Chapter 4’s title is “Adorno and the Media in Digital Capitalism”. The aim of the chapter is to show the relevance of Theodor W. Adorno’s critical theory for the analysis of digital capitalism. After an introduction (section 4.1), section 4.2 deals with prejudices against Adorno. Outright rejection and opposition to Adorno are particularly prevalent in the field of Cultural Studies. Section 4.3 engages with and updates the notion of the culture industry in the age of digital capitalism. It outlines the foundation of the concept of the digital culture industry. Section 4.4 updates Adorno’s concept and theory of the authoritarian personality. Drawing on empirical research on how Donald Trump and other right-wing authoritarians use Twitter and other social media, it is shown how authoritarianism is communicated on social media. Section 4.5 deals with the question whether we live in a digital society or digital capitalism. It builds on a similar question that Adorno was asking about industrialism, namely Do we live in an industrial society or in a capitalist society? Taken together, the analysis aims to show the relevance of Adorno’s critical theory as part of an update of Marxist theory in the 21st century for the critical analysis of communication and digital capitalism.
Chapter 5’s title is “Communication in Everyday (Digital) Life. A Reading of Henri Lefebvre’s Critique of Everyday Life in the Age of Digital Capitalism”. Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991) was one of the most influential French Marxist intellectuals of the 20th century. Chapter 4 asks: How can Henri Lefebvre’s Critique of Everyday Life inform a critical theory of communication? How can it inform a critique of digital capitalism?
Everyday life is an important category for a dialectical theory of society and communication. Lefebvre stresses the dialectical multidimensionality of society and alienation, which allows us to distinguish between the economic, political, and the cultural as dialectically interacting and interpenetrating dimensions of society, capitalism, alienation in general, capitalist alienation, and alienation in digital capitalism. Lefebvre reminds us of the predominantly capitalist character of digital technologies. In digital capitalism, we find an ideology that mystifies information and the digital. Computing has the potential to deepen capitalism and class and to advance socialist selfmanagement. Lefebvre’s work resonates with the critical theory of digital labour.
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Introduction