The advent of technology has changed human lives and created novel dimensions in the way we consume information and create relationships between individuals and groups. Technology has invaded many aspects of life, including education, work, socialization, and health. Every day, the media is awash information about how people have lost their humanity to social media. Society should be anxious about how technology has changed life completely, both the negative and positive. Algorithms have reduced selves to mere data. Promoters of social media have created counter-narratives that technology can solve many problems, including our health problems, and prevent catastrophic consequences of political and social issues such as climate change. In socio-cultural dynamics, it is necessary to respond to the ongoing changes using digital consumer theories and digital consumer culture, and digital acculturation. Although many topics can be explained through digital anthropology and communicative capitalism, the Alt-Right as a digital culture is exciting and fascinating to study.
Digital Anthropology
Digital technology has increased and taken over many aspects of life and transformed the lives of millions of people globally. Computers, video games, mobile phones, wearable devices, and social media have changed individuals and communities through massive data and information and the ability to communicate across local and national borders. Daniel Miller’s Digital Anthropology is one of the new theories developed to explain society’s changes that computers and the Internet have caused. The theory provides the mechanism to explain various emerging digital practices, social networking sites, virtual worlds, digital politics, and geolocative media. The theory provides an anthropological approach in studying digital culture (Miller 2018). Digital platforms have created a Second Life eradicating the misconception that the online world is somehow fusing with the offline world. Miler and other digital anthropologists claim that the two worlds are different and have their respective characteristics. Online and Internet technology has created changes that are entirely different from the offline world.
The study of human relationships that occur in social media is one focus of Digital Anthropology. The development of digital technologies created an opportunity for scholars to learn how to use the tools effectively for research and communication purposes. The platforms promote anthropological research, sharing findings, and encourage the understanding of digital communities. Cyberspace has created unlimited possibilities for observational analysis since many lives and activities have moved from the physical to the digital world. Online communities have emerged with new sets of social norms, traditions, practices, storied history, and related collective memory. However, the communities differ from the normal ones since they are built around online platforms and open-source software and comprise politically motivated groups (Miller 2018). They are also anonymous and allow users to post any information without the fear of identification. As a result, the social world has become an interesting field of study to learn how lives have changed and the many things that occur in cyberspace.
Communicative Capitalism
Another theory of understanding the digital world is communicative capitalism. The world has entered the digital phase in which knowledge and political events are understood from what people do on online platforms. Digital platforms have created a knowledge class that takes up space actively to fight for their rights and defend themselves from exploitation. Communicative capitalism explains the emergence of people proletarianized under the struggles of the multitude. People use social media for various purposes, including the struggle for democracy or struggle, particularly in local settings (or grassroots) (Dean 2019). The struggles are not simply reactive or defensive, but class wars are fought around communicative capitalism to pressure society to make changes and address issues, such as unemployment, wage stagnation, and declining home values. However, it is misleading to think that protects occur just because they have access to social media since class struggles to create a better society, especially for the exploited classes.
The social media platforms have created a knowledge class that uses them to fight their actual or perceived rights. They are struggling for equal representation in society, democracy, and the freedom of networked individuals. The knowledge class refers to the people whose communicative actions generate value that they are traditionally denied. While class struggle has always existed in society, it has moved to digital media, creating a wide reach through the environment’s global nature. A good example of understanding the change is looking at events, such as Occupy Wall Street (OWS), which engaged highly-educated youth in protests through social media for political and social change (Dean 2019). Social media creates an environment and voice that lacks in the ordinary world due to creating online communities and the anonymity made possible by social media networks. Besides, they effectively reach the target leaders and gain global support.
The “Alt-Right”
The alt-right movement is one of the recent developments within Digital Anthropology and the digital culture. The movement is a primary actor in the emerging digital culture since it has achieved considerable publicity due to the online presence. During the 2014 Gamergate controversy, the movement became prominent, becoming one of the most mysterious movements publicized by mainstream and print media (Lorenzo-Dus & Nouri 2020). The movement is challenging to define but has important themes that improve understanding, such as alt-right subgroups, unambiguous rejection of immigration and multiculturalism, and feminist criticism. The movement emerged from creating a manosphere community, categorized into diverse objectives and subcultures (such as incels, men’s rights activists, pick-up artists, and Men Going Their Own Way). Demographically, the majority of the movement’s members are white heterosexual males, who perceive dispossession and resentfulness towards the social makeup (Daniels 2018). The group self-identifies as the defender of western civilization’s decline as a result of immigration and multiculturalism.
Such movements as alt-right generate considerable following due to social media’s power to create communities and send the message to the masses. The impact is also greater than in movements that occur in the physical space. One of the movement’s effects has been aggression built in the social media but descending to the real world and affecting real people. For example, on a late summer evening in 2017, members of the group perpetrated violence in Virginia (Munn 2019). The protestors went to Charlottesville, Virginia, holding up tiki-torches to defend General Robert E. Lee’s statue. They perceived the need to defend the statue in what they considered “Unite the Right” rally. Although the event took place in the real world, they organized the rally online, generating a considerable following and a devastating impact. They also engaged in violence on August 13, in which White nationalists protested against counter-protestors. One of the nationalists drove his vehicle into a multiracial crowd and killed one and 19 others seriously injured (Lorenzo-Dus & Nouri 2020). The events indicated the power of social media in organizing people under communicative capitalism.
The alt-right movement indicates the algorithmic emergence of White nationalism in the United States. Social media has facilitated White nationalism, which has gone “from being a conversation you could hold in a bathroom, to the front parlor” (Daniels 2018). According to communicative capitalism, the social class is fighting for what they perceive as their rights and perceived threat to their white supremacy. The movement comprises communities of White males with status anxiety about the declining white social power (Bezio 2018). However, the actual nature and role of the movement are controversial. Some critics feel that the movement is an ill-fated swirl in the gigantic ocean of Internet culture (Hawley 2017). Digital anthropology explains the reality of the emergence of groupings around a common subject or cause. Filter bubbles caused and exacerbated polarization and facilitated the spreading of Internet memes and propaganda that the members of the movement promulgated. The emerging technology has played a vital role in the extensive communication of the message about white nationalism.
Although the feelings of the decline of white supremacy due to immigration and multiculturalism emerged earlier than the social media, the development has caused its extensive reach and influence across the United States. In the 1990s, the movement communicated the message related to popular culture and politicians using printed newsletters. However, they would not achieve the extent of the impact like they do in the wake of new media and the ability to reach millions of individuals within a relatively short time (Fielitz & Thurston 2018). Digital anthropologists have studied the digital media’s uniqueness that makes it an appealing ground for protectors and other groups that perceive oppression and denial of their rights (Munn 2019). They reveal the emerging media ecosystem that algorithms have powered and provided tools for youth to fight for different causes. Through online platforms, young people can meet and share out information to support their objective. The white supremacy movement is evident in social media, explaining the extensive impact.
The emergence of the alt-right movement reveals a new dimension of the centuries-old racism in the United States. However, the current environment for its perpetration is a media ecosystem powered by algorithms. Social media sites and related algorithms have changed how White nationalists use the Internet to support their cause (Lorenzo-Dus & Nouri 2020). Digital anthropologists have studied White supremacy’s dual vantage point, its existence in the real world, and the social media world. White supremacy has always existed in the United States but has incarnated in the new media algorithms, which achieve various objectives. First, algorithms deliver search results for those seeking to join and identify with the movement and connect with new members to advance the cause (Munn 2019). For example, Dylan Roof searched on the Internet for “black on white crime”, which generated loads of racist websites and proposals for other people to join the hatred. Secondly, algorithms hasten the spreading of White supremacist ideology through the fast delivery of relevant information to social media users. For example, memes, such as “Pepe the Frog” travel from 4chan or Reddit have allowed the spreading of the message perpetrating hatred in the United States (Daniels 2018). Lastly, Cable news networks support the algorithms to move from social media to the mainstream political agenda. The Internet has allowed the white supremacy movement to become relevant across the United States.
The movement comprises “innovation opportunists” taking advantage of new technologies to create and disseminate their message. Some of the fascinating things to digital anthropologists studying the movement are how racial issues are embedded on the Internet and the reality and operation of white supremacy in the United States (Winter 2019). While white supremacy has always existed in the United States, the alt-right would not have succeeded devoid of the tech-enabled infrastructure. The emergence of the movement contradicts the idea of the Internet as building a “race-less” society by challenging the historical reality in the United States (Daniels 2018). The Internet has always been an avenue for communicating mind-to-mind without race, gender, or disabilities. However, the reality is completely different since the Internet has fueled hatred along the boundaries of race, just as it has always been in the US. The media has created a conducive environment for members of the movement to utilize user-generated content to send racial messages just white supremacy has achieved its objective in the past.
The new media firms appear powerless regarding the role of their platforms in creating a negative environment for Americans who are perceived as out-groups. For example, after Charlottesville, many media firms kicked alt-right members off their platforms, which led to major backlash from many players in the sector (Lorenzo-Dus & Nouri 2020). The idea of freedom of media and expression is one of the factors behind the power of social media users over the Internet. They argued that those companies that shut them down used their political opinions to deny them the chance to be on the Internet. Many internet users apply the rights argument to claim that they have the right to speak and be heard through the Internet with its capacity to reach millions of audiences. The communicative capitalism idea explains how people consider digital applications as an effective way of protecting the oppressed class. Content creators make racial categories into drop-down menus and create a visual culture that categorizes people between the oppressed and the oppressor (Fielitz & Thurston 2018). The modern “Whitelash” is algorithmically amplified, hastened, and circulated to the masses through social media.
The search engine algorithms and related autocomplete features suggest racial categorization to users and direct them to sites with information about the opposition to join and support the cause. The race has become coded and communicated to the same media that purports to support color-blindness in technology. Social media and its mechanism enable the White nationalists to use technological innovations to their advantage. Unfortunately, even creators of media content, such as movies, perpetrate the idea and communicate it to the audience for support. For example, D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915) was a “disgustingly racist” media product that youth could easily use to advance the white supremacy agenda (Ganesh 2020). While the idea was evident long before the advent of social media, it has become more pronounced during the modern era in which youth can create their content and post it on different social networking sites (Ganesh 2020). Unfortunately, the lack of controls on the kind of content a person can post on the sites has led to misleading and fake content to support the white supremacy ideology.
The proponents of the movement have created a solid social media presence and tools to attract others to their cause. For example, the martin luther king dot org is one of the websites with critical information about the modern communicative capitalism in which the media is currently being used in the name of fighting for justice and the rights of the oppressed. The “one-to-many” change in media and Internet’s “many-to-many” models have changed the way people understand and pursue their rights (Daniels 2018). They spread a higher level of propaganda and fake information than the conventional media to distort the truth and gain followers. Besides, they operate in a sharing context without gatekeepers. They have used the media to effectively question the moral, cultural, and political victory of past movements, such as civil rights, and undermine leaders’ reputations like Dr. King (Lorenzo-Dus & Nouri 2020). For example, the luther king dot org includes information suggesting that slavery was not a negative thing. White nationalists of the alt-right use the social media sites to revert back the country to the era when white supremacy ruled.
Social media is fast and effective in spreading ideas and symbols that followers receive and view in real-time. Their algorithms accelerate and amplify the information, creating a worse impact than would be possible in their absence (Lorenzo-Dus & Nouri 2020). For example, “Pepe the Frog” is a seemingly harmless cartoon character completely transformed in meaning. The Anti-Defamation League, in September 2016, appended the character to the database of offensive symbols distributed online. Through social media, white nationalists turned Pepe into their icon. Efforts to remake Pepe started on /r9k/, a 4chan board with numerous users, such as tech people, hackers, White supremacists, and libertarians. The 4chan content is attractive and communicates to millions of users since it contains diverse types of information from images of cute kittens to violently disturbing language and pictures. Unfortunately, it is one of the most popular sites in the modern social media world (with 20 million unique monthly visitors), speaking about the number of people the content is likely to corrupt (Daniels 2018). Furthermore, a wide range of ideas have become tolerated in public discourse following social media’s rise. Many social media users have accepted the white supremacist rhetoric without their realization due to the power of the platforms.
Conclusion
Many topics can be explained through digital anthropology and communicative capitalism, but the Alt-Right as a digital culture is one of the most interesting and widespread ideologies in the modern social media world. The movement seeks to defend white supremacy from immigration, multiculturalism, and what they perceive as a decline in American civilization. Members spread their ideas and seek support through social media, creating content and sending messages that create sympathy towards the cause. The movement has engaged in effective protests organized on social media, leading to digital anthropologists’ need to study their cause as part of communicative capitalism. Their findings indicate the massive reach of the alt-right movement and its impact in the United States. The algorithmic amplified movement changes relationships between different races and cultures in the US enabled by the rise in social media. The power of digital social networking worsens the impact of such movements.
References
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