents is that the platform has the potential to make visible the scale of brutality, violence, and horror of warfare and military conflicts. WikiLeaks can be seen as an alternative media project: it tries to provide information that uncovers the misuse of power by powerful actors, it is an Internet-based medium that enables critiques of power structures. The problem of the WikiLeak self-description is that in the first third of the text, only documenting government corruption is mentioned, whereas documenting corporate irresponsibility and corporate crimes is not. The problem that remains is that in the WikiLeaks self-description, corporate crimes and corporate corruption are only mentioned late and that the notion of civilizing corporations is adopted.
christian fuchs, August 4th 2010