Jody Dean’s Communicative Capitalism: The Evolution of a Social Theory
https://doi.org/10.22394/2074-0492-2021-1-222-239
Abstract
This review is devoted to the recent concept of communicative capitalism
introduced by American social theorist and left activist Jodi Dean in
2002. Communicative capitalism is a political-economic formation in
which the convergence of democracy, capitalism, network technologies,
and media occurs. Under these new conditions, the primary democratic
values materialize in networked communication technologies, which
leads to a reliance of communicative capitalism on the exploitation of
communication. This causes a radical shift in network communication:
now the fact of “contributions” to the “circulation of content” is more
significant than the content of a message. The review traces the evolution
of Dean’s conceptual framework, outlines key aspects and ideas which
were used for its elaboration (e.g. the Lacanian concepts of jouissance and
drive, Slavoj Žižek’s “interpassivity” and “post-politics”, “whatever being”
by Giorgio Agamben, “zero-institution” by Claude Lévi-Strauss). The author
concludes that modern world events and trends in online communication
(Twitter and Facebook Revolutions, frames for profile pictures on Facebook,
online petitions, surveys and hashtags, very popular accounts with large
numbers of followers) make it possible to discern the high potential of the
framework as an eminently applicable interdisciplinary theoretical lens
and methodological tool.
About the Author
Vasilisa V. ShpotRussian Federation
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Review
For citations:
Shpot V.V. Jody Dean’s Communicative Capitalism: The Evolution of a Social Theory. Sociology of Power. 2021;33(1):222-239. https://doi.org/10.22394/2074-0492-2021-1-222-239
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