Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1981705
Tatiana Dourado, Susana Salgado
ABSTRACT This research scrutinizes the content, spread, and implications of disinformation in Brazil’s 2018 pre-election period. It focuses specifically on the most widely shared fake news about Lula da Silva and links these with the preexisting polarization and political radicalization, ascertaining the role of context. The research relied on a case study and mixed-methods approach that combined an online data collection of content, spread, propagators, and interactions’ analyses, with in-depth analysis of the meaning of such fake news. The results show that the most successful fake news about Lula capitalized on prior hostility toward him, several originated or were spread by conservative right-wing politicians and mainstream journalists, and that the pro-Lula fake news circulated in smaller networks and had overall less global reach. Facebook and WhatsApp were the main dissemination platforms of these contents.
{"title":"Disinformation in the Brazilian pre-election context: probing the content, spread and implications of fake news about Lula da Silva","authors":"Tatiana Dourado, Susana Salgado","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1981705","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1981705","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This research scrutinizes the content, spread, and implications of disinformation in Brazil’s 2018 pre-election period. It focuses specifically on the most widely shared fake news about Lula da Silva and links these with the preexisting polarization and political radicalization, ascertaining the role of context. The research relied on a case study and mixed-methods approach that combined an online data collection of content, spread, propagators, and interactions’ analyses, with in-depth analysis of the meaning of such fake news. The results show that the most successful fake news about Lula capitalized on prior hostility toward him, several originated or were spread by conservative right-wing politicians and mainstream journalists, and that the pro-Lula fake news circulated in smaller networks and had overall less global reach. Facebook and WhatsApp were the main dissemination platforms of these contents.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"297 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43117613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.2019962
Ran-Ran Yan
{"title":"From media systems to media cultures: understanding socialist television","authors":"Ran-Ran Yan","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.2019962","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.2019962","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"322 - 325"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41690538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1981121
R. Bishop, Maggie Fedorocsko
ABSTRACT A narrative analysis was performed on a group of print and online news stories, along with accompanying pictures and videos, from the lead-up to and reviews of the reboots of Norman Lear’s revered series All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Good Times. Coverage of the reboots furnished a compelling opportunity for media critics, reporters, and the audience to engage in nostalgia for the significance of Lear’s work. The narrative that emerges from coverage of the specials asks the reader to believe that the only character not experiencing nostalgia for Norman Lear’s shows is Norman Lear. The impact of his shows has been reduced to a list of social issues and resigned acknowledgment that those issues persist. The critics’ experience of nostalgia became a central narrative theme. Their narrative toggles between insight and fetishism as viewers are directed to go off on their own nostalgic journey. Where the audience might have been provoked or made more aware by Lear’s shows, the narrative instructs us to watch them now to be comforted as the nation is tested.
{"title":"Those were the days? Dimensions of nostalgia in media coverage of the Norman Lear reboots","authors":"R. Bishop, Maggie Fedorocsko","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1981121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1981121","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A narrative analysis was performed on a group of print and online news stories, along with accompanying pictures and videos, from the lead-up to and reviews of the reboots of Norman Lear’s revered series All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Good Times. Coverage of the reboots furnished a compelling opportunity for media critics, reporters, and the audience to engage in nostalgia for the significance of Lear’s work. The narrative that emerges from coverage of the specials asks the reader to believe that the only character not experiencing nostalgia for Norman Lear’s shows is Norman Lear. The impact of his shows has been reduced to a list of social issues and resigned acknowledgment that those issues persist. The critics’ experience of nostalgia became a central narrative theme. Their narrative toggles between insight and fetishism as viewers are directed to go off on their own nostalgic journey. Where the audience might have been provoked or made more aware by Lear’s shows, the narrative instructs us to watch them now to be comforted as the nation is tested.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"275 - 296"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45098809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1972720
L. Iannelli, B. Biagi, M. Meleddu
ABSTRACT Public opinion polarization on immigration can hinder social cohesion, integration policies and economic growth. Political campaigns and partisan news media systems have long been investigated in terms of potential drivers of mass polarization, often through a focus on one news media. Utilizing survey data collected by the Pew Research Center, the purpose of the present study is twofold: first, to provide insight into the state of polarization of the Italian public on immigrants-related issues during the campaign for 2018 General Elections, that is, in a context of increasing struggle on immigration between political elites and partisan news media; second, to analyze whether and how the frequency of use of traditional and digital news media and/or the political similarity of (online and offline) information networks have affected the probability of Italian citizens having polarized opinions on immigration. This study shows no significant divergences in the Italian public opinion toward extreme positions, but provide evidence of one-side extremism and alignment along two irreconcilable views. Furthermore, findings indicate deep differences in the effects of traditional and digital news media practices on individuals’ extreme and aligned positions on immigration. When various news media are considered, the effect of television is always the more robust.
{"title":"Public opinion polarization on immigration in Italy: the role of traditional and digital news media practices","authors":"L. Iannelli, B. Biagi, M. Meleddu","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1972720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1972720","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Public opinion polarization on immigration can hinder social cohesion, integration policies and economic growth. Political campaigns and partisan news media systems have long been investigated in terms of potential drivers of mass polarization, often through a focus on one news media. Utilizing survey data collected by the Pew Research Center, the purpose of the present study is twofold: first, to provide insight into the state of polarization of the Italian public on immigrants-related issues during the campaign for 2018 General Elections, that is, in a context of increasing struggle on immigration between political elites and partisan news media; second, to analyze whether and how the frequency of use of traditional and digital news media and/or the political similarity of (online and offline) information networks have affected the probability of Italian citizens having polarized opinions on immigration. This study shows no significant divergences in the Italian public opinion toward extreme positions, but provide evidence of one-side extremism and alignment along two irreconcilable views. Furthermore, findings indicate deep differences in the effects of traditional and digital news media practices on individuals’ extreme and aligned positions on immigration. When various news media are considered, the effect of television is always the more robust.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"244 - 274"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44891856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1957382
Bouziane Zaid, Donghee Shin, S. Kteish, Jana Fedtke, Mohammed Ibahrine
ABSTRACT Social networking sites (SNSs) provide a set of affordances that allow young adults to represent various aspects of their gendered identities and construct their identity-related experiences. This paper adopts Goffman’s concepts in relation to social media and his dramaturgical theories of the self as a framework for the study of online self-presentation. The paper uses the Explanatory Sequential Mixed Method Design. The study conducted a quantitative survey of 110 college students followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews with a group of 30 students to examine how college students from four Emirati universities appropriate social media to engage in online self-representations of their gendered identities. The findings suggest that SNSs serve as a liberating force in a cultural context where traditional rules are changing and young adults are at the forefront of driving these changes.
{"title":"Gendered self-representation and empowerment on social media in the United Arab Emirates","authors":"Bouziane Zaid, Donghee Shin, S. Kteish, Jana Fedtke, Mohammed Ibahrine","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1957382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1957382","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Social networking sites (SNSs) provide a set of affordances that allow young adults to represent various aspects of their gendered identities and construct their identity-related experiences. This paper adopts Goffman’s concepts in relation to social media and his dramaturgical theories of the self as a framework for the study of online self-presentation. The paper uses the Explanatory Sequential Mixed Method Design. The study conducted a quantitative survey of 110 college students followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews with a group of 30 students to examine how college students from four Emirati universities appropriate social media to engage in online self-representations of their gendered identities. The findings suggest that SNSs serve as a liberating force in a cultural context where traditional rules are changing and young adults are at the forefront of driving these changes.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"199 - 217"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10714421.2021.1957382","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46897102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1965850
Shoshana Magnet
ABSTRACT Claiming to “let evolution do the thinking for you,” biologists are teaming up with roboticists and computer engineers in the emerging field of biomimetics to build animal-machines. One of the outcomes of these interdisciplinary collaborations is the development of biomimetic robot-insects: robots inspired by insect life. Biomimetic scientists assert that their technologies will be cleaner, greener, and more holistic, since they imitate Mother Earth’s own capabilities, including for waging war. For example, biomimetic scientists regularly cite the examples of Velcro – a technology inspired by the ways that burrs attach to the fur on a dog’s back – or solar panels – which are inspired by the way that leaves convert sunlight into energy. The specific focus of this article is on biomimetic insect-robot technologies; specifically the development of robots that imitate swarming behavior. Grounding the rise of these swarming technologies in a cultural context preoccupied with an increase in militarization, I show that although biomimetic scientists often claim that these technologies will be more environmentally friendly, in fact they rely upon reified assumptions about “Nature,” on the commodification of Indigenous knowledges, and on racist metaphors of terrorists as “swarms” as part of their technological development. Examining a specific swarm of insect-robots known as nano quadrotors, I demonstrate that the imitation of Mother Earth does not reflect the natural world as it is but instead works to shape that world, and, in doing so, I problematize the utopian possibilities suggested for biomimetic swarming technologies.
{"title":"Military buzz: race, robots and insects","authors":"Shoshana Magnet","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1965850","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1965850","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Claiming to “let evolution do the thinking for you,” biologists are teaming up with roboticists and computer engineers in the emerging field of biomimetics to build animal-machines. One of the outcomes of these interdisciplinary collaborations is the development of biomimetic robot-insects: robots inspired by insect life. Biomimetic scientists assert that their technologies will be cleaner, greener, and more holistic, since they imitate Mother Earth’s own capabilities, including for waging war. For example, biomimetic scientists regularly cite the examples of Velcro – a technology inspired by the ways that burrs attach to the fur on a dog’s back – or solar panels – which are inspired by the way that leaves convert sunlight into energy. The specific focus of this article is on biomimetic insect-robot technologies; specifically the development of robots that imitate swarming behavior. Grounding the rise of these swarming technologies in a cultural context preoccupied with an increase in militarization, I show that although biomimetic scientists often claim that these technologies will be more environmentally friendly, in fact they rely upon reified assumptions about “Nature,” on the commodification of Indigenous knowledges, and on racist metaphors of terrorists as “swarms” as part of their technological development. Examining a specific swarm of insect-robots known as nano quadrotors, I demonstrate that the imitation of Mother Earth does not reflect the natural world as it is but instead works to shape that world, and, in doing so, I problematize the utopian possibilities suggested for biomimetic swarming technologies.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"218 - 243"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43688840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1938464
R. Rega, Rita Marchetti
ABSTRACT The study addresses central issues in contemporary politics in response to growing concern about the impoverishment of political discourse that has become increasingly uncivil. In particular it analhyzes citizens’ reactions to leaders’ uncivil posts on Facebook during the 2018 Italian General Election, by adopting a theoretical-operational model based on a dual approach (top down – bottom up) that examines the forms of adverse communication used by politicians online, and the consequences of these forms on users’ discussion (analyzing both ranking behaviors and users’ comments). Political incivility is operationalized as a multidimensional concept and specific types are proposed, starting from violations of norms of politeness (interpersonal-level) and proceeding to violation of public norms of civility (public-level). Results show that leaders’ use of uncivil messages trigger greater online participation, thus increasing the visibility of their posts. However, the emotional excitement elicited by these triggering forms of elite communication encourage antagonistic and rude behaviors among users, leading to an increase in uncivil comments and thus jeopardizing the quality of online discussion. Overall, it emerges that incivility combined with divisive issues can be thought of as a tool of communication used strategically by politicians to mobilize voters and to strengthen their political affiliation.
{"title":"The strategic use of incivility in contemporary politics. The case of the 2018 Italian general election on Facebook","authors":"R. Rega, Rita Marchetti","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1938464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1938464","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The study addresses central issues in contemporary politics in response to growing concern about the impoverishment of political discourse that has become increasingly uncivil. In particular it analhyzes citizens’ reactions to leaders’ uncivil posts on Facebook during the 2018 Italian General Election, by adopting a theoretical-operational model based on a dual approach (top down – bottom up) that examines the forms of adverse communication used by politicians online, and the consequences of these forms on users’ discussion (analyzing both ranking behaviors and users’ comments). Political incivility is operationalized as a multidimensional concept and specific types are proposed, starting from violations of norms of politeness (interpersonal-level) and proceeding to violation of public norms of civility (public-level). Results show that leaders’ use of uncivil messages trigger greater online participation, thus increasing the visibility of their posts. However, the emotional excitement elicited by these triggering forms of elite communication encourage antagonistic and rude behaviors among users, leading to an increase in uncivil comments and thus jeopardizing the quality of online discussion. Overall, it emerges that incivility combined with divisive issues can be thought of as a tool of communication used strategically by politicians to mobilize voters and to strengthen their political affiliation.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"107 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10714421.2021.1938464","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45845532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1951095
Jon Simons
{"title":"Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: children, peace communication and socialization","authors":"Jon Simons","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1951095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1951095","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"196 - 198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10714421.2021.1951095","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48029072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1947740
Jayson Harsin
ABSTRACT Advancing theorizations of communication in post-truth politics, where computational/big data or cognitive bias approaches often dominate the description of and proposed solutions to the problem, this article aims to theorize the cultural production of social trust, which underpins public truth-making. It argues that performing mediated trust is preconditional to public truth-making (oft-overlooked in post-truth accounts). Advocating that a more detailed theory of post-truth political performances requires amalgamating intra- and interdisciplinary resources and broadening perspectives, it unites insights from social trust theory, reality television (RTV) studies, gender studies, and political communication. It identifies and critiques an aggressive emotional and a palpably toxic (especially white) masculinist logic in a popular strand of post-truth political performance. This conjuncturally specific, traditionally aggressive masculinist post-truth political communication is best understood as a transposable style, set of practices, and disposition toward them – a cultural logic called “aggro-truth.” Aggro-truth thus moves beyond the general concept and label of post-truth by a. showing that it has a particular, widely circulating, sub-form with its own particular cultural logic for operationalizing mediated trust in post-truth tellers (such as Donald Trump); and b. demonstrating how that logic works by focusing on Trump, while noting broad evidence of transnational variations for further research.
{"title":"Aggro-truth: (Dis-)trust, toxic masculinity, and the cultural logic of post-truth politics","authors":"Jayson Harsin","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1947740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1947740","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Advancing theorizations of communication in post-truth politics, where computational/big data or cognitive bias approaches often dominate the description of and proposed solutions to the problem, this article aims to theorize the cultural production of social trust, which underpins public truth-making. It argues that performing mediated trust is preconditional to public truth-making (oft-overlooked in post-truth accounts). Advocating that a more detailed theory of post-truth political performances requires amalgamating intra- and interdisciplinary resources and broadening perspectives, it unites insights from social trust theory, reality television (RTV) studies, gender studies, and political communication. It identifies and critiques an aggressive emotional and a palpably toxic (especially white) masculinist logic in a popular strand of post-truth political performance. This conjuncturally specific, traditionally aggressive masculinist post-truth political communication is best understood as a transposable style, set of practices, and disposition toward them – a cultural logic called “aggro-truth.” Aggro-truth thus moves beyond the general concept and label of post-truth by a. showing that it has a particular, widely circulating, sub-form with its own particular cultural logic for operationalizing mediated trust in post-truth tellers (such as Donald Trump); and b. demonstrating how that logic works by focusing on Trump, while noting broad evidence of transnational variations for further research.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"133 - 166"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47156259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2021.1951093
Cengiz Salman
ion renders human preferences, affects, and experiences into “marketable information” (p. 154) that capital can then use to price commodities and assuage market uncertainty. Under these conditions, “any entity can be indexed as information by the exchange process and treated according to executable protocols running a cost-benefit analysis” (p. 157). The final section describes how derivative conditions shape computational racial capital and its modalities of accumulation. Beller continues arguing that platforms’ advertisement-based business models have fundamentally subsumed human expression itself into relations of valuation. He connects the recognition that internet users attract through engagement to money and argues that by capturing data about users, tech corporations are able to effectively market commodities to them in a manner that makes their respective rates of profit projectable. Monetization of data based on user engagement allows tech corporations to extract surplus value from interdependent displays of the self as a normative icon, intensifying the extent to which today’s subject qua neoliberal entrepreneur is invested in cultivating and presenting an image of themselves that extends behavior once specific to social media use to the practices that comprise everyday life. Beller then proceeds to show how the matrix of domination, oppression, and violence that information disavows both produces and is reproduced by digital media that increasingly record and surveil users given their continued adoption and growing ubiquity. Nevertheless, Beller closes his monograph by recognizing that information itself is the product of larger contestations over the financialization of speech and expression such that informatic media might retain a latent capacity to be collectively repurposed for emancipatory ends. He explores this possibility through an analysis of cryptocurrency as a new medium of finance. By prioritizing peer-to-peer transactions, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin might offer the opportunity to democratically remediate the role money plays in consolidating capital at scale and under the direction of anti-capitalist, anti-racist, antipatriarchal, non-heteronormative, and decolonial collective action. The World Computer has been published at an opportune moment, a moment that calls for further theoretical explanation of the social horrors that computational racial capital mediates and produces. Its greatest strength lies in its provocative and synthetic reading of research across fields as diverse as digital media studies, critical race and ethnic studies, gender studies, post-colonial studies, queer theory, and various critiques of political economy. Weaving these different lines of inquiry together to construct a theoretical model that contextualizes computational racial capital in historical and social process of abstraction, Beller’s book marks the beginning of a crucial intervention in communications studies and the fields with wh
{"title":"The World Computer: derivative conditions of racial capitalism","authors":"Cengiz Salman","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2021.1951093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2021.1951093","url":null,"abstract":"ion renders human preferences, affects, and experiences into “marketable information” (p. 154) that capital can then use to price commodities and assuage market uncertainty. Under these conditions, “any entity can be indexed as information by the exchange process and treated according to executable protocols running a cost-benefit analysis” (p. 157). The final section describes how derivative conditions shape computational racial capital and its modalities of accumulation. Beller continues arguing that platforms’ advertisement-based business models have fundamentally subsumed human expression itself into relations of valuation. He connects the recognition that internet users attract through engagement to money and argues that by capturing data about users, tech corporations are able to effectively market commodities to them in a manner that makes their respective rates of profit projectable. Monetization of data based on user engagement allows tech corporations to extract surplus value from interdependent displays of the self as a normative icon, intensifying the extent to which today’s subject qua neoliberal entrepreneur is invested in cultivating and presenting an image of themselves that extends behavior once specific to social media use to the practices that comprise everyday life. Beller then proceeds to show how the matrix of domination, oppression, and violence that information disavows both produces and is reproduced by digital media that increasingly record and surveil users given their continued adoption and growing ubiquity. Nevertheless, Beller closes his monograph by recognizing that information itself is the product of larger contestations over the financialization of speech and expression such that informatic media might retain a latent capacity to be collectively repurposed for emancipatory ends. He explores this possibility through an analysis of cryptocurrency as a new medium of finance. By prioritizing peer-to-peer transactions, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin might offer the opportunity to democratically remediate the role money plays in consolidating capital at scale and under the direction of anti-capitalist, anti-racist, antipatriarchal, non-heteronormative, and decolonial collective action. The World Computer has been published at an opportune moment, a moment that calls for further theoretical explanation of the social horrors that computational racial capital mediates and produces. Its greatest strength lies in its provocative and synthetic reading of research across fields as diverse as digital media studies, critical race and ethnic studies, gender studies, post-colonial studies, queer theory, and various critiques of political economy. Weaving these different lines of inquiry together to construct a theoretical model that contextualizes computational racial capital in historical and social process of abstraction, Beller’s book marks the beginning of a crucial intervention in communications studies and the fields with wh","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"192 - 195"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47244654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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