Michael Rossi
Department of Political Science
Program in International Relations
Long Island University Brooklyn
Spring 2021

There is no argument that social media platforms from Facebook to Reddit, from 4chan to Tumblr, and from YouTube to TikTok have taken identity politics and political culture to new levels of intensity, dedication, and competitiveness. What was already a growing sense of political segmentation from the 1960s to the 1990s, has taken off into what might as well be a lucrative market of political and cultural competitiveness in modern America. As social media platforms do less to being people of different opinions together and more in exacerbating differences, entrenching beliefs into non-negotiable positions, and seek to stigmatize the political "other" into irrationally mindless hordes, the "culture wars" have largely dominated American political discourse.

This lecture seeks to link the Internet in general and social media in particular with previously studied elements of political culture covered in class: narrative and symbol, collective memory, group identity, print capitalism, and public and private transcripts. As part of a larger collection of studies on culture and group identity, the spread of social media has largely upended previous conclusions on collective identity:

First, social media is a public forum of communication and information that is not, and cannot, be monopolized by the state; which makes the hegemony of historical memory far more challenged by alternative, and oftentimes competing, narratives of collective memories.

Second, social media platforms that project a particular socio-political ideology are each largely standardized, routinized, and moderated by a number of "print capitalists" who control and direct discourse, which like pre- and early-modern social institutions are instrumental in shaping group identity behind a collection of carefully-crafted and guarded narratives and symbols.

Third, social media has mobilized a younger generation of Americans (and other nationals) in having a platform to not just challenge social norms and the status quo, but to openly oppose it, mock it, and deride it and its followers. Thus, the culture wars of the 2010s and 2020s has taken on a far more confrontational, irreverent, and nihilistic approach by members who may not believe they can change anything for the better, but at least know they can show their disdain for what is still officially promoted as patriotic, correct, and moral.

This lecture is the first of two parts that draws from the writings of

Angela Nagle: 2017. Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right. Washington: Zero Books.

Henry Giroux: 2017. America at War with Itself. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books

The second part will examine more specific elements of online culture in the wake of Donald Trump's 2016 victory and the evolution of alt-lite and alt-right social groups.

Chapter Markers:

00:00:00 - 00:13:54 - Culture and Identity in the Digital World
00:13:54 - 00:20:53 - The Print Capitalism of Social Media
00:20:53 - 00:29:20 - The Culture Wars of the 1960s to the 1980s
00:29:20 - 00:47:52 - America in the "Interregnum": Political Culture since 2016
00:47:52 - 01:03:57 - The Narratives of the Alt-Lite and the Alt-Right
01:03:57 - 01:15:41 - Memory and Identity since 2016
01:15:41 - 01:23:26 - A Period of Political and Cultural "Formlessness"
01:23:26 - 01:31:37 - The Culture of Neoliberalism
01:31:37 - 01:39:46 - ...And the Right-Wing Backlash
01:39:46 - 01:49:40 - ...As Well as a Newly Emerging Left
01:49:40 - 01:58:29 - The Self-Destructive Consequences of Neoliberalism

свернуть