{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","uuid":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","normalized_title":"curationintheageofplatformcapitalismthevalueofselectionnarrationandexpertiseinnewmediacultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","isbns":["9781032023007","9781032023014","9781003182801"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":177,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Curation%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Platform%20Capitalism%20%20The%20Value%20of%20Selection%2C%20Narration%2C%20and%20Expertise%20in%20New%20Media%20Cultures","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/search"},"page":{"printed_page":54,"pdf_page":64,"physical_index":64,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"515f88f0b6bba31b9f0b547fcd1199f7a3eca5a7b8abc922900df08bb797e777"},"chapter":"CURATION IN THE AGE OF PLATFORM CAPITALISM","content":"The rise of online communication to a social mandate is also an ideological pillar which legitimizes the supposed dialogic nature of neoliberal capitalism (Dean, 2009). This refers to the idea that the “internet is inherently democratic” because online connectivity encourages the free exchange of information and ideas allowing potentially anyone to communicate whatever they want. As Andrejevic points out, in the early Web 2.0 years, the internet was positively received by democratic publics and critical scholars alike as “a scarcity-fighting machine”; a means of providing public access to information by bypassing state monopolies or private media corporations and their vested interests (2013: 28). Social media was empowering, participatory, decentralized, collaborative, activist, and potentially democratic in their ability to coordinate petitions, hashtag activism, and protests against government or corporate mistreatment (e.g., Ellison and Hardey, 2014). This idea was popular in media studies at least until 2015, when scandals involving fake news, Cambridge Analytica and later the Capitol riots erupted—events demonstrating that the ultimate goal of corporate platforms is profit; participation and connectivity are (managed) by-products of the profit imperative.\n\nThe mandate to communicate, according to Dean, is an ideological construct that perpetuates the fantasy of neoliberal capitalism, as the regulatory concept of free communication shapes liberal modes of governance (2009). Dean cites the Iraq war, in which, despite “terabytes” of anti-war protest and counter-information, George Bush proceeded with the invasion (2009: 20). Prior to the invasion, Bush acknowledged protestors’ right to “express their opinions”, that is, he acknowledged the protestors’ concerns as valid, but he still bombed Iraq (Dean, 2009: 20). The anti-war message “morphed into so much circulating content”, which became part of the never-ending circulation of culture in communicative capitalism’s shifting and constantly renewable “disintegrated spectacles” (Dean, 2009: 20–24), as the anti-war message intertwined, for instance, with cute animal videos, images from natural disasters, and sex advice. However, the concept of unrestricted communication as a means of extracting data and legitimizing capitalism has its own set of limitations. Comparing, for example, the Bush administration’s reaction of “understanding yet disagreeing” to the Russian government’s banning and even criminalizing content that challenges its war narrative in Ukraine, demonstrates that the concept of unbound communication is contingent on geopolitical limitations (and it is only conditionally applicable in liberal capitalist societies as well5). It is important to remember that the market logic of communicative capitalism, which would ideally vouch for a communication free of interruptions or political constraints, is in practice cut short due to social or larger geopolitical antagonisms.\n\n54\n\nHomo Curatorius","previous_page":53,"next_page":55}