Images and Power in the Digital Age: The political role of digital visuality

Abstract

Abstract:The idea that digitalization, in general, and digital visuality, in particular, can have, alone, subversive or otherwise, emancipative effects on politics is based on the belief that the ideological apparatus supporting hegemonic relations consists of false ideas that the "power of images" can effectively challenge once larger parts of society are given access to this "power". This idea misinterprets the role of digital visuality by misconstruing the role of ideology, and by positioning visual communication and associated technology in a sort of socio-political vacuum: beyond the reach of ideology and the relations of power supported by it. Based on the insights provided by the classical works of Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard on the visual construction of reality, I argue that an authoritative discussion of the cultural, social and political implications of digital visuality in Western societies invites the intellectual positioning of this process within the broader framework of hegemonic capitalism and the problems of control associated with it. My main point is that in Western societies, the actualization of the subversive potential of digital visuality, as well as that of other forms of communication, requires material conditions that depend on ideology rather than technology. These ideological conditions explain why, for example, digital visuality may be effective in the cultural and socio-political subversion of non-capitalist societies. In Western societies, however, despite the extensive subcultural uses of digital visuality, the subversive potential is fatally reduced (if not nullified) by mechanisms that can be subsumed in what Frederic Jameson called "the cultural logic of late capitalism". In support of my main argument, I offer some preliminary reflections on the media coverage of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the uses of organized violence in the "Arab Spring" of 2011.

The Level of Education and Digital Political Culture: Facing the 2019 Election in Mengkudu Bay, North Sumatra

“…Media in the digital era has changed the pattern of communication and the formulation of netizens political decisions regarding the public agenda and political preferences [44]. Digital devices form images to give access to power [45]. Digital media bridges the digital community in democratic activities and political participation of young people [46].…”

Digital Visuality and Social Representation. Research Notes on the Visual Construction of meaning

“…In a previous discussion (Stocchetti, 2014), I argued that the idea that digital visuality can have emancipative, political functions is based on problematic beliefs concerning the relation of visuality with truth, community and the construction of the real. These beliefs are associated with the use of images in accordance with at least three main logics or "principles" which I described as follows:…”

“…BBC International) to re-appropriate those images. In this process of re-appropriation the notion of revenge seems a plausible interpretative key in terms of both the truth claim and the community building functions associated to the usage of (digital) imagery (Stocchetti 2014). In relation to their truth claim or the "reality principle", those images are anchored in the idea that (Western) democracy is advancing in those countries.…”

Storytelling and Education in the Digital Age

“…This belief not only underestimates the capacity for resistance of these regimes but, most unfortunately, also simplifies the complexity associated with successful revolutionary efforts and the role of material and immaterial factors such organisation, ideology, leadership etc. (Stocchetti, 2014). These interpretations of the 'power' of images depoliticise the process through which not only the meaning of images but the meaning of visuality is established.…”