Comunicação e subjetividade na cibercultura: contribuição para a crítica da (des)subjetivação em redes sociais digitais

Abstract

This research focuses on the forms of subjectification in cyberculture, which is understood as a time-related category pertaining to the advanced stage of mediatic capitalism. The focus of attention is on appropriative practices that condition the constitution of individuals in digital social networks, taken as the latest configuration of the device of mediatic visibility. The paradox that lies at the core of mediatically qualified life consists in the fact that individuals actively constituted in/by the appropriation of the technocommunication tools in question are immediately caught up in power strategies that ensure the conductibility of mediatic capitalism in the cybercultural-interactive phase. The corpus of analysis comprises the communication tools of Facebook, such as the autobiographical profile and the practices of like and share, which are understood simultaneously as elements of a technological selfie culture and as power technologies that make-produce signs for marketing and political purposes. In this context, the following questions are raised: How does the process of subjectification occur on Facebook? To what extent can it be stated that communication in this mediatic environment constitutes a capturing system? What is the modus operandi of this capture exerted upon/by the constitution of communicative individuals on Facebook? This work examines two main hypotheses: [1] digital social networks are observatories for typically cybercultural forms of subjectification, which provide access to the modus operandi of contemporary mediatic capitalism; and [2] the communication practices of these networks constitute ambivalent power strategies, since the technologies of the self through which communicative individuals are formed can also be understood as capture technologies. The objectives are to develop a typified understanding of mediatic visibility as a device; dissect the ways in which this device invests and captures communication flows; and grasp the social signification of digital social networks in the context of advanced mediatic capitalism. The theoretical rationale of this research draws primarily on postmodern theory (Jean-François Lyotard, David Harvey, Fredric Jameson), on the critical epistemology of cyberculture (Eugênio Trivinho, Arthur Kroker, Muniz Sodré) and on the theories of biopower/society of control (Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt). With this proposal, we hope to contribute to debates about the political double bind that is established in the appropriation (individual and/or collective) of the new technologies of communication power