Disposal and Reinvention: Citizenship in an Era of Electronic Capitalism

• Main Author: García Canclini Néstor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2018-11-01
• Series: Open Cultural Studies
• Subjects: citizenship; democracy; electronic capitalism; algorithms; dispossession; participation; who cares about citizens?
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0025

Ever since the expansion of video-politics, television canalises citizens' criticism and demands regarding political authorities, conceiving of citizens as spectators. Social networks magnify this type of involvement, promising horizontality and social cohesion. Political parties have become reduced to elites that distribute power and benefits among themselves, disengaging from voters, except during electoral periods. Our opinions and behaviours are captured by algorithms and subject to globalised forces. The public space where citizenship should be exercised is becoming opaque and distant. Citizenship is radically diminishing while some social movements are reinventing themselves and winning sectorial battles: for human rights, for gender equality, against authoritarianism. Yet the neoliberal approach to technology maintains and deepens greater inequalities. What are the alternatives to this dispossession? Hackers and dissenters? What is the role of the vote in a State-society relationship reprogrammed by technologies and the market?