Zombies Digital Late Modernity Networked Individualism Jakob Svensson

Zombies, Digital Late Modernity & Networked Individualism Jakob Svensson 10/9 2013 1

Zombies We become less aware of our surroundings , less tuned into our senses and more like lifeless automations ” A media life comes with the endless graveyards of often still working mobile phones, personal computers, chips and circuits, wires and controllers” Deuze, 2012: 135 Zombie Media = Our life in media summons a past that can never be regained, as well as a past that never goes away (ibid: 136) 2

Zombies Our media devices are like zombies, the way we use them turn us into zombies, and the way media organize our everyday life mimics the workings of a zombie society as we roam the streets oblivious to out immediate reality pressing buttons and touching screens in order to immerse ourselves in a social space made out of technologies that do not care (Deuze, 2012: 143) Social movements today – have no leaders, lacking hierarchies and structures and lacking clear goals, involving people from all walks of life, relying on infectuous and viral spread 3

Zombies Zombie concepts: live on in name but have died in terms of their usefulness – Deuze, 2012: 144 Zombie manifesto: global capitalisms reliance on people seeing themmselves as unique individuals who through conspicuous consumption, need to express that individuality in perpetuity Deuze, 2012: 145 4

Zombies What do you think? 5

Digital Late Modernity The rise of digital technology has been linked to increasing fragmentation in Society, individualization and reflexivity – trends that have been thouroughly theorized in perspectives of late modernity Late modernity? 6

Digital Late Modernity - refering to contemporary connected societies Societal and cultural changes happening in tandem (antideterminism) Computers and culture influence each other (Manovich, 2001: 41, see also Feenberg) Network media logic and the logic of late modern (postindustrial) societies both value individuality over conformity 7

Digital Late Modernity and Network Society Network society = a social formation with an infrstructure of social and media networks enabling its prime mode of organization at all levels, individual, organization, societal and global (van Dijk, 2006) 8

Digital Late Modernity Castells (2000 & 2001) – network as an intersectional concept for overcoming boundaries between society and technology A tendency to organize processes and functions as networks, the network thus becoming the social morphology of society, influencing everything from processes of production to individual experiences, power and culture (Castells, 2000: 519) – Culture of the database 9

Digital Late Modernity Castells (2000: 25) departs from two contemporary and interlinked developments: 1) increasing global interdependent economies and 2) an information technology revolution both steering capitalism towards increasing network cooperation 10

Digital Late Modernity Digital communication systems are also integrating the production and distribution of culture, adapting its pictures, sounds and images to the faster shifting tastes of individuals in late modernity. According to van Dijk (2006), networks are becoming the nervous system of our society and we can expect this to have influence over our entire social and personal lives. Hence, In digital late modernity the concept of networks also accompanies interaction patterns, sociability and individualism. 11

Digital Late Modernity Most people today operate in multiple thinly connected, partial communities as they deal with networks of kin, neighbors, colleagues and friends (Rheingold, 2002: 57). Social networks thus implies that every individual is a node and links to other individuals (ibid. : 170 ) It could be argued that networks and individualization are incompatible since the network undermines the traditional western idea of a separate and sovereign subject (see Castells, 2000: 46). But individualism can also be considered a form of collective identity (see Lasch, 1979/1991) 12

Networked individualism In more micro studies of networks the concept of networked individualism is particularly illuminating for understanding the practice of linking the self to different collectives in networked and digital late modernity (see Castells 2001: 129 -133, Wellman, 2001; Castells, 2009: 120). Why? To remain visible Deuze, 2012: 170 13

Networked individualism This is a shift away from the tightly bounded communities of modernity (family, church, union, political grass roots movements). But this does not mean that individuals are in opposition to others; on the contrary, we need others in order to be ourselves. What do you think? 14

Networked individualism Vivienne & Burgess (2012: 365) talk in this context about networked identity in their study of queer digital storytelling. Individual identities are deeply enmeshed with social identities. The recent increase of groups distributed online has lead Baym (2010: 91) to instead talk about networked collectivism. Similarly, Castells (2009: 56) talks about the simultaneous rise of individualism and communalism as two opposing, yet equally powerful cultural patterns that characterize our world. 15

Networked individualism As Mendelson & Papacharissi (2011: 253) underline, on social media users can simultaneously express uniqueness and connection to others. And these two practices are tightly intertwined since identity expressions online often are supported by comments from others - or are at least supposed to be. Segerberg & Bennett's (2012) work on how easily personalized themes and content (memes) that are shared via social media to trusted others illustrates how the self is connected to others via digital networks today. Networking is an evident social need in an individualized society. Through processes of identification we link our selves to others, to causes that provide our life and participation with meaning. People gain self-esteem and a sense of empowerment through being aware of how they are perceived by others. 16

Connectivity/ connectedness Individualism and connectivity seems to be two sides of the same coin (van Dijk, 2006: 1). We are neither closed humans nor we-less I's to use sociologist Norbert Elias (1998) vocabulary. Contemporary literature is full of expressions of us living in a connected world, a connected age, a human web and a web society. 17

Connectivity/ connectedness The medium is the message as Mc. Luhan (1968) famously argued, and the message of the network media would be to stay connected as in the famous slogan for the Finnish mobile phone company Nokia. 18

Connectivity/ connectedness One value in the emerging network society must be connectedness, informing a network logic making us to stay connected. 19

Connectivity/ connectedness This is illustrated in studies of the mobile phone where informants claimed that the phone enriched their social life, furthering opportunities for selfexpression at the same time as managing and remaking relationships with friends and family. Most of the messages sent among Japanese youth consist of the intimacy-maintaining thinking of you sort. Similarly studies of Facebook pictures among college students underlines that they are all about connections between them. phatic communication - to reassure social bonds, to offer socio-emotional support rather than to dialogue or and exchange information The individualized and peer based nature of contemporary sociality is not a by -product or unintended consequence of the media – but is built into the material infrastructure of networked media (Deuze, 2012: 156 – 157 ) 20

Connectivity/ connectedness The mobile phone is thus a symbol of accessibility, to be reachable and in control or this reachability, a sort of mobile connectivity with users carrying their personal network of connections with them to be activated at any moment. Accompanied solitude (Deuze, 2012: 172) 21

Connectivity/ connectedness And this availability to friends and knowing what they are doing is also an expression of status (Ling & Yttri, 2002: 150). Studies show that if young people do not continuously receive text messages/ facebook likes, they feel unloved and forgotten, something that also stress young people to have their mobile phones with them and switched on constantly. In Katz & Aakhus‘ (2002) research individuals believe they “earn points” in relationships for having connected to the other through a text message, a posting or a call. Hence it is easy to subscribe to Feenberg's (2010) claim that we connect to reassure our selves, “to be is to connect” as he formulates it (p. 100). 22

responsiveness Aspects of contact is being and keeping in touch. Social networking provides a social glue between participants engaged in it Here I would like to underline responsiveness accompanying connectedness. Miller (2008: 395) proclaims content is not king, but keeping in touch is, underlining responsiveness as an important value in the emerging network logic being connected in mutual relationships. 23

responsiveness This is confirmed in the Ling & Yttri (2002) study of young people in Norway. One informant lamented that nobody send her any messages since they knew she was out of credit and could not answer. And in Kasesniemi & Rautiainen (2002: 186) study of children and teenagers in Finland, leaving an SMS unanswered for more than 30 minutes was considered rude. In other words, no connectedness without responsiveness. 24

responsiveness People in network societies today are always on the call through phones, beepers and e-mails, our time is totally interruptable Global culture is a culture of communication for the sake of communication. This does often require continuous communication or perpetual contact (see Katz & Aakhus, 2002), or being perpetually networked, as Castells (2009) frames it - underlining the staying part of the Nokia slogan. The increasing demand for answering machines, voice mail boxes, follow-me switches such as geo-tagging suggest that people have been disciplined into continuous processes of connection and response 25

Updating A central aspect of the emerging network logic is that it disciplines us to be constantly updated, in two different ways – to be updated of the doings in the network as well as update the network of our doings, thoughts and feelings. Social media prompts users to describe, display their activities and opinions. Deuze, 2012: 154 – network sociality as an exchange of data and catching up 26

Updating Livingstone’s (2008) study of British teenagers use of social media underlines updating as a central practice on social networks online. If someone comments on a profile they are most likely will be commented back and therefore some teenagers spend hours going from one profile to another to leave comments In this way it seems that updating becomes part of a kind digital late modern habitus, i. e. a socially learnt behaviour that are becoming so habituated that it feels inherent to ourselves (see Elias, 1958/ 1998: 15). 27

Updating & Power Livingstone’s (2008) conceives updating of as a necessity for these teenagers in order to reaffirm their place within the peer network. Rather than information transmission, what seems to be at stake is the position within the peer network It thus seems that in network societies social bonding is instrumentalized, commoditised and reduced to a continual construction and reconstruction of personal networks and contacts through practices of updating. 28

Reflexivity Intertwined with the increasing importance of managing and sustaining our networks through practices of updating, the network logic underlines late modern processes of reflexivity The question who are we? arises at the end of the 18 th century (Foucault, 1994/1988: 403). And here the Internet (Social Media) offers a plethora of possibilities to expand on who we are (Gergen 2002: 234). 29

Reflexivity The late modern self, anxiously trying to confirm who she really is, uses social media to both monitor her identity as well as testing it in front of selected others (peers). Looking glass self (Cooley, 1902) 30

Reflexivity This takes the form of reflexive connectivity and reflexive responsiveness when making links to other users public (as well as causes, organizations, brands) and hence freeloading on their supposed connotations What lends reality to the I, is the interplay between I and You (Deuze, 2012: 203). This signals an increasing reification of ourselves and others, i. e the instrumental use of people as things ( Bronner, 2011: 40) and letting of use of us, as things to connect to in the relentless the quest for identity in digital late modernity 31