Expansions in networked communications .media reinforce the hegemony of democratic rhetoric. Far from de-democratized, the contemporary ideological formation of communicative capitalism fetishizes speech, opinion, arid participation. It embeds us in a mindset wherein the number of friends one has on Facebook or MySpace, the number of page-hits one gets on one's blog, and the number of videos featured on one's You Tube channel are the key markers of success, and details such as duration, depth of commitment, corporate and financial influence, access to structures of decision-making, and the narrowing of political struggle to the standards of do-it-yourself entertainment culture become the boring preoccupations of baby-boomers stuck in the past. Chapter 1 details how communicative capitalism materializes and repurposes democratic ideals and aspirations in ways that strengthen and support globalized neoliberalism. The proliferation, distribution, acceleration, and intensification of communicative access and opportunity produce a deadlocked democracy incapable of serving as a form for progressive political and economic change. So the problem isn't democratization. It's the left's failure to think beyond democracy and defend a vision of equality and solidarity, its unwillingness to reinvent its modes of dreaming.
INTRODUCTION
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