The rise of the digital agora. Transformations of public space in the age of intangible capital as religion

Abstract

In today’s globalisation, there are signs that the nature, accumulation and circulation of Capital are undergoing deep changes. Digitalisation is one of the key drivers in this process. Meanwhile, a metamorphosis of how we see the public sphere is under way, interwoven with the new forms of Capital. The paper analyses the notion of a “virtual agora” (Mitchell) to explore how politics is transformed in this new age of dematerialised Capital. Taking this perspective, we study some public policy models used in digital platforms. For this purpose, we take two paradigmatic cases: (1) the new agora for the policy sphere once it has become a virtual realm; (2) the citizen as an agent in cybernetic media. These mutations will be examined through two philosophical and political lenses. Walter Benjamin’s insights on Capitalism as a theological and political phenomenon constitute one lens. The other is the notion of “apparatus” proposed by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in his archaeology of oikonomia as a way of managing life in contemporary societies.