Alienation also plays a role in the context of knowledge and communication. In capitalism, communication is “instrument and content” (Lefebvre 1971, 116–117). Lefebvre argues that in capitalism, active groups with active communication practices are replaced by “formal communication, means thus becoming ends and form content”, ideologies (1971, 120), and “emptiness filled with signs” (1971, 135). Table 5.9 gives an overview of alienated and disalienated knowledge and communication. Table 5.10 shows a) the role of capitalist accumulation in respect to knowledge and communication and b) accumulation in digital capitalism<sup>2</sup>.
Accumulation in communicative capitalism and digital capitalism results in particular forms of the social antagonisms characteristic for capitalism. Table 5.11 gives an overview of these antagonisms.
142
Theorists
2 Studies of the Internet that have been influenced by Lefebvre include, for example, Bakardjieva, 2005; Nunes 2006; Poster 2006, part III.