In communicative capitalism everything is ”content”

Communicative capitalism forces the political energy to produce added value. In its logic the most important act is to consume the endless content stream of communication platforms and take part in producing content.

While communicative capitalism has increased the amount of communication, the democratic significance of communication has decreased. In extremely accelerated news cycles, sensations and scandals follow each other without altering political power relationships.

The demand for a healthier democracy urges most political projects and movements forward.

In left-wing politics demands for democracy are often combined with criticism of technocracy. Particularly new left-wing populist parties have accused the “post-political” (Mouffe 2005) consensus of liberal Western societies for leaving a large part of the conflicts of the economic policy to experts, changing them from democratic to protected, purely administrative issues.

Demands for democracy are prevalent in right-wing populist movements, too. The targets of their criticism are often the established parties of the center left and center right. Those are claimed to have betrayed democracy and become the henchmen of supranational institutions, like the EU, of international capital or of fashionable tendencies, like climate thinking or advancing the rights of sexual minorities.

Paradoxically, the concern of democracy in right-wing populist parties is often (but not always) associated with the glorification of autocracy: a strong leader will be able to ignore noisy minorities and advocate the will of the silent majority directly and absolutely.

The liberal center has its own diagnosis of the problems in democratic decision-making. In centrist thinking, the disintegration of democracy is advanced by forceful lobbies – such as employee and employer organizations. They keep an iron grip on politicians and use political power without democratic mandate from the people (Vartiainen 2018).

Contrary to left-wing populists, centrists do not call for “returning politics to politics”, but defend the strong position of experts in political decision-making. They think that an enlightened technocracy will protect the common good from the aspirations of selfish interest groups.

Social sciences and the call for democracy

Democracy is essential also in critical social sciences. The analyses of political economy accentuate the concern that the power of democratic decision-making has decreased because of the globalized market and the swiftness of equities moving from one country to another.

The fear of market reactions and capital flights have made democratically selected politicians, irrespective of their ideological backgrounds, serve the “market people” (Streeck 2015) instead of citizens.

The social scientists’ view of the condition of democracy is grim. In their desolate diagnoses, the economic rationality striving to extend the logic of competitive markets to every sector of life will replace democratic decision-making based on the reconciliation and tolerance of different political ideologies (Mirowski 2013; Davies 2014).

It is often proposed that the deterioration of democracy can be amended by more democracy – what else. The political scientists demand that citizens are given more possibilities to participate, and the communication research tries to make the public discussion and media environment more pluralistic and diverse.

In accordance with the ideals of the deliberative democracy theory emphasizing open, critical and multifaceted discussion, the pluralistic discussion should be seen in more enlightened political decisions. Democracy does not mean only the fact that citizens will elect new rulers every few years, but above all a pluralistic discussion that will be enriched to shared opinions of how political questions are to be solved.

The deliberative democratic theory is based on the thoughts of Jürgen Habermas, a German philosopher. His most famous book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Habermas 2004), concerns the birth and decadence of a “bourgeois public sphere”.

When writing about the restructuring of public sphere, Habermas outlines the bourgeois public sphere as a sort of idealized form of public sphere arising in the 17th and 18th century Europe when capitalist production challenged feudal government. Emerging capitalism created a new class consisting of free and wealthy bourgeoisie. Its members began to discuss in public and appeal to reason and the best argument, not to status.

In the analysis by Habermas, the bourgeois public sphere deteriorated in the 19th century, when political parties became the primary form of political activity and the commercial press became the most important public field. He notes that public sphere was converted to the battleground of private interests and the arena of manipulation and persuasion.

Propaganda, PR and advertizing overrode rational deliberation.

Although the reality of modern media is entirely different from the bourgeois public sphere era characterized by Habermas, the idea of open public sphere is distinctive to the research of politics and communication. The analyses of media and political decision-making requiring openness and many voices are often derived from Habermas’s thoughts of ideal public sphere that is open to different groups of people and respects the principle of the best argument.

When calling for participation and diversity, the researchers have had no time to consider whether categorical demands for participation or more communication actually help to enhance democracy.

These principles are visible in the objectives of media policy as well. Especially in Northern Europe and in the Nordic countries the state has tried to promote the communicative rights of citizens. By financing broadcasting and education as well as by supporting newspapers and fast broadband connections the public authorities have strived to the aim that citizens, irrespective of their economical circumstances, will have the capability to follow pluralistic public discussion and take part in democratic decision-making.

Both the researchers of politics and communication and the public authorities have aspired to develop democracy by improving the citizens’ possibilities to participate. Citizens are encouraged to make their opinions public and to make comments. New communication technologies and social media are commended for their participation possibilities and democratic potential. The critical journalism research brings forward the demand for pluralist journalism (Harjuniemi, Herkman & Ojala 2015).

Communicative capitalism

When calling for participation and diversity, researchers have had no time to consider whether categorical demands for participation or more communication actually help to enhance democracy. An exception to the rule is Jodi Dean, a researcher of politics and communication. Her thesis about “communicative capitalism” (Dean 2005) compels the researchers worrying about democracy to consider painful questions.

Dean’s thesis about communicative capitalism has to be understood as a part of larger discussion of changes in work and capitalism. In Finland, researchers Jussi Vähämäki and Eetu Viren have participated in this discussion. They have stated that the bureucratic-Fordistic work that made the “golden era” possible after the Second World War has been replaced by post-industrial work and production of added value since the 1970s  (Viren & Vähämäki 2015; Viren 2018).

In post-industrial societies work and producing added value are not anymore limited to offices, factory halls and an eight-hour workday. When work consists more and more often of services and design, the logic of added value is extended to such areas of life that were separate from mechanical work performance in Fordism: to personal characteristics and to the social interaction and communication.

According to Dean’s analysis, especially the different forms of communication and information technology reside at the core of post-industrial capitalism. In communicative capitalism all persons who engage in social media, participate, send blogs or send tweets are doing work. The added value of collective communication will be delivered to those who are able to aggregate the streams of socialness and interaction to publics and segments which attract advertizers and other people interested in data.

Communicative capitalism forces the political energy to produce added value. In its logic the most important act is to consume the endless content stream of communication platforms and take part in producing content.

Dean describes how communicative capitalism forces the political energy to produce added value. Exactly for this reason Google, Facebook and Twitter encourage people to participate and promise a more open democracy. You are the one who has the possibility to influence when you participate, debate and bring forth your own perspective! Challenge established hierarchies, gatekeepers of public sphere and improve the world, they command.

There are more possibilities to participate and more communication technology than ever before. However, Dean’s thesis makes us inquire the political significance of exponentially grown communication methods. Each of us has an enormous communication arsenal in the pocket, but the ecological catastrophe is getting closer. There is more quality journalism than ever, but at the same time the income inequalities in the developed countries are astronomical. Despite the tweet stream, geopolitical positions are more inflamed than in decades.

As communicative capitalism has increased the amount of communication, its democratic significance has decreased. In extremely accelerated news cycles, sensations and scandals follow each other without altering political power relationships. An investigative journalist may make an extravagant revelation of a ruler, but the topics will have changed already the next day.

Communicative capitalism boils the message down to mere content, which has value only as a contribution made in the endless content cycle.

In such an environment, the message is dangerously close not to influence its recipients nor make them share their thoughts. Communicative capitalism boils the message down to mere content, which has value only as a contribution made in the endless content cycle. In its logic the most important act is to consume the endless content stream of communication platforms and participate in producing content. Thus the social media platforms try to induce rage and irritation, strong feelings that make us return to the screen again and again (Knuutila 2019).

The result is a kind of illusion of democracy and influencing: one more tweet or sharp comment will be needed to humiliate my adversary and make the people advocate me. When I press the “send” button, the stupidity of my political adversary will be indisputably revealed.

Dean (2013) says that in communicative capitalism all types of content are equal. It is insignificant to YouTube whether the people want to see an ultraconservative video blogger, a children’s program created by an algorithm or a video lecture of phenomenology. The most important act is to click, like and share. The value of a message is primarily quantitative: the number of sharings, hearts, thumbs or comments. In this metrics it does not matter whether a blog record is commented by a postgraduate student of philosophy or by a bot advertizing contact lenses.

Challenge to communication research

When thinking about democracy and political influence, Dean’s idea of communicative capitalism is important in at least two respects.

Firstly, it makes us critically ponder the political and democratic implications of our media environment. Social media and new communication technology can be used democratically, but they are not intrinsically democratic. Incessant communication does not lead anywhere per se but may deprive time and resources from political and physical activism and concrete demands.

Trendy hash tags do not necessarily convert to material changes. As communication researchers Natalie Fenton and Gavan Tiley (2015) write, constant demands for participation, deliberation and openness are often blind to the fact that political power is hidden in intransparent elite institutions and technocratic expert organizations. Besides requirements of participation and openness we need the perspective of political economy, which includes material power relationships in the analysis.

Any amount of communication and discussion is useless if the political influences of communication are impotent.

Any amount of communication and discussion is useless if the political influences of communication are impotent. In order to solve our current mega problems it may be necessary to have slightly less communication and more political action and organization.

Secondly, Dean’s ideas make researchers of politics and communication ask what kind of communication should be required in order to create more democracy. Is it sufficient to claim participation or should we sketch such forms of communication that may support a political change and democracy better than the platforms of communicative capitalism? What sorts of changes are needed in our communication environment? What is to be done to the power of technological giants?

A lot has already happened. The literature concerning new communication technologies and environments no longer supports the utopistic idea that new forms of digital communication are always democratic tools serving grassroot organizations and networks (Freedman 2014). Instead of overoptimistic assessments there are now analyses of “data capitalism” (Myers West 2019) and critical descriptions of technological solutions or “solutionism” (Morozov 2013) that makes every political question or social problem a challenge that can be tackled by a smartphone application.

These thoughts lead in the correct direction. They make politics and communication researchers contemplate which communication methods actually foster democratic goals.

Translation by Veli-Pekka Ketola. The translator is a Master’s-level student of Multilingual Communication and Translation Studies at Tampere University. The translation was produced as part of a project course in English Translation.

References

Davies, William (2014). The limits of neoliberalism: authority, sovereignty and the logic of competition. London: Sage.

Dean, Jodie (2005). Communicative capitalism: circulation and the foreclosure of politics. Cultural Politics, 1(1): 51–74.

Dean, Jodie (2013). The limits of web in an age of communicative capitalism.

Fenton, Natalie & Titley, Gavan (2015). Mourning and longing: media studies learning to let go of liberal democracy. European Journal of Communication 30(5): 554–570.

Freedman, Des (2014). The Contradictions of Media Power. London: Bloomsbury.

Habermas, Jürgen (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Knuutila, Aleksi (2019). Närkästyksen kone: miksi uusoikeiston ääni kuuluu verkossa muita vahvemmin? Politiikasta. (Accessed 5 June 2019).

Mirowski, Philip (2013). Never let a serious crisis go to waste: How neoliberalism survived the financial meltdown. New York: Verso.

Morozov, Evgeny (2013). To save everything, click here: The folly of technological solutionism. New York: Public Affairs.

Mouffe, Chantal (2005). On the political. Abingdon: Routledge.

Myers West, Sarah (2019). Data capitalism: Redefining the logics of surveillance and privacy. Business & Society, 58(1):20–41.

Streeck, Wolfgang (2014). Buying time: The delayed crisis of democratic capitalism. London: Verso Books.

Viren, Eetu (2018). Raha ja työvoima: tutkimus rahasta yhteiskunnallisena suhteena, sen voimasta ja vaikutuksista työvoiman luokkakokoonpanoon. Helsinki: Tutkijaliitto.

Viren, Eetu & Vähämäki, Jussi (2015). Seutu joka ei ole paikka: kapitalismi ja metropoli. Helsinki: Tutkijaliitto.

Vartiainen, Juhana (2018). Kuulkaas ay-liike. Juhanavartiainen.fi  (Accessed 5 June 2019).