Marxism in the Age of New Media (Scientific and Analytical Review)
We study the works of contemporary theorists of Marxism (J. Dean, N. Dyer-Witheford, T. Eagleton, C. Fuchs, F. Jameson, L. Nakamura, S. Sim) and show the importance of Marxist methodology for analyzing the cultural and political transformation of society in the era of New Media. We use Marxist criticism of the media and ask the questions: 1) how does the Internet and New Media contribute to the emancipation of the person?; 2) to what extent does network activity of citizens lead to a “revolution of participation” and democratization of society?; 3) what is the role of the Internet in covering political events? We review the theories of “cyberdemocracy” (M. Poster), “network criticism” (E. Fisher), “political economy of the Internet” (K. Patelis), and affirm that Marx’s remarks about the logic of the development of capitalism, the essence of commodity fetishism, the mechanisms of political power transmissions made in the nineteenth century retain their relevance for the twenty-first century. Our essay appeals to the concepts of “informational capitalism” (D. Schiller), “digital dialectics” (M. Heim), “cybercommunism” (R. Barbrook), and also argues that Marx’s methodology perfectly explains “sign” phenomena of our civilization, such as “consumer society”, “globalization”, “financial meltdown”, and “world economic crisis”.