Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics

Author: Jodi Dean
Year: 2005 (Cultural Politics 1(1))
Source type: article
Raw file: raw/articles/dean-2005-communicative-capitalism.md

Summary

Dean argues that networked communications — despite democratic promises — are profoundly depoliticizing, forming "communicative capitalism": that stage of late capitalism in which democratic ideals (access, inclusion, participation) take material form in networked technologies, yet circulation replaces response. Messages become mere contributions to a circulating stream (exchange value overtakes use value), animated by three "fantasies": of abundance (message → contribution), of participation (technology fetishism and interpassivity), and of wholeness (the Internet as a "zero institution"). The result is the foreclosure of antagonism and politics ("post-politics"). Draws on Agamben (alienation of language), Žižek (post-politics, interpassivity), Hardt & Negri.

Key Claims

• Communicative capitalism defined: the market is "the site of democratic aspirations"; ideals of democracy take material form in networked communication, "but the deluge of screens and spectacles undermines political opportunity and efficacy." A "one-way dialog" / one-way dependency to the passive consumer.
• The post-political foreclosure: against Habermasian deliberation, communication no longer aims at "reaching understanding"; "a constitutive feature of communicative capitalism is precisely this morphing of message into contribution" — "the exchange value of messages overtakes their use value," and the sender/author "becomes immaterial." "In an age celebrated for its communications there is no response."
• Fantasy of abundance: exponential communicative access devalues any particular contribution; "the more opinions or comments that are out there, the less of an impact any one given one might make."
• Fantasy of participation (technology fetishism): the "registration effect" makes users feel active (interpassivity — "you think you are active, while your true position ... is passive"); the technological fetish operates via condensation, displacement, and foreclosure, so that "file sharing is political. A website is political. Blogging is political" — yet this forecloses politicization proper.
• Fantasy of wholeness (zero institution): following Žižek's extension of Lévi-Strauss, the Internet functions as the "zero institution" of communicative capitalism — an empty signifier that lets fragmented constituencies feel part of one global totality while remaining disconnected.
• Politics needs politicization: singular acts are "not political in and of themselves"; they "have to be politicized," articulated against a "shared enemy or opponent" (Laclau/Mouffe) — which circulation forecloses.

Connections

Concepts: Communicative Capitalism · Spectacle · Semiocapitalism · Noopolitics
Authors: Jodi Dean
Debates: (digital political economy)
Related source notes: The Spectacle 2.0 (Briziarelli & Armano)

Direct Quotes

"[C]communicative capitalism designates that form of late capitalism in which values heralded as central to democracy take material form in networked communications technologies."

"[A] constitutive feature of communicative capitalism is precisely this morphing of message into contribution ... the exchange value of messages overtakes their use value."

"What hinders communication, therefore, is communicability itself: human beings are being separated by what unites them." (Agamben, as quoted)

"[T]echnology fetishism ... [means] file sharing is political. A website is political. Blogging is political" — but this immediacy "forecloses the possibility of politicization proper."

Open Questions

• Does Dean's critique — that circulating resistance never becomes politics — apply also to "Instagram architecture," viral imagery, and the spectacular circulation of the icon (cf. spectacle 2.0, instagrammability)?