To Be Lifestreamed: The Subjectivity, Politics, and Literacy of Digital-Networked Media

The paper investigates the possibilities and problems of the (new) media political theory. The new media paradigm is defined by the Network as a distributive diagram (that allows direct peer-to-peer communication between two computers without intermediation of the central hub) and a digital sign as the flexible (manipulative, variable, programmable, "flickering") sign. Nevertheless, the design of the technology is a subject of public dispute. For that reason the paper proposes a cultural and material analysis that would discard technological determinism and domesticating metaphors in order to describe the material ground for digital network society. The paper derives Deleuze/Guattari's machinic "productivity" as a basic modus for the political actions of network subjects accustomed to lifestream. Adapted from the source document.