Jeremiah Morelock - The Society of the Selfie

Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy

Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita

Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies

Series Editor: Christian Fuchs

The peer-reviewed book series edited by Christian Fuchs publishes books that critically study the role of the internet and digital and social media in society. Titles analyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theory discussing the political relevance and implications of studied topics. The series is a theoretical forum for internet and social media research for books using methods and theories that challenge digital positivism; it also seeks to explore digital media ethics grounded in critical social theories and philosophy.

Editorial Board

Thomas Allmer, Mark Andrejevic, Miriyam Aouragh, Charles Brown, Melanie Dulong De Rosnay, Eran Fisher, Peter Goodwin, Jonathan Hardy, Kylie Jarrett, Anastasia Kavada, Arwid Lund, Maria Michalis, Stefania Milan, Vincent Mosco, Safiya Noble, Jack Qiu, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Sarah Roberts, Marisol Sandoval, Sebastian Sevignani, Pieter Verdegem, Bingqing Xia, Mariano Zukerfeld

Published

Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukcs, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet

Christian Fuchs

https://doi.org/10.16997/book1

Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism

Mariano Zukerfeld

https://doi.org/10.16997/book3

Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy

Trevor Garrison Smith

https://doi.org/10.16997/book5

Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare

Scott Timcke

https://doi.org/10.16997/book6

The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism

Edited by Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano

https://doi.org/10.16997/book11

The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies

Annika Richterich

https://doi.org/10.16997/book14

Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation

Kane X. Faucher

https://doi.org/10.16997/book16

The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness

Edited by Joan Pedro-Caraana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn

https://doi.org/10.16997/book27

Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism

Edited by Jeremiah Morelock

https://doi.org/10.16997/book30

Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis and Alex Pazaitis

https://doi.org/10.16997/book33

Bubbles and Machines: Gender, Information and Financial Crises

Micky Lee

https://doi.org/10.16997/book34

Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour and Globalization

Edited by Vincent Rouz

https://doi.org/10.16997/book38

The Condition of Digitality: A Post-Modern Marxism for the Practice of Digital Life

Robert Hassan

https://doi.org/10.16997/book44

Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software

Benjamin J. Birkinbine

https://doi.org/10.16997/book39

The Internet Myth: From the Internet Imaginary to Network Ideologies

Paolo Bory

https://doi.org/10.16997/book48

Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory

Christian Fuchs

https://doi.org/10.16997/book45

Marx and Digital Machines: Alienation, Technology, Capitalism

Mike Healy

https://doi.org/10.16997/book47

The Commons: Economic Alternatives in the Digital Age

Vangelis Papadimtropoulos

https://doi.org/10.16997/book46

Intellectual Commons and the Law: A Normative Theory for Commons-Based Peer Production

Antonios Broumas

https://doi.org/10.16997/book49

The Fight Against Platform Capitalism: An Inquiry into the Global Struggles of the Gig Economy

Jamie Woodcock

https://doi.org/10.16997/book51

AI for Everyone: Critical Perspectives

Edited by Pieter Verdegem

https://doi.org/10.16997/book55

Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy

Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita

Published By

University of Westminster Press

115 New Cavendish Street

London W1W 6UW

www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk

Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita 2021

Series cover concept: Mina Bach (minabach.co.uk)

First published 2021

Print and digital versions typeset by Siliconchips Services Ltd.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-914386-25-1

ISBN (PDF): 978-1-914386-26-8

ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-914386-27-5

ISBN (Kindle): 978-914386-28-2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book59

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc -nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying and distributing the work, providing author attribution is clearly stated, that you are not using the material for commercial purposes, and that modified versions are not distributed.

The full text of this book has been peer-reviewed to ensure high academic standards. For full review policies, see: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/publish.

Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Suggested Citation: Morelock, Jeremiah and Narita, Felipe Ziotti. 2021. The Society of the Selfie: Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy . London: University of Westminster Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book59. License: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0

To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.16997/book59or scan this QR code with your mobile device

Thanks are due to Lauren Langman, Christine Payne, Ayesha Hussain, Jared Friedman, Crystal Ward, Peter Hudis, Hille Haker, Constanza Filloy, Deepika Marya, Sally Mju, Sunayani Bhattacharya and Forrest Muelrath, whose insights and continued participation in the Research Network on Dialectics & Society (formerly the Critical Theory Research Network) reading and discussion groups have benefitted us greatly. Thanks are also due to Joanne, Lucy and Viana Morelock for the continuing patience and support. During the writing of this book, some topics and critical approaches were continuously discussed within postdoctoral trainings, conferences, talks and roundtables that supported our research: we thank Vnia Martino, Oswaldo Serra Truzzi, Agnaldo de Sousa Barbosa, Reinaldo Furlan, Srgio C. Fonseca, Jan Sowa, Alexandre Fontaine, Krystian Szadkowski, Tatiana Noronha de Souza, Genaro Alvarenga Fonseca, Alexandre M. Mendes, Hlio Alexandre Silva, Antonio Marco Ventura Martins and Rafael Cardoso de Mello. Special thanks to the So Paulo State University (UNESP), which provided funds to our academic exchanges. We would also like to thank Christian Fuchs, the anonymous reviewers and Andrew Lockett of the University of Westminster Press, whose attention and patience made this book viable.

CHAPTER 1

As we begin the second decade of the twenty-first century, two trends are immediately apparent. First, more than ever before, a substantial portion of our social relations are taking place online. Any kind of dichotomy between the real and the virtual has become difficult to sustain. Second, authoritarian and populist social movements have surged in popularity throughout the world, placing the stability of liberal democracy into question. In this book we argue that these two saturations of our social terrain, that of information technologies and that of authoritarian ideologies, are deeply related. This does not mean that in some simplistic sense informational technologies are the cause of authoritarian populism, nor vice versa. Our claim is that certain characteristics of neoliberal capitalism have dovetailed with and been amplified by the proliferation of information technologies and social media, and that these overdetermined tendencies have poked with increasing vigour at a selection of psychosocial wounds, already endemic to neoliberal capitalism, that tend to inspire authoritarian and populist reaction.