On the proletarian public sphere and its contemporaneity: crises, class and the media

This article attempts a critical enquiry into contem­porary politics and culture as characterized by a prolonged capitalist crisis and its concomitant economic, social, political, and environmental dimensions. The article highlights the position of the working class today, and its critical potential for a politics of social change, and socialism. Class is understood in intersectional terms, taking into consideration the associations of ethnicity, race and gender in the formation of classed subjects in a globalized world. The experience of the lower classes in structural as well as political terms, is largely negated from publicity, or assimilated and distorted by the media and cultural industries. This has dire consequences for understanding the crisis, its causes, effects, and possible solutions, interpellating the working class and the poor to bourgeois norms and sensibilities. The negation of proletarian voices and the mediation of the proletarian experience by hegemonic bourgeois ideas is theoretically discussed, drawing on the proletarian public sphere notion, and also by looking at empirical contexts of media practices (notably the mainstream news coverage of the Greek/European economic crisis of the 2010’s, and the European “refugee crisis” from 2015 onwards). By not addressing the systemic foundations of crises (e.g., economic, humanitarian) in their complexity, the insecurities triggered by neoliberalism are articulated by liberal pundits and mainstream media through discourses blaming targeted groups (e.g., migrants and workers of the European periphery). Hence, the development of effective antagonistic politics, relies on the creation of both organizational forms and communication structures, to produce shared meanings and identities, as well as political goals and strategies; class perspectives are crucial to overcome the prolonged, current political impasse that capitalist society reproduces, and the possibility to overcome the crises that capitalism produces

Megaproject development in the context of sustainable urban regeneration

Megaprojects are large-scale ventures of inherent great complexity; they last long, cost much, and affect the lives of a significant number of people. A common type of megaprojects that aspire to (re)form the so-called “cities of tomorrow” is the urban megaprojects, i.e., megaprojects including all types of infrastructure involved for a holistic intervention in the city’s environment. The decision to initiate and develop such projects, though, is a very hard task that requires the inclusion of a broad agenda of issues to be taken into consideration, such as: a) scarcity of required resources, b) assessment of the project’s decisive impact on the structure of urban functions and city planning, c) alignment with the principles of urban sustainability, etc. This paper reviews the interface between urban megaprojects and urban sustainability taking into consideration the emergence of smart cities. Through synthesis and comparative analysis of these concepts, the paper explores their compatibility and the extent to which they can be integrated, in order to promote the growing needs of contemporary cities in a manner that reduces resource waste, environmental pollution and the creation of social inequalities. Some examples of case studies around the world are used to lighten the associated challenges to megaprojects in the urban environment context. Based on the above analysis, the paper provides an analytical overview of crucial aspects, such as the early stakeholder engagement, the adoption of a problem-solving oriented strategy, and useful recommendations for future policy makers

Accumulation, control and contingency; a critical review of intellectual property rights' "piracy"

This article problematizes piracy a) as a hegemonic discourse and technology of control, aiming to securitize late capitalist accumulation; b) as a practice developed by the multitudes that is compatible to post–Fordist mode of production and to neoliberal norms; and, c) as resistance to dominant mode of late capitalist production, distribution and consumption of immaterial goods. The article addresses and criticizes capitalism’s ‘organic’ and strategic colonization of fundamental social commons, such as culture, intellectual goods, as well as human creativity and communication, by looking at the ideological, institutional and material processes that reproduce the capitalist ‘machine’. This paper concludes by considering the possibility of overcoming the capitalist approach to commons, through the politicization of IPR as well as through the connection of the problem they pose to broader social perspectives, confronting capitalism — in its post political disguises — politically

Civic culture and informal media uses: Poles and Greeks discussing “free culture”

The article begins from critical accounts addressing the crisis of politics and citizenship today, to study the civic potential that several media and social scholars view in informal practices that include the usage of new media and information and communication technologies. On one hand, new media and ICT are noted to empower individual users and groups, to provide spaces of voice and debate and furthermore, to allow possibilities of individual and collective creativity to grow. Such possibilities are noted to be democratic as they provide individuals and social groups possibilities for inclusion and participation, irrespectively of social or ethnic background. On the other hand, critical political economy literature connects such developments to the processes of commodification and accumulation that characterize late capitalist economy, which has little to do with democratic politics. The article discusses the two arguments while looking at the concrete realities of new media/ICT uses, through empirical research with interviews of heavy users of new media/ICT structures, in two different EU countries, Greece and Poland. Research and analysis is organized according to Dahlgren’s civic circuit model. The analysis shows that new media and ICT’s civic and pre-political potential is contingent to the dynamic nature of social contexts and cannot be perceived in defacto terms

Crisis, austerity and opposition in mainstream media discourses of Greece

This article analyzes neoliberal articulations of the economic crisis in Greece, as they appear at the Ekathimerini daily. Neoliberalism is primarily understood as the ideology organizing the political strategies of late capitalist production. The analysis focuses on the ways the capitalist crisis is presented in the context of Greece, as well as the ways that socio-political opposition to neoliberal reforms are addressed. Ekathimerini reproduces the hegemonic explanations of the crisis that view the crisis as a national and moral problem rather than a global and systemic one. The analysis draws concepts from both discourse theory and critical theory. Discourse theory analyzes the neoliberal discourse organizing the political interventions for the reproduction of capitalism in the crisis-context, while political economy critiques the materiality of the capitalist process, which itself is based on discourses and political interventions. The article concludes that Ekathimerini’s crisis-coverage contributes to the form of social engineering organized by neoliberal policies in Greece, in order to produce the political and social norms for a post-crisis configuration of capitalism

A Critical Study of Informal New Media Uses in Sweden

This study looks at a variety of "informal" uses of new media and ICTs. The term informal describes popular uses of digital technologies that often exist outside the norms, laws, and codes that dictate how digital technologies and networks are to be used. Such activities include what is commonly described as "piracy," but also embrace different peer-to-peer practices. Informal activities develop due to the affordances of digital technologies, which allow space for creativity and personalization of use, but are also due to broader sociocultural variables and contextual issues. In general terms, informal activities are those that concern the amateur activities of people using digital programs, tools, and networks. Media scholars see great potential in new media/ICT affordances, as related to the proliferation of grassroots participation, communication, and creativity. Nevertheless, a growing critical literature forces us to examine the actualization of such potential. This paper discusses the aforementioned issues by looking at new media/ICT uses in Sweden; it departs from critical perspectives that take into consideration the political economy of new media, and the cultural-political critiques of late-modern consumer societies

Discourses of counter-Islamic-threat mobilization in post 9/11 documentaries

This article critically studies documentaries focusing on the "Islamic terrorist threat", produced in the US and in Western Europe. The particular films relate to the discourses of the growing far right political movements in liberal democracies. The article analyzes the communicational tactics deployed by the filmmakers for counter-terrorist mobilization of "Westerners". The films' producers objectify the terrorist threat as exceptional and ontological, in order to reconfigure the identity of the "West". The analysis focuses on representations of the West's threatening Other through the reflexive use of critical discourse analysis and post structuralist, discourse theory. Counter-threat strategies, varying from warfare to biopolitical control, are articulated as social demands and as individualized tasks of inclusion to the ideological space of the West and the sovereign space of western nation states. The critical study of the particular documentaries aims at highlighting the regressive and character of the passionate discourses of far right media, in relation to the political crisis that liberal democracies across the world are facing

'Amateur Creation and Entrepreneurialism: A Critical Study of Artistic Production in Post-Fordist Structures

Based on an interview with a hip-hop artist from Eastern Poland, this article critically assesses amateur art pro-duction proliferating throughout the globe today through individuals’ creative usages of new ICTs and new media affordances. The post-Fordist material and ideological context of contemporary social life is the main focus point of the article’s critique. Scarcity, dispossession, and entrepreneurship are the main analytical concepts used to develop a critical analysis and explanation of mainstream realities of amateur artistic production today. Within a context defined by precarious work conditions and prospects, material scarcity, and consumerist aspirations, media and technological potentialities are strategically used by the amateur artist-entrepreneur a) as resources where creativity is put to work for potential socio-economic elevation and inclusion in the global industrial artistic scene (in the case of private ICT), b) as “free” resources, appropriated for entrepreneurial aspirations (in the case of “free“ digital material circulating online, particularly through peer to peer networks), c) as channels for self promotion and networking (in the case of web 2.0 structures). What is often less apparent to the amateur artists, though, concerns the exploitative capacities of corporate Internet to dispossess amateur work and online social relations for the purposes of capital accumulation and reproduction. Unless critiqued, “free culture” -generated by new ICTs and new media- is assimilated by the material and ideological power of late capitalism and is “put to work” for the (re)production of late capitalism. The article concludes by suggesting the critical challenging of the mainstream artistic identity and the critical use and appropriation of new media/ICT’s potentialities