Queering the media: On the postmodern spaces of emancipation

Abstract

The virtual space (especially "the new media”) provides non-normative sexual and gender identities with a great chance to change the unfavorable social situation they live in. The possibilities of emancipation, which result from new communication technologies, necessitate the return to the widely understood political, and, at the same time, they force the remodeling and adjusting of the previously used methods of strategic activity to the new environment. In the essay, the author shows that personalized access to a multitude of sources of information and an inner agonism, which is typical of virtual ways of communication, remain the foundation of the political. The main idea is supported by an analysis of events that are the signs of a change that is happening in the sphere of the political. So, we have a pluralism, which enables one to shape their identity in a free way; as a result, one develops a different perception of one's gender identity and sexuality and the meanings they acquire in the social sphere. Then, thanks to the new media, there takes place a change in the representation of queerness, which, according to Ranciere, brings about a new way of conceptualization of queerness. This opens up a totally new horizon of activism for groups who want to change their image in the social imagination. However, it is important to fill the empty spaces between in the content and the visual form of the message, which can only be possible with the agonic and conflictual structure of the message. Finally, we should take into account the way the representation is aestheticized because it remains a key issue in the process of emancipation. The political understood as an area of limitless activity, aimed at changing the representation of non-normative persons, can also soften the subversive force of a message, or remodel it for its own benefit through the opportunistic practices of the mass media. What is more, pluralisation can turn out to be an excuse for those who promote hate, or race hate, speech