[Air-L] Reading list on (media) politics of visibility/invisibility

[Daniel Kunzelmann]

Dear all,

I felt like starting another list of literature :) Here is the
question/thesis at stake: We live in a hyper-mediated world, in which
the *speed and sheer amount of media posts *(Facebook, your favorite
newspapers, Twitter, blogs, you name it...) suggest that political
impact, relevance and importance is connected to "being visible" or
"making something visible". Vice versa, *if something is **not
visible**in today's social-media-democracy it does not exist, thus has
no meaning, thus has no political power/impact/relevance**.*

Yet, I feel - and so far it's only really a feeling - that *these
invisible spaces and actions enable, generate and allocate as much
political power as their visible twins.* Against the backdrop of
"social-media-everywhere" and the *dominant daily narrative of the
visible* (which we all experience when we look at our smartphone), I'm
now looking for *authors and concepts that explore/reflect/challenge/*

- that either the *politics of the visible*
- or the *politics of the invisible*
- or even the *relationship between visibility and invisibility* with
regards to political power.

It might be *authors and concepts that already reflect on today's
(hyper) social media worlds**, as well as "classical" approaches on
visibility/invisibility of power.* To give you two examples:

Thinking about today's social media, we could have a closer look at the
power of images (e.g. a meme) on our interfaces (visible) or at the
algorithmic structures that sort and "deliver" these images (invisible).
Both layers of power are real, in the sense that they affect us in our
daily live, but one is visible and one is invisible. And of course, they
are certainly connected.

Same goes for something that existed before social media, let's say
party politics. There have always been official press releases and
interviews about how well e.g. a party congress went and what wonderful
values this party now stands for (transparency, inclusion, etc.), but at
the same time, at the congress in question, there also existed back-room
meetings and private phone calls to influence internal party currents
(opacity, exclusion, etc.). Again, both spaces and actions are real, in
the sense that they have power effects on the party's members and/or
possible voters, but one (media) space is visible and the other one
invisible. And, here too, both layers work together perfectly.

So, anyone wants to share their must-read with me?

*...on "new" Cultural and Social Anthropological approaches and authors
that already reflect on the politics of visibility/invisibility against
today's backdrop of "social-media-everywhere". **
**
**...and/or "classical" ***approaches and authors* that do NOT
explicitly talk about today's political (social) media contexts, but
which you would consider highly applicable to understand such phenomena.

*Either directly drop your recommendations in here:
*https://danielderkunzelmann.piratenpad.de/airl-mediaoverload-politics-visibility-invisibility*
or reply to this message via the list or a pm :)*
*
Of course, when the literature list is done, I will be sharing it with
all of you!

kind regards,
Daniel

*Daniel Kunzelmann,
Ph.D.c / Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich / Institute of Cultural
Anthropology/European Ethnology
twitter       @der_kunzelmann <https://twitter.com/der_kunzelmann>
blog            http://transformations-blog.com/daniel-kunzelmann/
web            http://unibas.academia.edu/DanielKunzelmann
linkedin     https://www.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-kunzelmann/7b/426/9a5*