[Air-L] CfP: "Digital media are making politics impossible"

[Hasan Azad]

Digital media are making politics impossible


The question on the liberal left’s collective mind since Trump’s election
to the office of the 45th president of the United States – but not on the
mind of many right-wing Republicans, for whom Trump’s victory is a sign of
the imminence of Christ’s return*  – has been: “How?  How did Trump get
elected?”

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges wrote back in March of 2016
that a Trump victory was likely because:

“College-educated elites, on behalf of corporations, carried out the savage
neoliberal assault on the working poor.  […]  These elites  […]  spoke the
language of values – civility, inclusivity, a condemnation of overt racism
and bigotry, a concern for the middle class – while thrusting a knife in
the back of the underclass for their corporate masters.  This game has
ended.”**

Six years ago, in an interview with Hedges, Noam Chomsky predicted that if
a charismatic man ran for president – on a platform of making illegal
immigrants and Blacks the enemy, while also turning white males into a
persecuted minority – he would soon sweep the presidential election.***
  However, these analyses don’t get to the crux of the matter as far as the
creation of the conditions that made it possible for Trump to be elected.



According to Hannah Arendt, politics is based on an idea of active
citizenship, on the value and importance of civic engagement, and
collective deliberation about all matters affecting the political
community.  A vital component in such a conception of politics is an
informed citizenry.  Contrary to what Silicon Valley techno-utopians
predicted (and indeed still predict will happen), digital technologies have
not brought about a revolution in human learning and achievement.

The recent US presidential elections, Brexit in the UK, and the rise of the
far right in Europe**** are – we contend – a clear indication that digital
media have been making politics, in Arendt’s understanding of the term,
more and more impossible.  For example, Trump’s presidential campaign hired
the same company used by the Brexit campaign, Cambridge Analytica, which
used big data and social media platforms such as Facebook, as a way to
manipulate voters.+

Sociologist Saskia Sassen has argued that knowledge is re-constituted and
thought of differently within the digital ecology: “[T]he body of knowledge
gets distributed and spliced-up in different ways so that you lose the
packaging, and in losing that packaging all sorts of possibilities open
up.”++

Taking authority and power to be co-constitutive of the power/knowledge
dyad (à la Foucault), as the means for sharing and discussing political
knowledge changes radically, so too does the way political authority is
constituted.  For instance, as far as traditional forms of political
“authority,” in 2015 Trump successfully undermined John McCain’s
considerable traditional authority in a way that could only happen in the
age of digital media.  At the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Trump
said about the war veteran McCain, “He’s not a war hero.”  “I like people
who weren’t captured.”+++

Making fun of McCain in such a manner was seen as a travesty by mainstream
media, and the analyses ran that Trump would not survive such a “gaffe.”
 The reality is that – as an extension of reality TV – politics has become
all about “gaffes,” and instead of apologizing Trump continued to attack
McCain, saying: “[McCain is] yet another all talk, no action politician who
spends too much time on television and not enough time doing his job.”+++

As one insightful (and funny) Tweet put it: “Trump is like clickbait
decided to take human form.”+*   Put differently: The public fascination
with Trump – his saying what “everyone” was thinking but dared not say
before – is the logical (political) outcome of a society primed by digital
media platforms that thrive on superficial, outrageous posts and images.


This special issue of Allegra Lab examines the ways in which digital media
are making politics impossible.  We invite contributions from people across
disciplines.  Please send a 250-word abstract (final submissions will be
2000-2500 words – due date TBA) to ha2248 at columbia.edu by February 25 for
consideration.

__________

 * “Alex Jones prayerfully reflects on the victory of President Trump,”
November 9, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVp7XTsBXx4

 ** Chris Hedges, “The Revenge of the Lower Classes and the Rise of
American Fascism,” Truthdig, August 8, 2016, https://www.truthdig.com/repor
t/item/the_revenge_of_the_lower_classes_and_the_rise_of_
american_fascism_20160302

***  Chris Hedges, “Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This,”
Truthdig, Apr 19, 2010

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/noam_chomsky_has_never_
seen_anything_like_this_20100419

****  “Europe’s Rising Far Right: A Guide to the Most Prominent Parties,”

The New York Times, December 4, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/intera
ctive/2016/world/europe/europe-far-right-political-parties-listy.html

+ “The Data That Turned the World Upside Down,” Motherboard,

Hannes Grassegger and Mikael Krogerus, January 28, 2017

++   “Saskia Sassen Plenary at Theorizing the Web 2011”
https://vimeo.com/23044503

+* “Hilarious political tweets that will make the internet great again”
http://twentytwowords.com/hilarious-political-tweets-that-
will-make-the-internet-great-again/

+++   “Trump attacks McCain: 'I like people who weren't captured,”
Politico, Ben Schreckinger July, 16, 2015 http://www.politico.com/story/
2015/07/trump-attacks-mccain-i-like-people-who-werent-captured-120317

-- 

Hasan Azad, PhD
Dept. of Religion
Columbia University
NY, 10027

Red and Green Oil on Water - A Novel:

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website: http://www.hasanazad.com/main/

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