Mimesis and Conspiracy

Abstract

But many new media objects are converted from various forms of old media. Although most readers understand the difference between analog and digital media, few notes should be added on the terminology and the conversion process itself. In addition to using the metaphor of a fractal, we can also make an analogy between modularity of new media and the structured computer programming. Structural computer programming which became standard in the 1970s involves writing small and self-sufficient modules (called in different computer languages subroutines, functions, procedures, scripts) which are assembled into larger programs. Bureaucracy is the structure and set of regulations in place to control activity, usually in large organizations and government. As opposed to adhocracy , it is represented by standardized procedure (rule-following) that dictates the execution of most or all processes within the body, formal division of powers, hierarchy, and relationships. In practice the interpretation and execution of policy can lead to informal influence. Bureaucracy, New Media and the Infrastructural Forms of Doubt. Michael Vine and Matthew Carey. Keywords: bureaucracy; chemtrail; conspiracy theory; doubt; infrastructure; internet; mimesis. This article focuses on the wealth of conspiracy theories that crystallized around chemtrails and the Californian drought to examine the genre more generally. It suggests that the particular constellation of certainty and doubt present in conspiracy arguments is a product of the fundamentally mimetic nature of conspiratorial thought, which espouses the contours of the infrastructural environment in which it emerges. In our case, this infrastructural environment is that of bureaucracy on the one hand and the architecture of the internet on the other. Conspiratorial thought is one of the hallmarks of late modernity. This article focuses on the wealth of conspiracy theories that crystallized around chemtrails and the Californian drought to examine the genre more generally. It suggests that the particular constellation of certainty and doubt present in conspiracy arguments is a product of the fundamentally mimetic nature of conspiratorial thought, which espouses the contours of the infrastructural environment in which it emerges. In our case, this infrastructural environment is that of bureaucracy on the one hand and the architecture of the internet on the other. Each of these infrastructures helps to shape conspiratorial thought in a distinct manner, and the confluence of the two imparts to the genre its particular flavour.