The Aestheticization of Counterpower

Abstract

The impact of new communication technologies—especially social networks such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook—on democracy and mass movements has been a core subject in the area of social and political research ever since these technologies have started to play a crucial role in dissemination of ideas that go beyond the limits of mass media and foster symmetrical communication on an unprecedented scale. One of the important features of these technologies is the image sharing ability with network members. It is a propulsive force to turn a crowd into a mass with creating a collective subjectivity (the we) of mass through image, which turns into an iconography. This iconography is per se an aesthetic medium of ideology that is against the political totalizations in new digital public sphere. Thus, in this chapter, the authors focus on the formation of new social movements in network societies, then the aesthetic dimension of iconographic images in these movements.