Representation in the Digital Age

As our world continues to digitize in spaces that extend beyond the individual and into the public realm, various opposing functions of media have emerged with increasing urgency. We are asked as productive members of the state to engage with media, not as a leisure, but as a necessity for continued production and value for hegemony, placing a new importance on media and mass communication apparatuses. This also exposes those apparatus’ inherent support of oppressive structures that perpetuate inequality and serve to maintain bourgeois functions in society. Along with continued digitization comes technological advancements that allow for a certain democratization of media that may appear to diminish power predating the digital and promoting a more justified platform for representation of marginalized populations; however, digitalization does not necessitate ideological revolutions relating to representation on its own-- it is critical to address media democratization within contexts such as history, function, and text to qualify for viable revolution. Simply granting wider access to content does not confirm or deny a path to justice for representation. Utilizing an analysis of media theorists John Durham Peters, Antonio Gramsci, and Kara Keeling, and specific textual examples related to prestige television exposes the duality of digital democratization and necessary caution in progressive representation through various media technologies.          

Historical justification of media’s existence and the purpose or function of media may be questioned through three separate lenses; is it mimetic, ameliorative, or entertainment? If media is mimetic, it should plainly and truly reflect life in all of its facets, focusing on the reproduction of our world at a base level. If media is ameliorative, it should focus on catharsis and exist as a remedy to the world at large. If media is entertainment, engagement should be a utopic, escapist fantasy. These three purposes are easily arguable, each individually providing genuine advantages to engagement with society and culture. Imitation serves as a window into ourselves, addressing inner thoughts, experiences, and otherwise inexpressible perspectives, amelioration provides comfort or solutions to injustice by means of creative content, and entertainment alludes to distraction and enjoyment in lieu of the world’s realities. While there would ideally be a convalescence of these three purposes, it is more ideal to address each by necessity of service, or rather, which audiences would most greatly benefit. This is not to say that the point of action should be ranking the value of “audience” or “artist,” but to more wholly address the contexts of each within society. 

At its core, media is a dissemination of ideas transmitted from one receptor to another, allowing room for interpretation and engagement of meaning. Media, of course, does not exist within a vacuum and all content, no matter its medium, either contributes to hegemonic structures or strives to dismantle them. What we see on our screens and in our creative spaces is either a vehicle for propaganda of the state or a viable alternative to the state’s agenda. While this sentiment is true for all audiences, it is particularly crucial for marginalized, exploited, or diminished groups of people. Any media that falls within the territory of state propaganda is a threat to the survival of vulnerable populations because for those audiences, survival is at stake. This certainty places a significant responsibility on anyone who engages with media and its permeation of society that ultimately results in, again, the notion of propaganda versus rebellion. 

Through this lens media is inherently personal and political, discounting lines between private and public spaces. The reflection of identity and the confirmation of possibilities of survival within a society that actively discounts those identities is not only an internal or private experience, but an external or public dissent. This theory between media and politics can be traced throughout the advancement of communication and its influence on the development of technology that further promotes media apparatuses. Further, tracing the history of technology in reference to its relationship with public and private spaces requires historicizing one of the original communication devices: the telephone. 

In Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, author John Durham Peters discusses the media bridge from private to public space through the narrative of the telephone. After its revolutionary invention in 1876, the telephone introduced a new avenue of communication categorized by personalized touch and the obsoletion of distance. In the earliest days before automated switching, telephone operators would “use the names of subscribers to track the slots on the switchboards” (Peters, 198) before individual numbers were assigned. This intimate relationship between three individuals--the caller, the operator, and the receiver--negated the possibility for private communication all together as someone, usually coded as female, was always in between, ushering along modes of communication. Even in popular culture the operator was treated as a heroine “who, knowing everyone’s habits, could bring people together in emergencies: the operator as matchmaker, lifeguard, or angel of mercy” (Peters, 196). 

As society settled into the use of the telephone, distance and meaning in communication were no longer so clearly entwined. The comforts of face-to-face contact and visual reassurances were replaced with an “empty black hole” (Peters, 198) to speak widely into and hope for a response back. Dialogue attained a third in-between space where meaning resided in the blackness of the telephone wires rather than the open and visual space among two people. Further, the unanswered telephone call came to represent the larger anxieties of meaning, or “the loneliness of … how to know if one has made contact” at all (Peters, 200). Through a missed call, silence across a line, or unanswered message, meaning is left entirely up to that empty and dark space configured by the telephone. What do these signals mean? How severely do these signals come to affect personal relationships now made public? According to Peters, this weight is left entirely to the interpreter, making the connection between social paranoia and mass communication.

Before the advent of the telephone and further development of digital contact, relaying of meaning was immediate and when in-person communication was not possible, the use of mail necessitated time and space before proper expectations of response. The telephone, however, allowed for the possibility of immediacy, and when that immediacy is not achieved, furthered by the lack of physical presence, communication became like “carrying on a fencing match either with a partner who seems to be responding but whose motives are inscrutable or with someone whose responses can never be verified as responses” (Peters, 202). The ownership of meaning is hardly certain, whether left to the communicator, the interpreter, or the message itself, the advent of the telephone dissolved the space of distance while infinitely constituting the space of interpretation. Though there is no longer a femininely comforting operator in the interim of phone calls or various forms of digital interaction, the process of communicating digitally has only become more public, and thus, interpretive.   

The further development of faceless communication made to feel personal did not stop with the telephone, eventually evolving into cellphones, email, text messaging, the internet, social media, and “the digital” as a whole. In context with larger communication studies, we have arrived at a critical or possibly liminal moment through digital’s essentialism. This particular apparatus permeates society and culture, broadly expanding into the contexts of media. Engagement with the digital has become a necessity for full cultural engagement not only within entertainment, but within engagement of politics, education, and capital. There is no alternative to interaction with the digital to function as a state-sanctioned productive person able to contribute to the successes of a capitalist society. The digital is so inherently transfixed with modern understandings of production, such as labor, economy, and general community, that any person of the state that exists outside of the digital realm is in many aspects excluded from society itself. Peters would echo that in addition to this ever expansion of the digital is the ever expansion of meaning and the purpose of the messages that come with exposure to the digital. This arrival at a fundamental function of the digital places enormous importance on what specifically the digital produces, circulates, and tolerates as a hegemonic apparatus.    

It is critical to observe who benefits from the apparatus and what agendas are perpetuated through its cultural omnipresence, and most critically, who Peters would say owns the interpretation of its meaning. Theorist Antonio Gramsci investigates such issues of cultural meaning and power through his development of the concept of Common Sense. In his essays written during imprisonment by the Italian government in the 1930s, Gramsci worked through ways that the state maintains power not only through military and economic force, but through ideological coercion as well. Drawing particularly from the understanding that inequality is a lived reality formulated by oppressive class structures to uphold power, Gramsci proposes that Common Sense represents the “heterogeneous beliefs people arrive at not through critical reflection, but encounter as already existing, self-evident truths” (Crehan, x)-- his utilization of the phrase “common sense” does not necessarily reflect the English connotation of correctness, but the more neutral Italian definition of communal perception. When ideologies are developed, presented, or practiced by a class that wields influential power, the subordinate classes characterized by inequality, will absorb these ideologies within their own lived experiences as means of survival, becoming “assumed certainties that structure the basic landscapes within which individuals are socialized and chart their individual life courses” (Crehan, 43). The key component here being that these ideologies are not taught or explicitly passed down among the classes, but simply understood and perpetuated as truth.

This raises difficult questions of how Common Sense evokes oppressive practices and how hegemonic class structures maintain power. The truth reflected in Common Sense is not necessarily real truth or even consistent truth, as “the knowledge we draw on to [understand the world] is derived both from the particular circles in which we move, and our own life experiences as these are mediated by the narratives available to us” (Crehan, 47). Existing within social structures is both individualistic and collective, producing conflicting knowledge. So Gramsci argues, “while there is no one characteristic that all instances of common sense share, they seem, nonetheless, related. And it is these seemingly obvious similarities that help persuade us that there is indeed a single entity, Common Sense” (Crehan, 47). As functioning members of society, individuals are constantly taking in streams of information and images to reinforce functions of Common Sense, and in modern contexts those images are largely constructed by the digital. Due to the nature of such practices and hegemony itself, these images perpetuate classist, sexist, racist, and xenophobic oppressions, or, inequality in totality. Common Sense, per Gramsci’s establishment of the theory, permeates all aspects of public and private life, most relevantly the continued advancement of technology and media.

In specifically relating Gramsci’s Common Sense to cinema at large, academic Kara Keeling proposes how image cues directly reflect the nature of perpetuating Common Sense through media and how those images have potential to alter Common Sense away from harmful hegemonic forces. She deliberately links Common Sense to memory, and memory’s use of the image in relationship to cinema; “common sense is a shared set of memory-images and a set of commonly habituated sensory-motor movements with the capacity to enable alternative perceptions and, hence, alternative knowledges” (Keeling, 20). She also argues for a “conceptualization of Common Sense in which shared conceptions of the world are inseparable from sensory-motor functions” (Keeling, 20). In justifying the connection between image, memory, and Common Sense, Keeling suggests that consumption of media, a traditionally visual apparatus, is a pertinent vehicle for either perpetuating or dismantling Common Sense and the inequality that it assumes. She introduces the notion of the “subaltern,” or non-dominating populations, to advocate for the dismantling of hegemonic Common Sense and “the basis for a new organization of social life and political economy” (Keeling, 20). A varied Common Sense that does not align with the dominating Common Sense and contain alternative perceptions lean “toward radical socioeconomic transformations” (Keeling, 20). This understanding of visual and conceptual Common Sense supports the importance of representation in media and how technological advancements, with context, have the potential to correct social injustices. 

Gramsci and Keeling’s related theories of Common Sense as representation are particularly relevant in association with the democratization of media technology and widened access to creating and consuming content. The only viable option for subaltern Common Sense to reach large audiences is through alternative or non-traditional media outlets that are primarily pioneered through the digital. As noted before, the issue of representation in media is neither specifically public nor private, but a combination of both, and a certainty for the survival of who Keeling would decry as subaltern populations. These subaltern groups and their ability for Common Sense revolution advances Peters’ theories of ownership of meaning and the diminishment of distance within communication. When survival is at stake, seperations of personal versus political spaces are also diminished. The existence of subaltern populations depends on the upending of hegemonic Common Sense and thus the democratization of media is paramount. 

Platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and Vimeo are modern tools that, bolstered by tech such as the iPhone, are key components in the strive for justice in representation; however, the simple existence of these tools does not confirm a positive justice trajectory. It is essential to understand the connections between these theorists’ ideas of media democratization and these advanced tools. Accessibility to content creation and consumption does not inherently lead to Common Sense revolution and could just as easily lead to the reinforcement of existing hegemonic inequality. Justice in representation requires intentionality and attention to the work that needs to be done socially, politically, and economically. There have been a few key examples in recent years of how digital democratization has the power to assert justice through Common Sense. 

In October of 2016 HBO premiered a half-hour comedy series titled Insecure starring former YouTube star and lead writer Issa Rae. In 2011 before the network pick-up Rae began posting original content on YouTube which garnered a wide audience of over 10 million views throughout the 12 episode season. The short-form narrative focused on “J,” played by Rae, as she navigates life as a self proclaimed “Awkward Black Girl,” also the show’s title, dealing with friendships, relationships, work environments and family. Told through a first-person narrative, the series often incorporated voiceovers, monologues, and dream sequences to flesh out the specificity of her point of view. This premise was essentially the starting point and general concept for Insecure, utilizing Rae’s acting talents and writing ability for the show. In voicing her decision about signing Rae and prompting the development of the new show, HBO executive Amy Gravitt stated “[Rae’s] voice is so strong and specific, she shines as a performer, but she’s a phenomenal writer first and foremost.” 

Since Insecure’s premiere in 2016, it has aired four seasons, received wide critical acclaim including a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score, two Golden Globe nominations, and nine Primetime Emmy nominations (most recently a 2020 Outstanding Comedy nomination). The show is largely recognized for its personable depictions of not only Issa as a black woman living in LA but the relationships and friendships that surround her, particularly Issa’s friendship with her best friend Molly. Insecure gives audiences “a succor that is often missing in depictions of black life. There’s something moving about being able to escape into a vibrant series populated by beautiful and beautifully rendered black and brown folks that allows them to just be” (Bastién). This comforting escapism paired with thoughtful storytelling is largely due to the show’s team including show-runner Prentice Penny, head writer Natasha Rothwell and Rae herself.   

Rae has also gone on to flourish in her career outside of the show, earning multiple film credits, a book deal, and various writing commitments. Insecure is undoubtedly a “success story” for HBO in launching a project from across separate platforms necessitated by the ongoing democratization of media through technology. Many premium television networks like HBO have touted the necessity to usher in new voices for programming, often scouting digital platforms like YouTube for original content and creators to make the leap from internet to broadcast. These platforms have since their creation been recruiting tools that assume the role of widespread diversification or positive steps in representation on a much wider scale.  

Instances such as the development of HBO’s Insecure is a textual example of how the democratization of media may be used for certain Common Sense revolutions by centering subaltern populations within the context of already existing hegemonic structures such as prestige television. Positing conventionally private experiences, or the Common Sense, of subaltern populations within public oppressive power structures engages in the revolutionizing of representation and “normalize” alternative knowledges through conscious raising in the digital realm. Digital media excludes certain gatekeeping practices within the industry that often shut out creators who threaten hegemonic Common Sense; however, the blanket statement that the rise of the digital alone equates justice in representation or faithful media for diverse audiences does not fully investigate the nuances and genuine concerns of media democratization that will only further with continued advancements of technology. Engaging with this investigation is a specifically political act that utilizes Peters’, Gramsci’s and Keeling’s understandings of media communication. Further, an ideal function of media is to perform as equally mimetic, ameliorative, and entertaining, though the most urgent and essential is to manipulate the apparatus itself to disavow hegemonic Common Sense and instead introduce radical and transformative movements most realistically instigated by the further democratization of the digital.