Towards the Aestheticisation of the Resistances in the Digital Age? A Critical Approach

Abstract

Are we facing a process of aestheticisation of the resistances in the digital age? To answer this question, I propose a concept that characterises modes of resistance in specific places and historical times: the Social Form of the Protest (SFP). The SFP is defined by protest tactics, such as demonstrations and barricades, and structural axes of confrontation, such as capital-labour and centre-periphery. Previous resistances to the inequalities generated by modern industrial capitalism were expressed through an equally modern SFP, born as a reaction to its power structures. At present, digital innovation appears to be modifying the parameters of this dialectical relationship. On the one hand, digital social networks increase communicative potential of the contemporary SFP; but on the other they dilute its deep transformation capacity. If confined to the communicative sphere, digital social media filters may turn resistances into media products. In this process the medium and how—through Information and communications technology—are imposed on the content and what—deep transformation objectives. This results in the emergence of the aestheticisation of resistance and limits its ability to resist growing social inequalities.