The Digital Capitalist Subject and the Transformation of Communication: Performance, Circulation, and Resistance

Abstract

This study addresses how subjectivity is reconstructed within the digital communication practices of the post-capitalist era from a critical theoretical perspective. While the classical subject model of capitalism was built upon the image of a rational, productive, and autonomous individual, digital capitalism has dismantled this model and replaced it with a form of subjectivity centered on visibility, performance, and algorithmic compliance. Drawing on Jodi Dean’s concept of “communicative capitalism,” Byung-Chul Han’s “performance society,” and Shoshana Zuboff’s “surveillance capitalism,” the study argues that communication is no longer oriented toward meaning production but is subordinated to the logics of circulation, data generation, and algorithmic performance. In this regime, the subject is no longer an active agent of communication but rather becomes an object compelled to continuously produce data and maintain visibility. The anxiety of being visible has shifted from a matter of reality to a matter of virtuality. This transformation has turned perception from anxiety into pressure. The imperative to be visible and performative, imposed by today’s virtual spatial perception, has lost its voluntariness. In the face of this loss of meaning, the act of becoming public requires new spaces and practices. The article demonstrates that communication has evolved from a tool of emancipation into a compulsory practice of performance. However, it argues that this regime is not absolute; micro-level forms of resistance such as silence, withdrawal, digital slowness, and alternative platforms remain possible. Ultimately, the study suggests that communication must be reconsidered not merely as a technical tool but as a political, existential, and ethical issue, repositioning communication practice within the context of platform capitalism.

Keywords

• post-capitalist subjectivity
• communicative capitalism
• performance society
• algorithmic identity
• digital resistance

Dijital Kapitalist Özne ve İletişimin Dönüşümü: Performans, Dolaşım ve Direniş

Abstract

Bu çalışma, post-kapitalist çağda öznenin dijital iletişim pratikleri içinde nasıl yeniden inşa edildiğini eleştirel bir kuramsal perspektiften ele almaktadır. Kapitalizmin klasik özne modeli, rasyonel, üretken ve özerk birey imgesi üzerine kuruluyken dijital kapitalizm, bu modeli parçalamış ve yerine görünürlük, performans ve algoritmik uyum odaklı bir özne formu getirmiştir. Çalışma, Jodi Dean’in “iletişimsel kapitalizm”, Byung-Chul Han’ın “performans toplumu” ve Shoshana Zuboff’un “gözetim kapitalizmi” kavramları çerçevesinde iletişimin anlam üretiminden ziyade dolaşım, veri üretimi ve algoritmik performans mantığına tabi olduğunu tartışmaktadır. Bu rejimde özne, iletişimde aktif bir fail değil; sürekli veri üreten ve görünürlük sağlamak zorunda kalan bir nesneye dönüşmektedir. Görünür olmak kaygısı günümüzde gerçekliğin konusu olmaktan çıkıp sanallığın konusu haline gelmiştir. Bu dönüşüm ise algıyı kaygıdan baskıya dönüştürmüştür. Günümüz sanal mekân algısının dayatmış olduğu görünür ve performatif olmak edimleri tercihe bağlılığını yitirmiştir. Bu anlam yitimi karşısında kamusallaşmak eylemi yeni bir alan ve pratiğe ihtiyaç duymaktadır. Yürütülen teorik tartışmalar, iletişimin özgürleşme aracı olmaktan çıkarak zorunlu bir performans pratiğine evrildiğini göstermektedir. Ancak bu rejimin mutlak olmadığını; sessizlik, geri çekilme, dijital yavaşlık ve alternatif platformlar gibi mikro düzeyde direniş biçimlerinin var olabileceğini savunmaktadır. Sonuç olarak çalışma, iletişimin yalnızca teknik bir araç değil; politik, varoluşsal ve etik bir mesele olarak yeniden düşünülmesi gerektiğini öne sürmekte ve platform kapitalizmi bağlamında iletişim pratiğini yeniden konumlandırmaktadır.

Keywords

• post-kapitalist özne
• iletişimsel kapitalizm
• performans toplumu
• algoritmik öznellik
• dijital direniş

References

1. Andrejevic, M. (2007). iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. University Press of Kansas.
2. Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.
3. Berardi, F. (2009). The soul at work: From alienation to autonomy. Semiotext(e).
4. Boyd, D. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. Yale University Press.
5. Bucher, T. (2018). If... Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics. Oxford University Press.
6. Castells, M. (2009). Communication power. Oxford University Press.
7. Cheney-Lippold, J. (2017). We are data: Algorithms and the making of our digital selves. NYU Press.
8. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Stanford University Press.

9. Dean, J. (2005). Communicative capitalism: Circulation and the foreclosure of politics. Cultural Politics, 1(1), 51–74. https://doi.org/10.2752/174321905778054845
10. Dean, J. (2009). Democracy and other neoliberal fantasies: Communicative capitalism and left politics. Duke University Press.
11. Dean, J. (2010). Blog theory: Feedback and capture in the circuits of drive. Polity Press.
12. Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? Zero Books.
13. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon Books.
14. Fraser, N. (2014). Behind Marx’s hidden abode: For an expanded conception of capitalism. New Left Review, 86, 55–72.
15. Fuchs, C. (2014). Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
16. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action: Vol. 1. Reason and the rationalization of society (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Beacon Press.
17. Han, B. C. (2015). The transparency society (E. Butler, Trans.). Stanford University Press.
18. Han, B.C. (2022). Enfokrasi Dijitalleşme ve Demokrasinin Krizi (Çev.: M. Özdemir). İstanbul: Ketebe.
19. Han, B. C. (2024). Sürünün İçinde Dijital Dünyaya Bakışlar. (Çev.: Z. Sarıkartal). İstanbul: İnka Kitap.
20. Lasch, C. (1979). The culture of narcissism: American life in an age of diminishing expectations. Norton.
21. Lukács, G. (1971). History and class consciousness: Studies in Marxist dialectics (R. Livingstone, Trans.). MIT Press. (Original work published 1923)
22. Marwick, A. E., & boyd, d. (2011). Social privacy in networked publics: Teens’ attitudes, practices, and strategies. In A. P. Fine & D. M. Boyd (Eds.), A decade in internet time: Symposium on the dynamics of the Internet and society. Oxford Internet Institute.
23. Marx, K. (1990). Capital: A critique of political economy, Volume I (B. Fowkes, Trans.). Penguin Books. (Original work published 1867)
24. Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: The folly of technological solutionism. PublicAffairs.
25. Odell, J. (2019). How to do nothing: Resisting the attention economy. Melville House.
26. Papacharissi, Z. (2014). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press.
27. Sennett, R. (1998). The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. W. W. Norton & Company.
28. Terranova, T. (2000). Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy. Social Text, 18(2), 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-18-2_63-33
29. Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. William Morrow.
30. van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford University Press.
31. van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2018). The platform society: Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press.
32. Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.