Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Virality Not Polity

Salon offers a vapid listicle of fourteen viral videos which supposedly changed the world -- none of which did, even if some of the videos document real protests that did. Quite apart from the fact that neither discourse nor politics are "viral" in the least -- and this crucially includes the politics of misframing discourse as viral in the first place -- I also think it is important to warn and remember that viral videos reducing citizens to entertainers edifying incumbent elites on screens always risks the reactionary politics of de-politicization.

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